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Once Upon Atari?


Magnus Wersen

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Hi everyone!

 

I'm new to this board (but I've been reading the posts for quite some time) and decided to register when I stumbled across this DVD-review.

 

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=7756

 

I've never heard about this DVD before and it sure looks interesting, so my question is: Have anyone of you seen it?

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Howard Scott has been selling those for some time on VHS, its a nice look at Atari, but its VERY narrowly focused on only the 2600 programmers group and not much else, still its a good set of video's to watch, worth picking up. Stella at 20 is also a great set of (2?) videos.

 

 

 

Curt

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Howard Scott has been selling those for some time on VHS, its a nice look at Atari, but its VERY narrowly focused on only the 2600 programmers group and not much else, still its a good set of video's to watch, worth picking up.   Stella at 20 is also a great set of (2?) videos.

 

 

 

Curt

 

Does anyone know if there is anyway to get Volume 2 of Stella at 20? Even a copy would be fine with me. I just want to see the whole documentary.

 

I was able to get Volume 1 from Randy before he ran out. :thumbsup:

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If there is enough interest I'll see about rereleasing Stella at 20 on DVD.

 

It's been long enough that maybe those who even bought it on VHS might want to get a DVD version.

 

I never sold out of the tapes myself, but Randy Crihfield I think managed to find homes for the leftovers.

 

Email me at mos6507@comcast.net if you would want this and I'll make a decision.

 

I could include a lot of extras on the interactive portion of the DVD, and maybe freshen things up with some updated interviews.

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I have the DVD "Once Upon Atari" and I reviewed it in our club's newsletter. Overall it was an enjoyable production as you begin to gain a sense of what Atari was like during its heyday and the kind of talented but wacky people who produced those games that we enjoyed as kids.

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If there is enough interest I'll see about rereleasing Stella at 20 on DVD.

 

It's been long enough that maybe those who even bought it on VHS might want to get a DVD version.

 

I never sold out of the tapes myself, but Randy Crihfield I think managed to find homes for the leftovers.

 

Email me at mos6507@comcast.net if you would want this and I'll make a decision.

 

I could include a lot of extras on the interactive portion of the DVD, and maybe freshen things up with some updated interviews.

 

Most definitely, count me in!

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I bought it.  My review is here:

 

http://www.lunacy8m.com/z/default.asp?id=3...ntent=174&mnu=3

 

Short version: Avoid.  Nothing like harsh reality to destroy romatic fantasy.

 

I beg to differ - I think that these are pretty awesome documentaries. I really enjoyed hearing what life at Atari was like, as well as seeing what all these programmers are like in person. If your main gripe was the tarot-card thing, well, that's pretty lame.

 

And another thing...when I read a "DVD Review", I could care less about the fact that you can't play the DVD in your videogame system. Try it in a DVD player sometime. :roll:

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I beg to differ - I think that these are pretty awesome documentaries.  I really enjoyed hearing what life at Atari was like, as well as seeing what all these programmers are like in person.  If your main gripe was the tarot-card thing, well, that's pretty lame.  

 

And another thing...when I read a "DVD Review", I could care less about the fact that you can't play the DVD in your videogame system.  Try it in a DVD player sometime. :roll:

The fact that it's a burnt DVD and not a pressed one is non-trivial. Many people will have problems playing it. My PS2 has played every other DVD I've thrown at it. In the last three days it saw 11 DVDs which it played without a single error.

 

The Tarot card thing is an example of the overall poor production values. As are the spiral disolves.

 

I might concede that my main problem with the product isn't the production itself but how proudly the Atari programmers talk about all the crap they pulled. They behaved like children. It's a shame that they couldn't separate the behaviour that led to their success and the behaviour that led to their failure. However, I'm yet to find a single redeeming feature of the product. It was a waste of money.

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MIAUG's Vice-President Jose Olivera, Jr. (ATARIDUDE) Reviewed it in the MIAUG Sept. 2003 Newsletter!!

 

Here is the scoop:

 

A review of "Once upon Atari"

By Jose Olivera Jr

 

Once upon Atari is a video production by Scott West Productions. Available at http://www.scottw.com in both VHS and DVD formats, this review is based upon the DVD version. The cost of the DVD is somewhat high at $50 but this DVD is not obviously marketed to the average movie viewer but those who would like an idea of what it was like to work at Atari during the heyday of the company. The DVD comes in regular DVD case with just the DVD and no other items.

 

As a teen, I always wanted to work at Atari and wondered what it would have been like to work at Atari. A friend of mine and I decided that if we ever learned how to program for the Atari 2600, we would form our own company called Wizard Software and our motto would be "We make magic!" We even went so far as to create some game ideas based on a game that we would call "The Last Ark". The game would be about a race of beings who escaped their home planet just as it blow up in a space ship and they had to avoid getting hit by cosmic debris. Stage after stage would go by as they avoided contact with objects. The ship would have shields that would wear out over time. In addition, it could fire and destroy the objects.

 

There was more to the game idea but I really want to talk about the video. Hosted by Howard Scott Warshaw (The programmer who created Yar's Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T.) who appears at times in the video with tarot cards, the video is full of really interesting stories told by some of the original programmers who worked at Atari and some of the antics that occurred while they worked at Atari. Working at Atari during its heyday was quite an interesting experience to say the least. Some of the stories ("the day they flew the frog" and Todd Frye climbing the walls for example) that were told by these original programmers begin to give you a sense of what it was like to work for one of the most original corporate environments that ever existed.

 

Myself, I am not sure if I would have fit in with the creative types that existed at Atari even if I had the programming knowledge at the time given some of the stories that I heard. They were doing things very openly that simply would get people put in jail today (you have to see the video to understand what I am talking about). However, because these guys and gals were responsible for the creation of products that made so much money for Atari, a lot of their crazy antics were tolerated so long as they kept producing products. They were certainly a fun loving group who had the necessary talent to produce some truly enjoyable games. What surprised me was that a lot of them had Masters degrees so they were obviously technically competent.

 

It was also great to be able to put a face to some of these games. Unlike today where you have entire design teams to create a piece of entertainment software, back then the game designer had completely control of the design process. They did the entire programming for the game, including the sound and the graphics for the game. This put a lot of them under a great deal of pressure since they would only have 6 months to produce an entire game. You would think that given the amounts of money that these programmers were bringing into Atari with their game design that Atari would be very appreciative of their efforts. The reality of the situation was something completely different.

 

The programmers would sometimes not get the full credit that was due to them for creating these wonderful products. This lead one particular designer, Warren Robinett, to design the first Easter egg which is the hidden room in the game "Adventure". He kept that secret room to himself and did not tell anyone of it's existence. According to the book "Phoenix: The Fall and Rise of Videogames", a twelve year old boy in Salt Lake City, Utah discovered its existence. You also saw this concept in Yar's Revenge if you went down the line that appears when you destroyed the Quotile with your cannon. There were also other games that used this concept as well. Ultimately some programmers were so disgusted with the lack of credit that they received at Atari that they decided to leave Atari altogether and would form such companies such as Activision and Imagic to name just a few companies that were formed.

 

For anyone who would like to gain a sense of what it was like to work at Atari during the height of its success, there is definitely a worthwhile film even given the high price. One thing that I would like to see in any future versions would be a book included with the case that would list the programmers and all the games that they created. In addition, I think it would have been a nice touch to get to know what some of them are doing now.

 

Overall this is an enjoyable video and worth getting if you are a fan of Atari.

 

P.S. No frogs were harmed during the writing of this review :P

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The fact that it's a burnt DVD and not a pressed one is non-trivial.  Many people will have problems playing it.  My PS2 has played every other DVD I've thrown at it.  In the last three days it saw 11 DVDs which it played without a single error.

 

The Tarot card thing is an example of the overall poor production values.  As are the spiral disolves.

 

I might concede that my main problem with the product isn't the production itself but how proudly the Atari programmers talk about all the crap they pulled.  They behaved like children.  It's a shame that they couldn't separate the behaviour that led to their success and the behaviour that led to their failure. However, I'm yet to find a single redeeming feature of the product.  It was a waste of money.

 

Damn, I don't think anyone's views on this product could be possibly be more opposite than yours and mine...I do appreciate your opinions, though, and can kind of see where you're coming from.

 

Personally I got the impression that these guys acted childish in those days because of all the stress they were under - they were coding in machine language, for God's sakes! I myself work as a supervisor in a pretty large tech support office and as much as I like order in the workplace, I have to say that where I work, the most talented people are also the most...oh, let's say "eccentric." I have a sort of envy for the fact that the Atari programmers could act the way they did and still write a game that sells a couple million copies.

 

And I don't think that the Atari programmer's behavior led to any particular failure of the company, that honor would go to the marketing department...

 

As far as the videos, I think that HSW did a great job and I'm thrilled that he released them on DVD.

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Personally I got the impression that these guys acted childish in those days because of all the stress they were under

I got the impression that they behaved that way because they didn't know any better.

 

Maybe I've worked at too many places run like a high school to see their behaviour as something to be anything but ashamed of.

 

I used to think that Atari marketing were heavily to blame for the failure, but after watching as much of OUA as my PS2 could actually read, I see that there was plenty of blame to spread around.

 

That if this were a presentation for a design class, it would fail really didn't help my opinion.

 

Much as the above mixes up content and presentation, the fact that the person that put it together was an Atari employee of the time means that it's already mixed up.

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I actually enjoyed watching this, mostly because I'm an immature-prick-who-happens-to-know-6502 so would've embraced that kind of environment.

 

I got a sense that these people were having fun what they did and that fun spilled over into what went out the door for us to play. It was a window into the games business you fell in love with and wanted to work in as opposed to the one that exists right now that I'm currently banging my head against a brick wall to get into.

 

maybe it's better appreciated if seen through the eyes of a developer wannabe instead of a gamesplayer...

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maybe it's better appreciated if seen through the eyes of a developer wannabe instead of a gamesplayer...

Or an overworked programmer that codes sensitive stuff like student marks data entry tools.

 

I wonder how many talented people they scared away with their "clique".

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I might concede that my main problem with the product isn't the production itself but how proudly the Atari programmers talk about all the crap they pulled.  They behaved like children.  It's a shame that they couldn't separate the behaviour that led to their success and the behaviour that led to their failure. However, I'm yet to find a single redeeming feature of the product.  It was a waste of money.

 

 

They were creating products for children. It's no surprise that the programmers themselves were acting like children. It helped them come up with free-form designs that would appeal to children.

 

Remember, we're not talking about today's game industry which is, if you look at all segments including computer games, mostly adults (albeit young adults). Back then it was pretty much an exclusively kid demographic.

 

If you ever visit Pixar you'll see that the animators are pretty wacky and childish too. It helps for them to live and breathe the aesthetic that goes into their works, otherwise you just become a simple mercenary tradesman.

 

There are first-gen systems out there that have game catalogs that look to have been created by "tradesman". The Arcadia 2001 comes to mind, or the RCA Studio II.

 

Besides, behind any great creative force there is usually a dose of madness. Whether it's John Bonham, Beethoven, Brian Wilson, and so on, exceptional people usually sacrifice the normality of their personal lives for the sake of their art.

 

That's not to say that all of their product was art. Tod Frye in particular never lived up to his potential (and he did indeed have potential in my estimation, Save Mary shows he knows how to code his way around the 2600). But it would be unrealistic to expect these guys to not have something "wrong" with them.

 

Either they were bouncing off the walls or they were the quiet asperger-syndrome types (like Carol Shaw, Rick Maurer, and Doug Neubauer).

 

There weren't a lot of middle of the road types of guys at the old Atari.

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