Spring+2009+Lecture+12+Notes

= __Spring 2009 Lecture 12 Notes__ =


 


 * Atari started its consumer-division to create software for VCS
 * Didn't search country or schools for programmers – put ads in local newspapers
 * Surprisingly, great deal of programmers responded who could get power from VCS
 * Alan Miller – Cal-Berkley Graduate
 * Addicted to coin-op games like late in college – responded to Atari's newspaper ad
 * Hired as one of first consumer-division programmers
 * Early consumer games had 1 programmer responsible for entire game creation
 * Coin-Op division had teams making games – consumer division only 1 person
 * Included game programming, in-game graphics/artwork, sound effects, even music
 * Great deal of early games based off of arcade hits – made things easier on programmers
 * Combat – one of 1st VCS games – based off of Kee Games Tank
 * Combat claimed to have 27 unique games – really just a few variations on Tank
 * 5 Tank games with different mazes – 4 Tank Pong – 5 Invisible Tank
 * 6 Biplane and 7 Jet-Fighter – basically Tank with plane or jet icons instead of tanks
 * Miller didn't create combat – did create other arcade-based games
 * 1st assignment for Miller – create a knock-off of a specific type of arcade game
 * Design had player controlling a moving dot – created a growing line behind it
 * Goal to trap other player's dot within your own line
 * Final VCS game called Surround
 * Giving programmers existing concepts sped up production
 * VCS versions of popular Atari hits common – Pong, Breakout, etc.
 * Other early games not based off of existing arcade concepts – still incredibly simple
 * Next, Miller created games based on real-world games – Hangman and Concentration
 * Second-generation VCS games a little more complex
 * Miller decided to create VCS game based on basketball
 * Final game – Basketball - One-on-One game – Player Vs. Player or Player Vs. Computer
 * Complex graphics (for the time) – Recognizable human figures (stick figures)
 * Course drawn in perspective – used trapezoidal shapes to simulate “realistic” 3D look
 * Simple by today's standard – big step in home-game realism for late 1970's
 * When VCS released in October 1977 – sold for $199 – came packaged with Combat
 * Atari had number of shipping/other problems (already discussed)
 * VCS still outsold early competition – did not sell as well as Warner had hoped
 * Steve Ross, Warner President, disappointed in VCS sales
 * Began to second-guess buying Atari – firing of Bushnell furthered his concerns
 * Kassar took over having to prove Atari's worth to Warner
 * Atari was technology-driven company – Kassar turned it into business-driven company
 * Ultimate goal under Kassar to make Atari profitable – employees disliked Kassar's style
 * Saw number of problems – relations with retail partners failing
 * Sears reporting defective VCS units – Atari not responding
 * Kassar fixed problems – like or dislike Kassar, he made Atari extremely profitable
 * Made $75 million in 1977 (pre-Kassar) – made over $2 billion in Kassar's 1st 3 years
 * Atari fastest growing business in US history (at this time)
 * Kassar's business-style of running things had consequences – hurt employee morale
 * Kassar focused on consumer division – needed most attention to make money
 * Coin-Op employees felt neglected – disliked Kassar
 * Consumer division employees also disliked Kassar
 * Kassar made all employees feel untrusted – had security system installed
 * Tracked employee activity – made them carry electronic key-cards to enter doors
 * Kassar also had strict policy – didn't let programmers receive credit for their work
 * Didn't even let them see sales figures on their games – Infuriated programmers
 * Felt that they deserved credit for their work
 * Warren Robinett – managed to get around Kassar's policy in 1 project
 * Had finished game called Slot Racers – very basic maze-racing game
 * Next project much more ambitious – turned to early entry into video-game RPG's
 * Adventure – text-based video-game RPG – by Will Crowther and Don Woods
 * Essentially giant interactive novel in fantasy world – players typed in commands
 * Commands did actions, got items, moved through massive text-described world
 * Robinett wanted to create graphics version of Adventure on VCS
 * VCS not well suited for text-based games – joystick-style inputs only
 * Not much memory on VCS – 4k of code per game – much less than text-based Adventure
 * Robinett made compromises – greatly reduced size of game
 * Took out commands entirely – player moved cursor to move through world and get items
 * Limited number of items players could carry – one at a time
 * Added strategy – player had to decided what to take when for what challenge
 * Still in era of 1 person making entire game – Robinett had to make all graphics
 * Made enemies that he says looked more like ducks than dragons
 * Robinett able to sneak in subversion to Kassar – put hidden room in Adventure
 * Player had to do convoluted series of tasks to find hidden room
 * Hidden room contained big words in rainbow letters - “Created by Robinett”
 * Robinett didn't expect anyone to find it – so difficult to do
 * Proud of secret – later said entire game became experiment to see if anyone could find it
 * Couldn't tell anyone about his secret – would probably get him fired
 * Games cost about $10,000 to manufacture – expensive at this time – extra info cost more
 * Secret took up 5% of Adventure's memory – felt if anyone found it, it would be removed
 * Roughly 300,000 copies of Adventure manufactured – Robinett's secret intact and hidden
 * 1980 – after Robinett already left company – 12 year old boy sent letter to Atari
 * Said he found something strange in Adventure game – Robinett's secret room
 * Word quickly spread of Robinett's secret prank on Atari
 * Magazine – Electronic Games – wrote story about – described it as “Easter Egg”
 * Easter Egg has come to describe any secrets in games
 * Atari saw popularity of secret – embraced idea – later games built entirely around secrets
 * VCS still gaining steam in early 1979 – hadn't reached level of sales Warner wanted
 * Manny Gerard – Warner exec. – saw Space Invaders arcade game in Atari coin-op
 * Suggested to Kassar that Atari license Space Invaders – turn it into VCS cartridge
 * Kassar loved idea – amazed no one thought of it before
 * Home conversions of Atari's own games common
 * No one had ever converted someone else's game – needed license to do so
 * VCS Space Invaders 1st time an arcade game was licensed for use on home console
 * Kassar knew about Space Invaders success at arcade – thought VCS version would be hit
 * Believed people would buy VCS just to play Space Invaders at home
 * Focused most of Atari's advertising budget to promote VCS version of Space Invaders
 * Result – VCS version of Space Invaders best selling game of 1980
 * VCS sales benefited from success of game – Atari's consumer division expanded
 * Meant more executive control – programmers, already frustrated, now further unhappy
 * Employees began leaving – first and biggest – Alan Miller
 * Miller wanted more compensation and recognition for his work
 * Saw video-games as art-form – wanted same benefits as other popular artists
 * Devised new contract mimicking contracts of popular musicians and writers
 * Discussed ideas with fellow employees – Larry Kaplan, David Crane, Bob Whitehead
 * All agreed with him – all 4 presented new contracts to Atari executives
 * VCS had surpasses sales projects – Kassar and Warner happy with it
 * Comfortable that VCS would grow with or without Miller and friends
 * Said that asking prices were too high – could get 6 programmers for the price they asked
 * Denied contracts – all 4 quit Atari – large chunk of consumer division gone from Atari
 * Miller and friends decided to form independent company
 * Third-party game manufacture for VCS – sought legal advice on how to start
 * Pointed toward Jim Levy – great deal of experience in music industry
 * Came on board to hand business-side – company ready to begin
 * April 1980 - Activision formed
 * 1st independent video-game creator creating games for others' console
 * Mere 2 months after formed had products ready to show at summer CES
 * General reaction at show was confusion – Atari already had tons of VCS cartridges
 * Few believed consumers could see improvements in Activision's cartridges over Atari's
 * Didn't think people would pay $3-$5 more on Activision game, company no one heard of
 * Activision confident – prepared to release first games in fall
 * Atari sued them – claimed since Atari made VCS hardware, it had rights to make games
 * Claimed no one else, including Activision, could make games for VCS
 * Not 1st time software made for another company's computer system
 * Was 1st time video-game made for another's console – and 1st time that company sued
 * Atari had no choice – relied on selling hardware for cheap – make money on software
 * Allowing Activision to make VCS games would severely cut into Atari profits
 * Atari didn't win law suit – continued to try to sue Activision over a year and a half
 * Kassar publicly called Activision a parasite on video-game industry
 * Never admitted any regret over not re-negotiating contracts when had chance
 * Atari did start treating employees better – too little, too late
 * Programmers remaining at Atari felt stupid – those who left started own companies
 * Made lots of money compared to those who stayed – only making $30,000 a year at Atari
 * One of last to leave – Warren Robinett – took extended European vacation after leaving
 * While in Europe, secret in Adventure found – also new company founded – Imagic
 * Bill Grubb – Atari's formed Vice President of Marketing – founded Imagic
 * Like Activision, Imagic took top Atari programmers – created independent VCS games
 * Also like Activision, overnight success – Kassar more angry at Imagic than Activision
 * Grubb took Atari's National Account Manager – Mark Bradley
 * Kassar personally made large offers to Bradley to stay at Atari
 * Bradley and Grubb long-time close friends – Bradley would not stay
 * Kassar told Bradley that he'd do everything in his power to destroy the new company
 * Kassar had personal vendetta against Imagic – severely harmed company when started
 * Robinett applied to Imagic when he returned from Europe
 * Felt he was a shoe-in, being former Atari programmer
 * Did get job offer – only after Grubb had insulted him – Robinett declined offer
 * Continued to look elsewhere – eventually got government grant
 * One of only 4 people given grant from National Science Foundation
 * Funded creation of education software to teach children math
 * Grant money ran out – 4 recipients formed their own company – Learning Company
 * Years later – 1995 – SoftKey International bought Learning Company
 * Paid $600 million – Robinett made out well in the end
 * Beginning of VCS lifetime – battled a number of competitors – easily beaten
 * Fairchild Channel F and RCA Studio II early example – Odyssey II somewhat later
 * Not quite as easy to beat – Odyssey II had full keyboard, claimed to be a PC, unlike VCS
 * Consumers no fooled – VCS quickly overshadowed Odyssey II
 * Another early attempt by Coleco
 * Coleco had taken sales away from Atari's Home Pong with its original Telstar
 * New console released called Telstar Arcade – glorified Pong system
 * Very odd design – essentially a short pyramid – game controls on 3 sides
 * Steering wheel for driving games, Gun for shooting games, knobs for Pong-like games
 * Had interchangeable cartridges – triangular in shape – plugged into top of pyramid
 * Telstar Arcade did not catch on – very few cartridges made – not successful at all
 * 1980 – Atari has first major threat to its home video-game dominance
 * Mattel Electronics – division of Mattel created to make hand-held LED-based games
 * Capitalized off of success of those games – decided to enter home-game market
 * 1980 – Mattel released Intellivision
 * Had newer and more powerful processor than VCS – also slightly more memory
 * Resulted in more detailed, more colorful, overall better-looking graphics than VCS
 * Intellivision controller had more interactivity – 12 digit keypad and joystick disk
 * Disk allowed for 16 points of movements, twice VCS's 8-point joystick – more precision
 * Driving force of Intellivision – massive line-up of sports games
 * VCS had some sports games, but Mattel truly focused on sports for Intellivision
 * Set out to make every sports game imaginable – From baseball to backgammon
 * Even licensed names of official sports leagues – from MLB to U.S. Chess Federation
 * Sheer scope of sports titles on Intellivision brought new players into video-games
 * 1980 – Intellivision's release-year – Mattel sold 100,000 Intellivision units
 * 1982 – over 1 million sold – 1983 – peak year – over 3.5 million sold worldwide

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