Lecture+6+Notes

=       __Lecture 6 Notes__ = ===For the Fall 2010 Discussion Board, Click [|HERE] ===

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 * **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 other month
 * **Book incorrectly states that "Atari's entire game library was based on Pong clones" - not true**
 * **1974 and beyond saw many non-Pong games from Atari**
 * **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**
 * **Gran Trak 10 – very simple – players controlled box going around oval – opened new ideas**
 * Appears to be confusion on issue – Book lists game as "Trak 10" with sequel being Gran Trak 10 – All others sources I have found cite the various attributes listed in the book to Gran **Trak 10**
 * **Trak 10 did seem to exist, along with a two-player sequel, Grantrak 20 - Trak 10 seemed to come out either after or simultaneous to GranTrak 10, with different features**
 * __**Gran Trak 10 is 1st computer racing game - NOT Trak 10**__
 * **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 Joe 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 – involved Gran Trak 10**
 * **Gran Trak 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 10 – 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
 * **Steve 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
 * **Nakamura 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**

Space Race

Alternate Cabinet for Space Race - Featured Unique Style Akin To Computer Space

Gotcha

Puppy Pong and Dr. Pong

Maneater

Gran Trak 10

Breakout

Play A Version Breakout Online (This is **NOT** the original Breakout, just an example of the style of game-play)