+Atari_Warlord Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 Like most children of the 70’s and 80’s I enjoyed playing videogames and was especially fond of the Atari 2600 which I bought in 1977 when it was first released. When the first third party company Activision started, part of their culture was to reveal the creators behind the games like David Crane, Carol Shaw, and others. I then knew what I wanted to do when I grew up (didn’t happen). But 83/84 arrived and the self-fulfilling prophecy that it was all a fad began to take hold and all the stores started to dump their inventory and not restock. This left a lot of games in limbo or canceled as everyone moved to cut their losses. It also makes it a fascinating time to research and bring out the hidden stories. The trail for this story started with Leonard Herman, video game historian and author of several books, who remembered seeing a newspaper ad in the early 1980’s. We were exchanging some messages about Birthday Mania when he mentioned his frustration about this game slipping away which started my hunt. So here is the rest of the story … Friends from New York (Richard Nespola, his wife Faye, Jessie Kirsch, and his wife Nancy) decided to take their love of video games and sports to the next level and formed the company Sports Compu-Stat, Inc. on June 6, 1983. They then started doing all the necessary preparations to launch an Atari 2600 game. With Mr. Nespola’s design, they hired a programmer to code the game. They negotiated a stand-by contract for the game to be manufactured in Taiwan. They drew up a marketing plan and did some preliminary advertising in the sports pages of The New York Daily News, Post, Times, and Sporting News. They investigated copyright law to make sure they wouldn’t run into problems with the NFL. But after spending about $40,000 getting everything in place, the lack of retailer interest and other job options helped them make the decision to pull the plug. When I spoke with Mr. Nespola they were able to use my query as an opportunity to get together for a beer and talk about the old days. The game itself is unique in that it is not a straight football game simulation but is a two player trivia competition, where correct answers advance the onscreen Football (named “Fynyte”) and whoever has scored the most in a 15 minute time period is the winner. Because of the limited amount of space available in a 2600 game, an onscreen code was used to refer to specific questions in a printed booklet. Although the initial booklet was more general, there were plans to market booklets that had trivia specific for each of the 28 NFL teams, extending the life of the game and appealing to team loyalty. As a follow up game, there were plans to do something similar with baseball, where correct answers would advance the runners and booklets for each team could be sold. Mr. Nespola was very gracious with his time and sharing this story of a failed startup but with lasting friendships. He and the Kirschs wanted to share the game freely and searched for it and any materials they still had but unfortunately were unable to locate anything after many moves. Maybe a copy will surface one day and we'll have the opportunity to play it. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 (edited) These three copyright claims are the only info in the web. Edited February 13, 2015 by Thomas Jentzsch 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Atari_Warlord Posted February 13, 2015 Author Share Posted February 13, 2015 Yes, that is where I started the search. If anyone lives in DC, they may be able to see the video that is supposed to be on file. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted February 13, 2015 Share Posted February 13, 2015 BTW: Any news about Men-A-Vision? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Atari_Warlord Posted February 13, 2015 Author Share Posted February 13, 2015 I spoke with Wonder007 at the Classic Gaming Expo about a couple items including Men-A-Vision. He was able to interview some of the family and will put it together for us to read at some point. We just need some more patience on that one. I'm hoping to get Birthday Mania resolved this year also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IHATETHEBEARS Posted February 14, 2015 Share Posted February 14, 2015 Birthday Mania would be awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Psionic Posted August 14, 2019 Share Posted August 14, 2019 Len Herman told me years ago about seeing the ad for Football Fanatic in the newspaper back in 1983. I tried like hell at the time to find the original ad or anything else about the game to no avail. It's cool that you were able to track down the people behind it but unfortunate that the game is probably lost. For what it's worth, here's an original ad that ran in September of 1983. https://www.newspapers.com/image/494304669/ 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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