A Question about Star Raiders II and Dandy/Dandy Dungeons

[carmel_andrews]

This question mainly relates to dandy/dandy dungeon, but seeming as though a certain publisher got star raiders 2 (aka last star fighter) as part of the deal for non atari conversion rights, there is a question concerning star raiders 2 as well

 

As far as i remember, dandy dungeon (to give it it's A8 name) was originally published under the APX label

 

As far as i understand it, the deal regarding APX, which from what i recall was the computer industries first attempt (and most succesful) at commercialising PD quality user written software/programs via retail distribution networks, it was successful to the extent that one of atari's competitors, namely IBM tried something along the same lines as APX a few years later (i dunno if or how successful IBMs version of APX was)

 

Anyway the deal regarding APX was that Atari owned only sales/marketing and ditribution rights to any programs/software published under the APX banner/label, actual publishing, porting/conversion and program code rights were retained by the programmer, however should a particular program become popular or successful (like eastern front and typo attack) they would be carried over to Atari's mainstream publishing label (the same one all the coin op conversions were released on) and Atari would gain the relevent program/code rights, publishing and conversion/porting rights (i got that piece of information from a directory of american software publishers fronm the 80's)

 

And as far as I know, Dandy Dungeon didn't ever apear on Atari's main software publishing label (the same one they used for all atari's coin op conversions) which i guess meant that dandy dungeon wasn't as successful or popular as eastern front or typo attack (which were published on atari's main publishing label having started out life as part of the APX library)

 

The first interesting point is, apparently just after tramiel took over at atari, tramiel offloaded APX to one of the American Atari magazine publishers (i think it was Antic) for republishing rights to the existing back catalogue/catalog or library of APX programs/software (i only remember this because it was mentioned in the APX 'mini' section antic used to have in their magazine and the fact that it carried an updated version of the very MLM/debugger used in the OSS program, MAC65, I believe it was called extended DDT)

 

the question is, did this offloading of the library of APX programs/software change the existing contract that the programmers of those APX programs has with atari (in regards to program/code rights, publishing and conversion/porting rights, or were those contracts/agreements carried over and upheld by antic or did antic or atari renegotiate the existing contract with the programmers of the various programs covered by APX prior or after the sale of APX to Antic

 

And then we have the deal that Atari did with activision for the non Atari versions of Star raiders II and also dandy dungeons (which i think was renamed 'Dandy' under the deal) the question here is, did Atari have any rights to sell to activision (regarding Dandy dungeon) due to the fact that Atari technically/legally didn't own publishing, code/program rights or conversion/porting rights, unless ofcourse Dandy dungeon's programmer, John Palevich sold/gave Atari the rights to the game (including publishing/code/program rights as well as conversion/porting rights) either before or after tramiels take over or did some sort of deal with Atari (which i don't think ever happened as i've never seen or heard it mentioned anywhere)

 

The reason why i brought this up regarding Dandy Dungeon/Dandy is because around the same time that activision released 'dandy' Atari's former coin op division (then renamed/rebranded 'Atari Games') released what was to become one of the most successful multi player arcade game, namely GAUNTLET, Apparently word got out that Ed Logg who was one of the main programmers of the game based the whole GAUNTLET concept/game on the APX game programmed by John Palevich (namely Dandy Dungeon) and apparently John turned round and sued Atari Games for ripping off his program

 

Yet i don't recall John Palevich suing Atari or activision over the non atari versions of Dandy/Dandy Dungeon

 

And now for Star Raiders II

 

According to the book 'Pheonix, the fall and rise of videogames', MCA the company responsible for the film 'last starfighter' sued warner communications for non payment over the home gaming rights to Last fighter and one of the indiana jones films, the question is, did any court settlement exempt or exclude star raiders 2 or did Atari corp enter into a seperate agreement regarding star raiders II (since star raiders II is basically last star fighter and therefore technically implicated in the original lawsuit)

[Rybags]

Why?

[spookt]

Why what? Why did I even bother reading that? I don't know, but now my head hurts

[ANTIQ]

When Gauntlet was released, John Palevich (who by that time had left Atari) contacted Atari and took legal steps to ensure that he continued to have rights to sell and further develop the original Dandy game. Palevich also requested that his name appear in the Gauntlet credits as the original game designer. Atari demurred on the later point, saying (reasonably) that it would be too expensive to update the ROMs. Atari did give Palevich a full-sized Gauntlet arcade game, however. Palevich later sold the rights to Dandy to a British game developer, Electric Dreams Software, who released versions for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC in 1986. They chose to make a Gauntlet clone, rather than a Dandy clone, and as a result, the British developer was later sued by Atari.

[svenski]

@Carmel: Well that was painful especially when using the Deflection skin.

 

You missed out Dark Chambers .

[+orpheuswaking]

Carmel needs an editor