Intellivision Amico’s trademark changed to ‘abandoned’

[SegaMasterSystemPunk]

On 7/6/2023 at 10:51 PM, MattPilz said:

One potential complication is that the cards all have a hardcoded URL to Intellivision's website. If they ever lose control of the domain, which has happened before and is currently only being renewed year-to-year sporadically, scanning the cards with any NFC app will direct users to some unrelated (potentially even malicious) link instead.

 

The cards themselves are in a perpetual state of nothingness. They are dependent on the system being done, then the back-end hosting architecture being implemented, then the entire user infrastructure for activation and validation, then the games actually being fully developed and v1 released. The system can parse the IDs from the card URLs to activate and download the data, but again this is all contingent on the entire Amico infrastructure working. The Youtubers with test units have said that this works, but it has never been demonstrated by anyone on camera. They also said the system/controllers were FCC certified when they aren't. So without seeing it in action I don't have high confidence. My theory is that the dev units came preloaded with the same games that the one Jon demonstrated did, but some may be software-locked to simulate NFC activation by scanning the cards.

The whole NFC solution is so dumb on so many levels!

[MrBeefy]

On 7/7/2023 at 7:07 PM, SegaMasterSystemPunk said:

The whole NFC solution is so dumb on so many levels!

The idea of carrying the tags of your games via controller is a neat idea. Although to be effective or worthwhile you need an established user base and a decent catalog where most of the people won't own all the games.

 

How many miles are you willing to drive with your controller to take a game that they already own? Some people would probably have to drive so far the controller would die before they reached another house with a console. 🤣

 

Like the new AEW game came out. I'm going to act like I bought it on Xbox and not the Switch (since Switch is easily portable). It would be cool for me to attach it to an Xbox controller and take it to my brother who doesn't own it and play some games that way.

 

Not a terrible idea, or we'll at least a neat idea, just pointless on Amico.

[SegaMasterSystemPunk]

6 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

The idea of carrying the tags of your games via controller is a neat idea. Although to be effective or worthwhile you need an established user base and a decent catalog where most of the people won't own all the games.

 

How many miles are you willing to drive with your controller to take a game that they already own? Some people would probably have to drive so far the controller would die before they reached another house with a console. 🤣

 

Like the new AEW game came out. I'm going to act like I bought it on Xbox and not the Switch (since Switch is easily portable). It would be cool for me to attach it to an Xbox controller and take it to my brother who doesn't own it and play some games that way.

 

Not a terrible idea, or we'll at least a neat idea, just pointless on Amico.

Yes, the base idea is neat. I meant their specific solution to it.

[Flojomojo]

Carrying your records or purchases around on a fob reminds me of the 1990s arcade games that let you insert a memory device. It makes sense to make that function wireless like an NFC payment system. Mass transit has switched over to that tech rather than tokens, too. 
 

As for Amico’s Potemkin Offices, it’s weird to think the main purpose was to fool investors into thinking they were bigger than they actually were. If I had venture capital kind of money to waste, I’d be more interested in seeing what @Tommy Tallarico and his goons could DO more than anything they’d SAY. 

 

All of his jibber jabber in here was short-sighted, and since he had no capacity to finish anything he claimed they had started, it was completely self defeating. 

[MattPilz]

15 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

The idea of carrying the tags of your games via controller is a neat idea.

I just learned last week that the original Wii had trace amounts of internal memory to write Mii character data to and then take over to a friend's Wii to transfer them. Pretty cool idea that I never knew about, I guess only four games ever used the feature for game data sharing across Wiis. Very similar concept though to Amico and could had behaved the same way had Nintendo wanted, by storing checksums / keys of user purchased apps to the controller and then reading them back on another Wii.

Edited July 9, 2023 by MattPilz

[MrTrust]

3 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

As for Amico’s Potemkin Offices, it’s weird to think the main purpose was to fool investors into thinking they were bigger than they actually were.

 

All the while claiming they should be given a pass for having ludicrously overpriced hardware full of low-budget shovelware, and should be rooted for despite all their disingenuousness because they were the scrappy young little guy on the block.

[+GoldLeader]

If I were to guess (and that's all we can do really),

 

I'd say the idea to sell the company came LATER, and that at least initially,  they wanted to produce a console, etc.  It would have been a vanity project for Tommy's ego.  Maybe the unnecessary Puffery;  offices, blue furniture, giant Running Man^TM logos,  even some of the big names attached were for investors to see (not potential buyers). 

 

I say this because if you wanted to sell the company,  first you'd make a cool looking console.  I don't think your first idea would be an LED encrusted Footbath.  Second,  you'd want good games.  This may be in the eye of the beholder,...But...I'd think you'd at least want games that played well,  So that controller would have been thrown out a long time ago...I don't know...It just seemed to me that they wanted to be in control.  They liked their bad ideas,  and seemed to double down on them rather than give them up for better ideas that might make them an attractive company to sell to a real company...

 

My 2 cents.

[MrBeefy]

4 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

Carrying your records or purchases around on a fob reminds me of the 1990s arcade games that let you insert a memory device. It makes sense to make that function wireless like an NFC payment system. Mass transit has switched over to that tech rather than tokens, too. 
 

As for Amico’s Potemkin Offices, it’s weird to think the main purpose was to fool investors into thinking they were bigger than they actually were. If I had venture capital kind of money to waste, I’d be more interested in seeing what @Tommy Tallarico and his goons could DO more than anything they’d SAY. 

 

All of his jibber jabber in here was short-sighted, and since he had no capacity to finish anything he claimed they had started, it was completely self defeating. 

It was pretty obvious he was out of touch on a lot of things. His marketing with no buyer is just another bit of evidence to show that.

 

I'd say it wasn't self defeating if you were a non-critical thinking moron ready to throw money away. You still have idiots defending them.

 

They failed so hard to get a basic android box out the door they've all but admitted abandoning the idea.

 

They never wanted to make it. They wanted "X" company to make it instead.

[MrBeefy]

2 minutes ago, GoldLeader said:

If I were to guess (and that's all we can do really),

 

I'd say the idea to sell the company came LATER, and that at least initially,  they wanted to produce a console, etc.  It would have been a vanity project for Tommy's ego.  Maybe the unnecessary Puffery;  offices, blue furniture, giant Running Man^TM logos,  even some of the big names attached were for investors to see (not potential buyers). 

 

I say this because if you wanted to sell the company,  first you'd make a cool looking console.  I don't think your first idea would be an LED encrusted Footbath.  Second,  you'd want good games.  This may be in the eye of the beholder,...But...I'd think you'd at least want games that played well,  So that controller would have been thrown out a long time ago...I don't know...It just seemed to me that they wanted to be in control.  They liked their bad ideas,  and seemed to double down on them rather than give them up for better ideas that might make them an attractive company to sell to a real company...

 

My 2 cents.

Tommy's boneheaded decisions tanked any chance of them getting a legit buyer. I'd say if you go back and look at the state of things at the end of 2019 it was obvious they wanted to sell. 

 

They literally found clips of abandoned games, reject/mediocre games, many of which disappeared. Progress on those games slowed after that first real with 2 second clips.

 

So if you want to give them the benefit of hoping they were the ones to make it I think that could be so until 2019. They had crap hardware that was expensive and games that should never be more than $3 and some of them that is $2 too high even.

[roots.genoa]

9 hours ago, GoldLeader said:

If I were to guess (and that's all we can do really),

 

I'd say the idea to sell the company came LATER, and that at least initially,  they wanted to produce a console, etc.  It would have been a vanity project for Tommy's ego.  Maybe the unnecessary Puffery;  offices, blue furniture, giant Running Man^TM logos,  even some of the big names attached were for investors to see (not potential buyers). 

 

I say this because if you wanted to sell the company,  first you'd make a cool looking console.  I don't think your first idea would be an LED encrusted Footbath.  Second,  you'd want good games.  This may be in the eye of the beholder,...But...I'd think you'd at least want games that played well,  So that controller would have been thrown out a long time ago...I don't know...It just seemed to me that they wanted to be in control.  They liked their bad ideas,  and seemed to double down on them rather than give them up for better ideas that might make them an attractive company to sell to a real company...

 

My 2 cents.

Yeah, it's hard to tell. I think they really believed they had a few winners among their games. They kept the secret until the end regarding the 6th pack-in game for instance... They were also convinced Cornhole would be huge thing, probably based on Wii Bowling's popularity. It's kinda crazy they didn't realize that people can easily play cornhole at home (even indoors), while bowling, not so much. 😅

 

Like I said before, I also dreamed several times of my own console, and I strongly doubt I'm the only one, so I can relate to Tommy's goal. That being said, the video game system I imagine creating is far more similar to the Evercade (it's also a handheld) than an Amico. Maybe I lack imagination, idk. I'm no industry legend after all. 😩

[Flojomojo]

16 hours ago, GoldLeader said:

If I were to guess (and that's all we can do really),

 

I'd say the idea to sell the company came LATER, and that at least initially,  they wanted to produce a console, etc.  It would have been a vanity project for Tommy's ego.  Maybe the unnecessary Puffery;  offices, blue furniture, giant Running Man^TM logos,  even some of the big names attached were for investors to see (not potential buyers). 

They had an exit strategy from the very start, which I assume is normal for any startup. It's not very imaginative, it's just "hope that an industry leader who has real product already will somehow want ours, too." 

 

What I found interesting was that the original pitch deck was prepared by Michael Pachter's firm, and he would go on to pump up Amico to anyone who would listen. Sleazy conflicts of interest like this are all over this project. 

 

 

 

16 hours ago, MrBeefy said:

I'd say it wasn't self defeating if you were a non-critical thinking moron ready to throw money away. You still have idiots defending them.

The part I think is self-defeating is making a lot of claims and promises when you know you have zero chance of following through. It's just setting everyone up for disappointment. Couching it in "wouldn't that be something?" is fundamentally dishonest. In all seriousness, many of their biggest fans have obvious cognitive difficulties, and I think it's wrong to exploit them like this. That's part of why people say it's a scam. 

6 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Like I said before, I also dreamed several times of my own console, and I strongly doubt I'm the only one, so I can relate to Tommy's goal. That being said, the video game system I imagine creating is far more similar to the Evercade (it's also a handheld) than an Amico. Maybe I lack imagination, idk. I'm no industry legend after all. 😩

In the 2020's, the best retro-style console you can buy (at least in terms of choice) is one that doesn't respect copyrights. It's easier to win if you don't follow the rules!

[MrTrust]

4 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

They had an exit strategy from the very start, which I assume is normal for any startup. It's not very imaginative, it's just "hope that an industry leader who has real product already will somehow want ours, too."

 

And that slide is emblematic of how delusional the whole project was.  Which one of those companies, in a million years, would want to have anything to do with the neon footbath even in someone's wildest dreams?

 

4 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

In all seriousness, many of their biggest fans have obvious cognitive difficulties, and I think it's wrong to exploit them like this. That's part of why people say it's a scam.

 

Like I've already said, I'm a bit of an appreciator of the great American tradition of hucksters, and I'm a little less offended by some of TT's antics than many participants here.  There are those clips, though, of him getting these two-bit Youtubers on stream and then saying "Look at me.  I'm promising you: you and your mother will be playing video games together again."  I know in one, he was laying it on really thick "Even I have goosebumps thinking about it," and one of the streamers adds "I've got tears."

 

Now, I don't know how much these people were consciously involved in the grift, but I got the impression just from watching it that they were being sincere in this sort of emotional display.  That was scummy on TT's part.  All sales is emotional manipulation, but there are certain forms of it that are just in really poor taste, and that's one of them.  Trying to pitch this shitty consumer product as a way to heal or reclaim personal bonds like that struck me as being borderline sociopathic.  

Edited July 10, 2023 by MrTrust

[Flojomojo]

Yes, I agree with that take. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about the clout-chasing YouTubers, but rather people on disability who can’t really afford to throw their money away on magic beans. 
 

The whole enterprise screams BUYER BEWARE. 
 

Speaking of which, and I know it’s a little off topic, here’s a new conspiracy theory. I guess it fits the pattern of facts surrounding the changes in the homebrew store?

 

https://forum.dadisajoke.com/post/atari-to-buy-atariage-12672927?random=87342&fbclid=IwAR1s5o--1DKB5S1EtI731xinH7-Yariio8nRf4DB5VYDNZnb3OGo-6rY1G8

[Bill Loguidice]

49 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

 

And that slide is emblematic of how delusional the whole project was.  Which one of those companies, in a million years, would want to have anything to do with the neon footbath even in someone's wildest dreams?

 

That is the main takeaway I'd say. They had a strange knowledge gap at the company, from claiming certain firsts in early marketing that obviously weren't true to this very slide including Apple, Nintendo, Sony, Google, and Microsoft somehow wanting in on something they could have their engineers whip up and do better in a month, even if we ignore the fact, of course, that it would compete with/distract from their own massive and lucrative initiatives. Some of the other companies mentioned make somewhat reasonable sense if you really work at it, but even some of those inclusions, like Mattel, completely ignore the state of those current businesses and how they couldn't even afford to enter that market. It's like they were hoping for clueless investors (or maybe the Tommy razzle/dazzle to work before he totally went off the rails?). Anyone with even a little expertise at the table would see right through the BS and/or ignorance.

[Bill Loguidice]

14 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

Speaking of which, and I know it’s a little off topic, here’s a new conspiracy theory. I guess it fits the pattern of facts surrounding the changes in the homebrew store?

 

https://forum.dadisajoke.com/post/atari-to-buy-atariage-12672927?random=87342&fbclid=IwAR1s5o--1DKB5S1EtI731xinH7-Yariio8nRf4DB5VYDNZnb3OGo-6rY1G8

While yes, Atari bought out MobyGames for whatever strange reason, this one doesn't make much sense to me either. I suppose the domain name and (maybe) branding have some value, but as far as I know there's no specific ownership of the homebrews. If Atari wanted to get into homebrew publishing and cartridge production, they're already basically doing that now and can continue to do so without any need for a niche sub-branding or small operational assistance. And as much as I appreciate AtariAge and respect all that Albert has done in general, there's not much specific value in the forums anymore either. The public at large have moved away from discussion forums to general social media and groups. In my opinion, Atari would be better off letting AtariAge continue to operate independently and serve the specific niche that it does while it continues to make the moves that it's been making with the current regime. 

 

Now, in regards to AtariAge getting out of clone games and outright unlicensed IP usage, I'm sure there have been some discussions with Atari and perhaps other companies, or perhaps it's just a general CYA initiative. Either way, just because that's being done to indemnify AtariAge from any specific future liabilities, doesn't mean it has to be tied to anything bigger. It's just a safe move.

I could be wrong on all of the above, as again, I didn't see the MobyGames move coming, nor do I know why it happened, but it would definitely be out of left field for Atari to own or hold AtariAge (or require "cleansing" before such an undertaking rather than after).

[+Stephen]

36 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

Yes, I agree with that take. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about the clout-chasing YouTubers, but rather people on disability who can’t really afford to throw their money away on magic beans. 
 

The whole enterprise screams BUYER BEWARE. 
 

Speaking of which, and I know it’s a little off topic, here’s a new conspiracy theory. I guess it fits the pattern of facts surrounding the changes in the homebrew store?

 

https://forum.dadisajoke.com/post/atari-to-buy-atariage-12672927?random=87342&fbclid=IwAR1s5o--1DKB5S1EtI731xinH7-Yariio8nRf4DB5VYDNZnb3OGo-6rY1G8

Sure hope not - it would be a shame to leave after 22 years.

[MrBeefy]

11 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

They were also convinced Cornhole would be huge thing, probably based on Wii Bowling's popularity. It's kinda crazy they didn't realize that people can easily play cornhole at home (even indoors), while bowling, not so much. 😅

I'm sure he read a stupid article about it growing, and equated that to everyone will buy Amico if they have a cornhole game. We "have the data" and "know what we are doing". If his goal was to sell only 6000 consoles then he did a swimmingly good job.

 

It's pretty obvious any research they did was skin deep at best. He's a build it amd they will come type of person instead of being rational and practical.

5 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

The part I think is self-defeating is making a lot of claims and promises when you know you have zero chance of following through. It's just setting everyone up for disappointment. Couching it in "wouldn't that be something?" is fundamentally dishonest. In all seriousness, many of their biggest fans have obvious cognitive difficulties, and I think it's wrong to exploit them like this. That's part of why people say it's a scam. 

 

If he was able to convince some dumb buyer, it wouldn't have been his problem at that point. He obviously has no problems with making claims he can't follow through with, if he thinks it will get him something. That has been made obviously clear.

[Flojomojo]

6 minutes ago, MrBeefy said:

If he was able to convince some dumb buyer, it wouldn't have been his problem at that point. He obviously has no problems with making claims he can't follow through with, if he thinks it will get him something. That has been made obviously clear.

Yup. I guess they were thinking they only needed to convince one poorly informed person with deep pockets. 

[mr_me]

11 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

They had an exit strategy from the very start, which I assume is normal for any startup. It's not very imaginative, it's just "hope that an industry leader who has real product already will somehow want ours, too." 

 

What I found interesting was that the original pitch deck was prepared by Michael Pachter's firm, and he would go on to pump up Amico to anyone who would listen. Sleazy conflicts of interest like this are all over this project. 

...

Very normal for a startup to present to equity investors an exit plan, even in the early stages.  Exiting is how investors expect to make money on their investment and selling the company is the easiest way for investors; that or an ipo.  I think investors expect that for their shares to be worth something they need a successful company and product.  Presenting equity investors an exit plan is not evidence that they didn't intend to release their product, as others are suggesting.

What is the source of that document?  Is there any evidence it was presented to investors in that form.

 

On 7/8/2023 at 11:31 PM, MrBeefy said:

The idea of carrying the tags of your games via controller is a neat idea. Although to be effective or worthwhile you need an established user base and a decent catalog where most of the people won't own all the games.

 

How many miles are you willing to drive with your controller to take a game that they already own? Some people would probably have to drive so far the controller would die before they reached another house with a console. 🤣

 

Like the new AEW game came out. I'm going to act like I bought it on Xbox and not the Switch (since Switch is easily portable). It would be cool for me to attach it to an Xbox controller and take it to my brother who doesn't own it and play some games that way.

 

Not a terrible idea, or we'll at least a neat idea, just pointless on Amico.

The controllers communicate with Bluetooth, not NFC.  The NFC is for the RFID cards.  They could have scrapped the NFC/RFID feature and still have portable licenses.

 

On 7/9/2023 at 12:30 PM, Flojomojo said:

Carrying your records or purchases around on a fob reminds me of the 1990s arcade games that let you insert a memory device. It makes sense to make that function wireless like an NFC payment system. Mass transit has switched over to that tech rather than tokens, too. 
 

As for Amico’s Potemkin Offices, it’s weird to think the main purpose was to fool investors into thinking they were bigger than they actually were. If I had venture capital kind of money to waste, I’d be more interested in seeing what @Tommy Tallarico and his goons could DO more than anything they’d SAY. 

 

All of his jibber jabber in here was short-sighted, and since he had no capacity to finish anything he claimed they had started, it was completely self defeating. 

They did build a company with dozens of employees; teams of engineers, programmers, project managers, testing, sales, marketing, customer service.  Not saying that hiring all those people was the right thing to do at that time but those people would have been real to investors.

Edited July 11, 2023 by mr_me

[Flojomojo]

I think the pitch deck came from a former employee. 
 

There was talk of tapping a controller on someone else’s Amico console to initiate a download of your licensed games. I assume that would be NFC, like Amiibo, contactless payment systems, or proximity card readers. 
 

I wouldn’t dispute that they hired a whole bunch of people, but if you said they were effective at finishing their project, I’d take issue with that. 

 

 

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, Flojomojo said:

I think the pitch deck came from a former employee. 
 

There was talk of tapping a controller on someone else’s Amico console to initiate a download of your licensed games. I assume that would be NFC, like Amiibo, contactless payment systems, or proximity card readers. 
 

I wouldn’t dispute that they hired a whole bunch of people, but if you said they were effective at finishing their project, I’d take issue with that. 

Yup the controllers would need some NFC/Amiibo type of function. The idea was to tap or sit your controller on the console. If the data was being transferred via Bluetooth off the controller to the console, you wouldn't need to tap or sit it on there.

 

Remember the old firmware job postings for "accessories"? The accessory they were probably struggling with was the included controllers. 🤣

 

Hiring people doesn't mean jack if you have no real direction. It's just an excuse to throw drinking parties at work, and burn through cash while not producing a console, refunding people, or paying your furniture bill.

 

As far as everything I know goes, the pitch deck is legit.

 

And don't you dare underestimate their ability to finish the project. It looks pretty finished to me.

[Matt_B]

2 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

I think the pitch deck came from a former employee. 
 

There was talk of tapping a controller on someone else’s Amico console to initiate a download of your licensed games. I assume that would be NFC, like Amiibo, contactless payment systems, or proximity card readers. 
 

I wouldn’t dispute that they hired a whole bunch of people, but if you said they were effective at finishing their project, I’d take issue with that.

It's kinda funny how certain people seem to regard information from certain ex-employees to be the uninmpeachable truth when it supports their argument, yet immediately become highly skeptical when another produces something that's downright embarrassing to the company. 🙂

 

Still, lest anyone question its authenticity, the leaker also provided a number of other documents.

 

https://archive.org/details/Intellivision-amico-pitch-deck/Intellivision Convertible Note Term Sheet - 20191114 - FINAL/

 

Of course, the actual contents of the pitch deck and the fact book should be treated with extreme skepticism. It's just the fact that they're genuine documents produced by the company that's beyond dispute.

[digdugnate]

11 hours ago, mr_me said:

Very normal for a startup to present to equity investors an exit plan, even in the early stages.  Exiting is how investors expect to make money on their investment and selling the company is the easiest way for investors; that or an ipo.  I think investors expect that for their shares to be worth something they need a successful company and product.  Presenting equity investors an exit plan is not evidence that they didn't intend to release their product, as others are suggesting.

What is the source of that document?  Is there any evidence it was presented to investors in that form.

 

The controllers communicate with Bluetooth, not NFC.  The NFC is for the RFID cards.  They could have scrapped the NFC/RFID feature and still have portable licenses.

 

They did build a company with dozens of employees; teams of engineers, programmers, project managers, testing, sales, marketing, customer service.  Not saying that hiring all those people was the right thing to do at that time but those people would have been real to investors.

 

[mr_me]

10 hours ago, Flojomojo said:

I think the pitch deck came from a former employee. 
 

There was talk of tapping a controller on someone else’s Amico console to initiate a download of your licensed games. I assume that would be NFC, like Amiibo, contactless payment systems, or proximity card readers. 
 

I wouldn’t dispute that they hired a whole bunch of people, but if you said they were effective at finishing their project, I’d take issue with that. 

 

 

Originally the controllers were designed to connect to a console automatically.  Later they added controller ui to be able to select the console in the rare event more than one console is within range.  They could put an rfid tag in the controller but it's not necessary. No I didn't mention what their staff were able to or not able to accomplish in my comment.

 

8 hours ago, Matt_B said:

It's kinda funny how certain people seem to regard information from certain ex-employees to be the uninmpeachable truth when it supports their argument, yet immediately become highly skeptical when another produces something that's downright embarrassing to the company. 🙂

 

Still, lest anyone question its authenticity, the leaker also provided a number of other documents.

 

https://archive.org/details/Intellivision-amico-pitch-deck/Intellivision Convertible Note Term Sheet - 20191114 - FINAL/

 

Of course, the actual contents of the pitch deck and the fact book should be treated with extreme skepticism. It's just the fact that they're genuine documents produced by the company that's beyond dispute.

I'm not doubting the existence of the document.  I only asked the source.  If it was leaked by an employee rather from a potential investor than we don't know if it was presented to investors in that form.  There are other parts of that document that are more problematic than listing a bunch of corporations that they'd like to have purchase the company.  Discussions have been about what their employees have said.  Whether they are true is another matter. 

Edited July 11, 2023 by mr_me

[MrBeefy]

1 hour ago, digdugnate said: