Alternate History - Atari winning the lawsuit against Activision

[Skylark68]

After reading the thread about the reasons behind the video game crash, I was thinking about what would have happened if Atari had won the lawsuit against Activision in 1980, thereby denying any company besides Atari the right to make games for the 2600 (VCS). It's an interesting alternate history in my opinion. I wonder if the Atari would have done as well as it had, or if it would have slowly died due to lack of titles or immediate replacement by the 5200? Would the videogame crash still occur? What are your thoughts?

[Syntaxerror999]

good question... shovelware was the catalist for the crash, but as others have stated there was more going on. Activision did make games for ataris competition and in an attempt to recoop their losses would probably sold the rights to them. Atari would have probably gone under due to poor software.

[Master Phruby]

I agree. I think Atari would have become a third party game distributor like Activision is now and not designed their own software anymore. I wonder if Coleco and Mattel would have done simular? These were both toy companies that would have dropped VGs at the first sign of a loss. Maybe they would have spun off those divisions and became distributors too?

 

What I think is a better question is what if Atari distributed the NES (with the same lockouts) like Nintendo wanted in '84. Would the video game industry recovered? Of course, Atari wasn't Atari by then but what if they were?

[Schizophretard]

It would probably cause third parties companies to make their own systems. Today Sony would only make PS3 games, Nintendo would only make Wii games, and Microsoft would only make Xbox360 games. I don't know though. In my opinion, it isn't good policy to use the government's monopoly on force as a means to improve business. The more free the market the better. Instead of trying to sue Activision, Atari should have treated their artists as artists. There wouldn't have been Activision or Imagic. Those games would of been made by Atari and the games that already were made by Atari might have been made better.

[jferio]

I agree. I think Atari would have become a third party game distributor like Activision is now and not designed their own software anymore.

 

Given the way things were at the time, I'm doubtful. They would have merely been able to basically keep things where the programmers weren't really acknowledged. They were only interested in selling their own games for their own system, and didn't want to share that pie at all.

[moycon]

I think Atari winning that lawsuit probably would have prevented any type of crash.

What would have happened, in my opinion...

No others companies but Atari could program for the Atari 2600, unless (I'm assuming) Atari struck a contract with that company and received some sort of compensation for making a game for their system. Didn't Nintendo do something like this later on? Nintendo's Seal of Quality?

Anyways, yeah then these cheap jack programmers, working in garages wouldn't have been able to crap out a bunch of shit games, or at least not without Atari profiting by it.

[Master Phruby]

What's to prevent others from writing Atari 2600 games? Atari would have to police everyone. Even when the NES came out, Atari went around Nintendo's Seal of Quality.

[SoulBlazer]

The only thing the Nintendo Seal of Quality ment is that the game had been tested by Nintendo (to their own harsh standards) and aproved and licenced by them. It also gave the game company permission to put in the game's opening screens/menu the message 'Licenced by Nintendo of America Inc.' Originaly also Nintendo produced and made all the games themselves also, but complaints from the third party companies caused them to change this about halfway through the NES period.

 

Unlicenced companies DID make games for the NES, but the games had to use their own cart (since that was trademarked by Nintendo) and had to sell through their own limited retail channels.

 

Even if Atari had tried licencing games during the early 80's, I'm sure companies would have found ways around it.

 

Nowadays, also, the Big Three (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) have a good relationship with third party companies. They make their money on selling the hardware and accesories and want those in as many people's hands as possible. Sure, they make some first party games and make money off those, but it's the licenced games that encourge people to buy a system. In the old days, Atari, Activision, Imagic and so on were all fighting over the same limited pool of income, which hurt everybody. Lessons learned from the crash and all.

[kirin jensen]

Interesting read. How 'bout an alternate history on Atari losing the K.C. Munchkin lawsuit?

[Schizophretard]

How would companies find a way around it? Could they just put "For use with the Coleco Gemini" on the carts or something like that?

[akator]

Many 3rd party games kept the 2600 alive by pushing the boundaries of what was previously thought possible on the aging system. No 3rd party on the 2600 and it would have died much sooner.

 

It can be certain that if there was no 3rd party on consoles, people would have adopted home computers even faster than they did. Imagine Demon Attack and Pitfall only available on the 400/800, VIC-20, Apple II, and TI-99. It's difficult to imagine the 5200 or ColecoVision being remembered at all if the home computer market had exploded even 1 year earlier.

[Phredreeke]

I think without Activision and other 3rd party developers the Atari 2600 would have died sooner. Activision pushed the hardware in a way Atari themselves didn't, which forced Atari to step up their game to compete. I doubt we would have seen anything more advanced than Space Invaders without them.

 

The only thing the Nintendo Seal of Quality ment is that the game had been tested by Nintendo (to their own harsh standards) and aproved and licenced by them. It also gave the game company permission to put in the game's opening screens/menu the message 'Licenced by Nintendo of America Inc.' Originaly also Nintendo produced and made all the games themselves also, but complaints from the third party companies caused them to change this about halfway through the NES period.

 

Not to mention NES games wouldn't run without a lockout chip, which Nintendo had patented. Unlicensed developers had to make "lockout killers", except for Tengen who just copied the lockout chip (followed by a lawsuit against them)

 

Nowadays, also, the Big Three (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) have a good relationship with third party companies. They make their money on selling the hardware and accesories and want those in as many people's hands as possible. Sure, they make some first party games and make money off those, but it's the licenced games that encourge people to buy a system.

 

No, new console hardware is generally sold at loss. The console manufacturers make money on selling their own games, and on licensing fees for third party developers.

[Schizophretard]

If Atari won would it affect other things and third parties would not exist for anything? For an example, JVC uses the case to argue why only they should have the right to make VHS tapes.

 

Does anyone have a link to the actual case?