Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

[jerseystyle]

7 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

If you work from the idea that the "exclusive" part of the console was the focus on local multiplayer, family-friendly gaming, and the unique controllers, then having exclusive games - truly exclusive or otherwise - would have been irrelevant. Frankly, very few, if anyone, was really going to buy the console for the "exclusives" the company could afford anyway. Having exclusive low-budget, indie-style games is not going to convince anyone of anything. I also can't think of any relatively recent indie game, e.g., Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, etc., that had massive breakout success that wasn't on a massively popular mainstream platform. You can have a game with the biggest breakout success potential in the world, but if the platform has low market penetration, it's not going to do much. And obviously what we've seen of what was going to be on the Amico, nothing remotely had that potential regardless of what it was going to be on. These were strictly by-the-numbers games.

As a total tangent, I found out today that JV Games- the developer behind Towers 2 on the Jaguar AND the awesome new updated version- are the guys who made Darts Frenzy for Amico.  Here’s the link:

 

https://www.jvgames.com/games.html

 

I am super pumped that Towers 2 is back and it’s also hilarious that their new Jag game is released before their Amico title. I feel bad they were sucked into the IE abyss as Towers 2 was great and I liked their Wiiware titles. Unlike IE I’ll bet Songbird paid them as well

[Bill Loguidice]

1 minute ago, jerseystyle said:

As a total tangent, I found out today that JV Games- the developer behind Towers 2 on the Jaguar AND the awesome new updated version- are the guys who made Darts Frenzy for Amico.  Here’s the link:

 

https://www.jvgames.com/games.html

 

I am super pumped that Towers 2 is back and it’s also hilarious that their new Jag game is released before their Amico title. I feel bad they were sucked into the IE abyss as Towers 2 was great and I liked their Wiiware titles. Unlike IE I’ll bet Songbird paid them as well

I got Tower 2 Enhanced as well. Hopefully they can repurpose Darts Frenzy without too much trouble, but who knows what kind of contractual nonsense there might be.

[+Stephen]

25 minutes ago, Biff Burgertime said:

They used to make 1/3lb burgers, but marketing found that 1/4lb burgers sold better before because 4>3, people thought they were getting a better deal... 🤦‍♂️

Catering for stupidity / the lowest common denominator sadly leads us to where we are today.

[+Stephen]

.

[rayik]

24 minutes ago, jerseystyle said:

As a total tangent, I found out today that JV Games- the developer behind Towers 2 on the Jaguar AND the awesome new updated version- are the guys who made Darts Frenzy for Amico.  Here’s the link:

 

https://www.jvgames.com/games.html

 

I am super pumped that Towers 2 is back and it’s also hilarious that their new Jag game is released before their Amico title. I feel bad they were sucked into the IE abyss as Towers 2 was great and I liked their Wiiware titles. Unlike IE I’ll bet Songbird paid them as well

 

it's clear this is simply a port of their Wii Ware game Dart Frenzy.  Same aiming graphic, same game graphics (bullseye).

 

Another Amico exclusive!

Edited September 5, 2023 by rayik

[jerseystyle]

30 minutes ago, rayik said:

 

it's clear this is simply a port of their Wii Ware game Dart Frenzy.  Same aiming graphic, same game graphics (bullseye).

 

Another Amico exclusive!

Truth, but I liked Dart Rage on Wii so I’d give this a go on Switch.

Edited September 5, 2023 by jerseystyle

[MrBeefy]

2 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Why do you expect people to do research for you? 
 

Isn’t that list bad enough? On a system where supposedly everything was custom built, “exclusive,” and enhanced for the hardware. Add Moon Patrol and Sideswipers to the list, because even though they were unique, they obviously run fine on phones. And Nitro Derby, Night Stalker, Cloudy Mountain, and many more which only ever appeared in sizzle reel clips for a moment or two. 
 

Add to this the constant overpromises, failure to deliver, fighting with customers, lack of value, slimy investment schemes, deceptive marketing, and you have a real loser of a concept/project/product. 

 

Ask me to make you a list of reasons why. 

Hey you mentioned Nitro Derby which is another port of a VR game!

 

Nitro, Emoji, Brain Duel, EK, RF Redux, Sesame Street, and Care Bears are ports. Feel like I'm forgetting some.

 

Games like Dynablasters, Space Strikers/Graviators, Shark Shark, Astrosmash might not be ports. However, they are still not exclusive games as touted by the company.

Please note there is only one way to interpret that statement. That means the games will not have been or be on any other platform. It does not say "have console exclusive features". Only an idiot or someone with a tenuous grasp of the English language can't see.

 

This leads to only three conclusions. 1) They are liars, 2) They are incompetent, or my choice 3) Both.

 

Their talking point of "exclusive features" only happened after they were caught porting already existing games. 

 

The "things change" excuse made by idiots is just another example of IE's incompetence. They should have been smarter to not announce things. But not making such claims would not have netted them the crowdfunding monies.

1 hour ago, Biff Burgertime said:

Excellent point.

 

They used to make 1/3lb burgers, but marketing found that 1/4lb burgers sold better before because 4>3, people thought they were getting a better deal... 🤦‍♂️

Similar deal with some OTC meds. Various studies have found the ideal of dose Melatonin is <1mg. Yet it's usually sold in 3mg tablets because the customer perceives bigger = a better value.

I think Intellivision took the idea of giving less to mean giving nothing. Which is a lot less than something. They didn't even give games for buying the physical things.

[Razzie.P]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

What's bad about having a few ports.  That would have left plenty of exclusives.

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think any of us felt that anything was bad about having a few ports.   Tommy (and team, maybe) was the one adamant about having no ports.

 

Seems like it's only being referenced here because it was another lie by Tommy and not because anyone really thinks ports are bad.

[SteveTheColecoDude]

3 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Sideswipers to the list, because even though they were unique, they obviously run fine on phones.

 

B-b-but Tommy on this very forum said it literally couldn't be played using anything other than an Amico controller 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2023 by SteveTheColecoDude

[jerseystyle]

17 minutes ago, SteveTheColecoDude said:

 

B-b-but Tommy on this very forum said it literally couldn't be played using anything other than an Amico controller 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haha- yeah because there is no way to do something like a= magnet, b= lightning, c= plunge into TT’s ego hole. 
 

I mean, that’d be too complicated.

[SteveTheColecoDude]

6 minutes ago, jerseystyle said:

Haha- yeah because there is no way to do something like a= magnet, b= lightning, c= plunge into TT’s ego hole. 
 

I mean, that’d be too complicated.

 

Exactly. I'd actually say that using buttons for it would be better as you wouldn't have to look down at a screen and it would be quicker to select using buttons.

 

DJC's video of Finnigan Fox where he had to keep looking down at the touch screen to know what button to press was painful to watch.

Edited September 5, 2023 by SteveTheColecoDude

[jerseystyle]

58 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think any of us felt that anything was bad about having a few ports.   Tommy (and team, maybe) was the one adamant about having no ports.

 

Seems like it's only being referenced here because it was another lie by Tommy and not because anyone really thinks ports are bad.

Yeah I’m fine with ports. But I’m not fine with lying about ports and then gaslighting everyone about what the word “port” means.

[mr_me]

1 hour ago, Razzie.P said:

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think any of us felt that anything was bad about having a few ports.   Tommy (and team, maybe) was the one adamant about having no ports.

 

Seems like it's only being referenced here because it was another lie by Tommy and not because anyone really thinks ports are bad.

They couldn't have been that adamant against ports since they have several.  And they talked about doing ports from the beginning when people asked about it after the initial presentation in 2018.

 

It was referenced here because someone claimed most of their games are ports of old android games.

 

2 hours ago, rayik said:

 

it's clear this is simply a port of their Wii Ware game Dart Frenzy.  Same aiming graphic, same game graphics (bullseye).

 

Another Amico exclusive!

You'd have to ask the developer if they were able to port over old Wii code.  Otherwise they could replicate some of the things they did before.

Edited September 5, 2023 by mr_me

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, Razzie.P said:

I can't speak for everyone, but I don't think any of us felt that anything was bad about having a few ports.   Tommy (and team, maybe) was the one adamant about having no ports.

 

Seems like it's only being referenced here because it was another lie by Tommy and not because anyone really thinks ports are bad.

People didn't take issue with them having ports. It was the lying about it and them not owning up to it.

4 minutes ago, jerseystyle said:

Yeah I’m fine with ports. But I’m not fine with lying about ports and then gaslighting everyone about what the word “port” means.

Or what "exclusive" means. Or what crowdfunding means. There are plenty of examples. I think the last one is why Tommy flipped his lid when I posted the Fig link. He blamed it on the article, but really I think he was mad I showed the crowdfunding site. Which goes back to the "we won't take any money/crowdfund" lie. He had not promoted that site at all. 

27 minutes ago, SteveTheColecoDude said:

 

Exactly. I'd actually say that using buttons for it would be better as you wouldn't have to look down at a screen and it would be quicker to select using buttons.

 

DJC's video of Finnigan Fox where he had to keep looking down at the touch screen to know what button to press was painful to watch.

Buttons would be easier on some. On some of the older FF footage you could see how they would accidently hit pause/menu a few times. A majority of the console's use of the screen is a glorified and more expensive button. With how little they uniquely used the screen they should have just made games require a phone.

 

Heck there was one point Tommy said there was a game that only Player 1 could use the controller and everyone else had to use the phone due to something like processing power. Which game it was, was never mentioned. 🤷‍♀️

[mr_me]

11 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

Or what "exclusive" means. Or what crowdfunding means. There are plenty of examples. I think the last one is why Tommy flipped his lid when I posted the Fig link. He blamed it on the article, but really I think he was mad I showed the crowdfunding site. Which goes back to the "we won't take any money/crowdfund" lie. He had not promoted that site at all. 

Why would they have an issue with linking the fig site.  They were directing people there as a place for preorders.

[rayik]

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

You'd have to ask the developer if they were able to port over old Wii code.  Otherwise they could replicate some of the things they did before.

I’m not asking the developer anything. If you want to contribute something to the conversation you could ask and let folks know what the developer says. 

[roots.genoa]

4 hours ago, jerseystyle said:

the guys who made Darts Frenzy for Amico

I thought I was following the Amico debacle closely, and yet I had never heard about this game until now. 🤔

 

Regarding ports, to me Finnigan Fox is still the best example of their stupidity. The original game had graphics made by Henk Nieborg (Flink, Lomax, Xeno Crisis, etc.), arguably one of the best pixel-artists living today. But because they were worried that people would label the Amico as retro (too late, idiots) and/or because they wanted to turn it into an "exclusive port™️", they had to disfigure the graphics into a terrible HD mess. 🤢 The original was not a great game mind you, just an OK neoretro platformer that at least recreated the SNES aesthetics quite well, but they turned it into an unplayable, fugly piece of crap. Well done. 👏

 

1 hour ago, mr_me said:

Why would they have an issue with linking the fig site.  They were directing people there as a place for preorders.

Then why did Tommy have Beefy removed after he shared the article about the Fig campaign, then?

[SteveTheColecoDude]

16 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Regarding ports, to me Finnigan Fox is still the best example of their stupidity. The original game had graphics made by Henk Nieborg (Flink, Lomax, Xeno Crisis, etc.), arguably one of the best pixel-artists living today. But because they were worried that people would label the Amico as retro (too late, idiots) and/or because they wanted to turn it into an "exclusive port™️", they had to disfigure the graphics into a terrible HD mess. 🤢

 

The most likely reason they got rid of the pixel graphics is because Tommy doesn't like pixel graphics. His whole time as a "reviewer" he was known for talking crap about 2D pixel games. Obviously Tommy had to pretend he did it for some legit reason though.

Edited September 5, 2023 by SteveTheColecoDude

[bojay1997]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

Why would they have an issue with linking the fig site.  They were directing people there as a place for preorders.

Yes, to a crowdfunding site that was actively crowdfunding for a console that Tommy claimed was not being crowdfunded.  You're right that it seems ridiculous that Tommy would have had an issue with it, but sadly he did.  Maybe you could ask him why that was since you like to make sure everyone is posting only the most thoroughly vetted facts.

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, rayik said:

I’m not asking the developer anything. If you want to contribute something to the conversation you could ask and let folks know what the developer says. 

You don't have too. It has already been asked months ago. I believe the Dart Frenzy devs didn't give a clear answer and played coy about it.

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

1) I thought I was following the Amico debacle closely, and yet I had never heard about this game until now. 🤔

 

Regarding ports, to me Finnigan Fox is still the best example of their stupidity. The original game had graphics made by Henk Nieborg (Flink, Lomax, Xeno Crisis, etc.), arguably one of the best pixel-artists living today. But because they were worried that people would label the Amico as retro (too late, idiots) and/or because they wanted to turn it into an "exclusive port™️", they had to disfigure the graphics into a terrible HD mess. 🤢 The original was not a great game mind you, just an OK neoretro platformer that at least recreated the SNES aesthetics quite well, but they turned it into an unplayable, fugly piece of crap. Well done. 👏

 

2) Then why did Tommy have Beefy removed after he shared the article about the Fig campaign, then?

1) Ah Finnegan is the one was missing earlier. I think updating the graphics was a waste of time and money. It did sound like they did some overall gameplay improvements. Not enough to make it a must own or move consoles. But once again they didn't need to redo graphics to do that.

 

2) I find it ridiculously disconcerting that he had people trying to track me down everywhere on the internet to the point of threatening another guy who they thought was me with pictures of my kid.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Amico/comments/xf0l7k/just_a_heads_up_after_an_incident_i_just_cleared/

The user was even a member here it seems.

Mrme's friends should be proud. /s

 

I think Tommy didn't like that I fit the spoken demographic and didn't fall in line with everything he said and accept it as truth. That and he's a vegan/faux vegan and has an aversion to all things Beef.

[Matt_B]

53 minutes ago, bojay1997 said:

Yes, to a crowdfunding site that was actively crowdfunding for a console that Tommy claimed was not being crowdfunded.  You're right that it seems ridiculous that Tommy would have had an issue with it, but sadly he did.  Maybe you could ask him why that was since you like to make sure everyone is posting only the most thoroughly vetted facts.

Tommy just wanted the money.

I'm pretty sure that it was only the asking of questions that he found objectionable, not the linking.

[bojay1997]

17 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

Tommy just wanted the money.

I'm pretty sure that it was only the asking of questions that he found objectionable, not the linking.

Sure, but the linking was like a giant flashing sign to Tommy reminding him of his false claims about how he would fund the Amico.  His ego blinded him to the fact that he could have simply said "you know, this whole process turned out to be a lot more expensive and complex than we anticipated and maybe we don't know everything and we need help, so we are now turning to crowdfunding".  While some people may have focused on the initial lie, I suspect many would have understood and appreciated his candor.  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to have ever been anyone at Amico that understood basic communications or the concept of being authentic and open with your potential customer base.   

[mr_me]

2 hours ago, rayik said:

I’m not asking the developer anything. If you want to contribute something to the conversation you could ask and let folks know what the developer says. 

I'm not the one making the claim, but it would be interesting to know how difficult it would be to port a Wii project to an Arm based system.  It would make sense to use a developer that has experience with that type of game.  If the developer can build off of previous work I would expect them to.

 

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

I thought I was following the Amico debacle closely, and yet I had never heard about this game until now. 🤔

 

Regarding ports, to me Finnigan Fox is still the best example of their stupidity. The original game had graphics made by Henk Nieborg (Flink, Lomax, Xeno Crisis, etc.), arguably one of the best pixel-artists living today. But because they were worried that people would label the Amico as retro (too late, idiots) and/or because they wanted to turn it into an "exclusive port™️", they had to disfigure the graphics into a terrible HD mess. 🤢 The original was not a great game mind you, just an OK neoretro platformer that at least recreated the SNES aesthetics quite well, but they turned it into an unplayable, fugly piece of crap. Well done. 👏

 

Then why did Tommy have Beefy removed after he shared the article about the Fig campaign, then?

I'm just pointing out that at one time the Fig site was how they were taking international preorders.

 

1 hour ago, bojay1997 said:

Yes, to a crowdfunding site that was actively crowdfunding for a console that Tommy claimed was not being crowdfunded.  You're right that it seems ridiculous that Tommy would have had an issue with it, but sadly he did.  Maybe you could ask him why that was since you like to make sure everyone is posting only the most thoroughly vetted facts.

They didn't take in that many preorders.  Back in 2020 They were telling everyone it wasn't necessary, that there'd be plenty of systems available when it releases.  Looking at their numbers it seemed the company was just as well CEO and board funded until the revenue share investments came in.

 

30 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

Mrme's ...

Harassment continues.  Associating people with things they had nothing to do with.

[Matt_B]

33 minutes ago, bojay1997 said:

Sure, but the linking was like a giant flashing sign to Tommy reminding him of his false claims about how he would fund the Amico.  His ego blinded him to the fact that he could have simply said "you know, this whole process turned out to be a lot more expensive and complex than we anticipated and maybe we don't know everything and we need help, so we are now turning to crowdfunding".  While some people may have focused on the initial lie, I suspect many would have understood and appreciated his candor.  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to have ever been anyone at Amico that understood basic communications or the concept of being authentic and open with your potential customer base.   

That'd have still been a lie though.

To tell the whole truth, that they needed to raise millions from crowdfunding just to keep the company afloat for a few months while they found a backer with the kind of finances to actually put the console into production, would not have gone down well.

 

They finally did that with the StartEngine campaign, albeit with the truth hidden in a mountain of legalese while informally trying to make it look as though production was almost about to start, and look how it went.

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, Matt_B said:

Tommy just wanted the money.

I'm pretty sure that it was only the asking of questions that he found objectionable, not the linking.

Actually I didn't ask any questions. Just pointed out the article and link to preprder. It was shortly after they magically got 12600 preorders. I think they owe me a commission. 😅

45 minutes ago, bojay1997 said:

Sure, but the linking was like a giant flashing sign to Tommy reminding him of his false claims about how he would fund the Amico.  His ego blinded him to the fact that he could have simply said "you know, this whole process turned out to be a lot more expensive and complex than we anticipated and maybe we don't know everything and we need help, so we are now turning to crowdfunding".  While some people may have focused on the initial lie, I suspect many would have understood and appreciated his candor.  Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to have ever been anyone at Amico that understood basic communications or the concept of being authentic and open with your potential customer base.   

Oh they were and still are terrible at communication. Unless you think changing your message and lying is a good form of communication. The reason "things changed" is that they were floundering around with no real plan or goals and the CEO was galavanting around building a cult to feed his ego, instead of leading the company to anywhere but into the ground. 

6 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

That'd have still been a lie though.

To tell the whole truth, that they needed to raise millions from crowdfunding just to keep the company afloat for a few months while they found a backer with the kind of finances to actually put the console into production, would not have gone down well.

 

They finally did that with the StartEngine campaign, albeit with the truth hidden in a mountain of legalese while informally trying to make it look as though production was almost about to start, and look how it went.

Not to mention trying to get the cult/shills to astroturf and spin the shifty deal for them. It was funny how quickly some of them "changed their opinion" after they were outed as having a secret meeting and the SE paperwork outed them for having lied for many years.

 

I mean me and others knew they had secret meetings as the shills would talk about having them and how he would want people banned, attacked, or encourage them to stop being friends with people they had been friends with for years. That's why you will never have a true "coming clean" from any of them on the inside. Them telling all would just out themselves for the crap stuff they willingly partook in.

 

Yoy are right about needing the funds to stay afloat. Truth is they never actually had that big investor. Tommy just tried to "Secret" his way into it without doing actual real work. The potential investor saw it and NOPED out. That was roughly the time all progress halted and they should have closed shop. Instead they crowdfunded while lying about the status of the company and blew the money. Here we are 3 years later and they still can't manage to pump out a basic android box.

 

Now they are "doing" something that they told "haters" wasn't the goal by putting games on mobile. I heard some people joke and change the goal posts about it being about a human experience not the console. Which really shows their ignorance as me taking my daily Amico in the morning is a human experience.

 

Intellivision failed at the end of 2019. Everything after that is them trying to get money with doing nothing. Biggest indicator of that is the code in the box sales with no console in sight. It was pretty obvious they knew they weren't going to make good on those games as they put in that disclaimer that at most you were buying the promise of a game if the console came out.

 

If they manage to Amico out their Amico Home app they should honor those code in boxes on it as a small sign of goodwill. I really doubt they will though as that has never been their MO.