Spring+2009+Lecture+5+Notes

= __OLD Lecture 5 Notes__ =


 

 
 * Competitors copying Pong – Bushnell called them Jackals
 * There were so many, Bushnell decided not to sue – could not realistically sue every one, and competitors would always copy good ideas
 * Decided to fight competition through innovation – continually invent new games
 * Bushnell thought competition lacked creativity – Atari would be on top due to new games
 * Atari produced a new game every month
 * Space Race – Atari's second real game – 2 players raced through asteroid field
 * Did not do well, Atari returned to Pong-clones for a time
 * Pong Doubles – 4-player Pong
 * Next was Gotcha – maze-based game – Gotcha did not do well either, though Maze-games surged in popularity in later years
 * Once again, Atari went back to Pong games
 * Pin Pong, Dr. Pong and Puppy Pong (waiting rooms), QuadraPong
 * Competitors also doing Pong variations – Hand-ball, Hockey, etc.
 * Bushnell still felt Pong-clones were not the solution to grow industry
 * 1974 – Mayer and Emmons started designing first computer racing game
 * Trak 10 – very simple – players controlled box going around oval – opened new ideas
 * Steeple Chase – multiple players raced horses around a track – jumped gates
 * Stunt Cycle – Players jumped over buses on a bike – capitalizing on Evil Knievel
 * Atari – unwritten rule – no designer could make a game that had been attempted before
 * Other companies tried non-Pong games
 * Example – Project Support Engineers created Maneater
 * Capitalized on Jaws – fiberglass shark-head on cabinet – players hunted sharks
 * Idea and look initially attracted customers - poor gameplay made game unsuccessful
 * 1975 – Midway became Atari's closest competitor
 * Differed greatly – Midway only distributed games, did not make them
 * Gunfight - Midway's 1st big videogame hit
 * Developed by Japanese company – Taito
 * Original design unexciting – 2 players shoot at each other from opposite sides of screen
 * Midway hired David Nutting to spice-up gameplay
 * David brother of Bill Nutting, founder of Nutting Associates
 * David – no involvement with Nutting Associates, who were out of business by this point
 * Nutting improved graphics and added obstacles like Cacti and Stagecoaches
 * Used microprocessor to power his changes - 1st videogame to use microprocessor
 * Still basically same design from Taito
 * Gunfight big success – Midway and Taito began lucrative partnership
 * Helped pave way for Japanese game companies to enter American market
 * Taito eventually makes enough money to leave Midway, going solo
 * Meanwhile, Atari continued to grow throughout the 1970's
 * Remained at top of industry – Bushnell became more and more nervous
 * Knew that sooner or later a new competitor would threaten Atari
 * Amusement industry of early 70's was unlike others
 * Usually only 2 or 3 large amusement companies placed games in any given area
 * Unwritten rule that 1 company would not buy games from same distributor as another
 * Example: if 1 company in an area was buying from Atari, others in that area would buy from Midway
 * Bushnell saw this as bad for business – Atari couldn't sell as much and makes it easy for competitors to gain ground
 * Looked for a way around this policy – came up with interesting solution
 * Joe Keenan – 2nd in Command at Atari and Bushnell's next door neighbor
 * Bushnell had Keenan start up Kee Games – “Kee” named after Keenan
 * Gave Steve Bristow and Gil Williams to Kee to help run things
 * Atari played up a bitter rivalry between themselves and Kee
 * Claimed Kee stole away Bristow and Williams and spread rumors of industrial espionage
 * Bristow once staged a break-in into his old office to steal computer boards
 * Though Bushnell and other Atari employees were listed on Kee's public records, no one bothered to check – Entire industry fooled
 * Kee was a controlled competitor for Atari, indirectly giving Atari larger market-share
 * Kee became bigger than expected, though
 * 1974 Bristow designed Tank for Kee – huge success, made lots of money for Kee
 * Atari had financial problems – developed Grantrak 10 (racing game like Trak 10)
 * Grantrak 10 – expensive to create, had control problems which made it unplayable
 * Problems fixed by Alcorn – pricing issues arose
 * $1095 to produce each unit of Grantrak – computing error had Atari selling them at $995
 * Atari losing $100 on each unit it sold – Grantrak 10 became Atari's biggest seller of 1974
 * Usually a best-seller is a good thing, but not when losing $100 per unit
 * Kee games thrived, Atari began to suffer
 * Joe Keenan was much better Corporate President than Bushnell
 * Keenan wanted to break Kee off from Atari and go independent, letting Atari slowly die
 * Bushnell wouldn't allow it
 * Bushnell re-merged Kee back into Atari – Keenan took on role of President of Atari
 * Bushnell remained Chairman
 * After merger – public knowledge that Kee was always part of Atari
 * Ruse so convincing, many refused to believe the two companies were really always together
 * Shortly after merger, Atari hired a new employee who would be its most famous alumnus – Steve Jobs
 * Jobs – disheveled and not pleasant to be around – insulted those he felt were unintelligent
 * Very intelligent himself – quickly proved himself To Bushnell and others at Atari
 * 1975 – work began on Atari game Breakout
 * Breakout – similar to Pong – rather than getting into a “goal,” players broke blocks at top of screen
 * Bushnell was sure that Breakout would be a hit – concerned about manufacturing costs
 * Typical games had about 75 dedicated chips in them
 * Due to costs of repair and board-size, for every chip removed about $100,00 was saved
 * Bushnell wanted an Atari engineer to lower the number of chips in Breakout
 * No one was interested – Bushnell then offered a bonus for every chip removed
 * Steve Jobs accepted challenge
 * At this time, Jobs was working with his best friend, Steve Wozniak
 * Working on Apple II – credited with sparking personal computer revolution
 * Wozniak – Woz for short – was a computer genius
 * Jobs asked Woz for help in minimizing the Breakout circuitry
 * Woz managed to remove over 50 chips from Breakout design – from 75 to about 20
 * Problem was, only Woz could understand how it was done
 * Needed a simpler way of doing it for mass-production
 * Bushnell had another engineer design the Breakout circuitry
 * Ended up with over 100 chips, far more than the 75 Bushnell originally worried about
 * Jobs still got his bonus – got $5000, but told Wozniak he only got $500
 * Wozniak got half of that $500 - $250 compared to Jobs' $4750
 * Jobs invested all of that money into Apple, but when Wozniak found out, years later, he was understandably hurt
 * This was the first in a number of factors leading to dissolved friendship between Jobs and Wozniak, which would achieve somewhat legendary status in the Computer world
 * While America was a strong place for games, other markets also important
 * As early as 1973, Atari was marketing Pong overseas
 * Atari needed partners in other countries – help with shipping laws and distribution
 * In Japan, that partner was Namco
 * Namco founded by a Japanese businessman named Masaya Nakamura
 * Nakamura started Namco on $3000, buying 2 mechanical horses
 * good locations was taken – had to set up horses on roof of department store
 * Nakamura cleaned and maintained horses himself and personally greeted customers
 * From these humble beginnings, Namco rose to be the 6th largest Amusement company in Japan by the 1970's
 * Now, when Atari began shipping to Japan, they realized the potential of the market
 * Japanese loved coin-operated games and the market was big
 * Atari set up a branch in Japan to manage shipments from America
 * Nakamura often visited this branch and bought games to distribute
 * Eventually Bushnell decided to close down the Japanese branch – sold it to Nakamura
 * Namco became Atari's primary distributor in Japan
 * In 1976, Nakamura received his first copy of Atari's Breakout
 * Immediately saw its potential
 * Atari had a restrictive policy with Breakout – only Atari themselves could make games
 * Partners could only distribute Atari-made games
 * Nakamura thus requested as many units as possible
 * Arrived at a very slow pace – soon more unofficial Breakout copies in Japan than official
 * Copies called Borokukuishi (Burokkukuzushi, according to some sources) – literally the Japanese translation for Breakout
 * Copies severely hurt Namco's business
 * Nakamura tracked down the copies' source, and found it to be a Yakuza clan
 * Yakuza are basically Japanese mafia, though more out-in-the-open than Mafia
 * Yakuza had taken a particular interest in videogames
 * At one point, a Yakuza clan attempted to take over Konami
 * President of Konami forced to seek help from a friend in a rival Yakuza clan
 * Started an all-out gang war which forced the Konami President to go into hiding
 * But at this point in time, the big Yakuza videogame problem was counterfeit machines
 * Nakamura spoke with the head of the Yakuza clan responsible for the machines
 * Asked him to stop – Yakuza clan leader instead proposed a partnership with Namco
 * Promised to “suppress” all competitors, making Namco the no. 1 game company in Japan
 * Nakamura respectfully declined offer - afraid that partnership would lead to takeover of Namco and possibly entire videogame industry
 * Yakuza copies continued – Nakamura couldn't realistically stand up to the Yakuza
 * Decided to try and flood market with official games
 * Asked Atari for lots more units quickly – shipments continued at the same slow pace
 * Nakamura flew to the London MOA convention to meet with Bushnell, who was there
 * Nakamura explained the situation – Bushnell very hungover and wasn't very receptive
 * Nakamura was disappointed, and saw no option but to make his own counterfeit games
 * Namco began producing their own versions of Breakout
 * The Japanese market was flooded with Namco-made Breakout games
 * Breakout was a huge success, making Namco one of the biggest game-makers in Asia
 * Atari stopped receiving orders for Breakout from Namco
 * Assumed that game wasn't a hit, which was odd since it was huge everywhere else
 * Eventually an Atari representative visited Japan - happened to notice far more Breakout games than Atari had shipped
 * Only shipped 15 units to Japan – Due to Namco-copies, Japanese had more Breakout machines than than the rest of world combined
 * Atari later sued Namco and won – started years-long bad relationship between the two companies

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