concerning atari

[Nebulon]

An interesting excerpt from an internal vax email from early 1984. You could see the frustration with timelines and quality control here:

 

>>He was given a unmakable

release deadline (4 days instead of 3 weeks from when he was told). The game is

much worse because of this (according to the programmer Peter Niday). He had

no choice in the matter. Yet another unfinished, hurried, poorly tested game

from Atari. Won't we ever learn?

Games under license from other companies get reviewed by representatives of

that company (Williams and Namco specifically). But games developed in-house

are treated like they are in the public domain, while the original design team

of in-house games is treated like dirt.

This is not an isolated incident either. Atarisoft, as a matter of policy,

takes Atari Coin-op games, lets outside companies "convert" them for home

computers (like Commodore 64, Vic-20, Apple 2, TI-99 and IBM-PC), and then

produces them, all without the creative input or advice of the original design

teams (just talk to Ed Logg about Centipede <<

http://textfiles.com/games/ATARIMAIL/vax84.txt

Edited January 24, 2016 by Nebulon