Alien Abduction (by John Van Ryzin) - (WAS in VCS Store - removed)

[+jeremiahjt]

The new levels were created by David Crane after John Van Ryzin sold the rights to Audacity Games. Do you people complaining about not getting the full game expect David Crane to supply Atari with his additional work for free, so people that bought the game previously can experience his new content? John Van Ryzin made a playable game with 20 levels and Atari sold that game, a full game mind you, for a commensurate price. Nobody bought an incomplete game.

 

As far as Atari taking the game down, that is probably because Audacity Games, the current rights holder, does not want the game being sold on a system that they have nothing to do with. Now could Atari and Audacity Games come up with an agreement in the future, sure, but they are under no obligation.

 

Now Atari should make the game redownloadable to anyone who has already purchased it. My guess is that they are working on that. If they do not, a refund would be in order.

[TrogdarRobusto]

Van Ryzin did pull the game from the VCS store, I can confirm that. 

The VCS team is working on a solution to make sure games that have been removed from the store are still available for download by individuals who have purchased them. We already have a patch in testing and expect it to be rolled out within the next week or so. 

 

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

17 minutes ago, TrogdarRobusto said:

Van Ryzin did pull the game from the VCS store, I can confirm that. 

The VCS team is working on a solution to make sure games that have been removed from the store are still available for download by individuals who have purchased them. We already have a patch in testing and expect it to be rolled out within the next week or so. 

 

This is great news in regards to the patch, no more having to contact Atari to get any games pushed to your system if they get removed from the Atari VCS store then 😀! This should have been put in place ages ago but it's really good its being worked on now. I also knew Van Ryzin would have been the one to request the removal of the game from the Atari VCS store. Like all the other times. I enjoyed his recent interview on ZPH but you could tell from the interview he isn't one for waiting around and clearly just had enough of being promised a physical release of Alien Abduction from Atari for over a year. He also came across as pretty annoyed that someone ported Hero to the Amstrad CPC 464 even though he said it looked good, i swear i heard talk of lawyer's 🤣

[TrogdarRobusto]

16 minutes ago, Atari_JaguarVCS said:

 This should have been put in place ages ago but it's really good its being worked on now.

Agreed ... we have a new team in place that will start to properly address some of these things we have been working around as best we can. 

[TrogdarRobusto]

I have no interest in diving into any controversy but I can say that "being promised a physical release of Alien Abduction from Atari for over a year" is not accurate based upon what I have heard. Seems an odd claim.  

[amidarman]

Is the game really going to be that much better for having 40 more levels?  Original Hero game seemed fine with 20 levels and I guess sold for $30 when new.  I would pay that much for the original 20 level version of Alien Abduction.

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

1 hour ago, amidarman said:

Is the game really going to be that much better for having 40 more levels?  Original Hero game seemed fine with 20 levels and I guess sold for $30 when new.  I would pay that much for the original 20 level version of Alien Abduction.

I would say the 20 levels on the Atari VCS 800 version is more than plenty. I certainly couldn't see myself sitting through more levels than that, no matter how much i enjoyed Alien Abduction. I still feel ripped of though as we got what looks like a demo now but i guess that's the way it goes.

[Mockduck]

This game sure does have a history! I remember one of the original reasons the game got released on the VCS is that JVR approached Audacity with it and they wanted to expand the game significantly then release it through their label, similar to the size and scope of Circus Convoy. So, instead of going through them he approached Atari and got the digital release on the VCS, which is/was awesome. At some point there was talk about JVR and Atari discussing a physical release, although it was never clear how solid nor formal that discussion was. The game bounced in and out of the VCS Store due to a video showing how easy it is to circumvent the VCS' (lack of) copy protection at the time. Then, apparently, JVR re-engaged with Audacity, sounds like David Crane himself expanded the game, and now it's getting a physical and digital release everywhere Atari except for the VCS, and the VCS is being deliberately abandoned by JVR along with abandoning the people who financially supported him earlier due to sour grapes over a lack of movement on Atari's XP/physical part. 

[E. King]

I think the word "circumvent" is a poor choice of words. You can't "circumvent" something that is non-existent. Accessing your own games and your own files on your own PC is totally legit and should not be in any way looked down upon since Atari themselves designed the VCS to be mini pc. When the VCS originally launched part of the marketing was "It is your computer, you own it, we want you to hack it". Even with that said, there is no such thing as "hacking" your own computer that you own.  Clicking on your own computer files and opening your own computer folders is 100% legitimate especially since Atari themselves sold us a PC Mode USB stick that allows access of our game files that we paid our money to Atari for.

 

Also, to be fair to John Van Ryzin, Audacity is without a doubt a much better publishing option for a physical cartridge than Atari after all the insanity that has happened over the last couple years with the XP/LE line.

 

David Crane apparently added an additional 60 levels to complete the game to bring the game up to Audacity standards of quality. Just because we were sold an incomplete game for $9 we knew at the time we were getting 20 levels so we got what we paid for and can't expect Audacity to put the full game up on the VCS since they are in the business of selling real physical cartridges for the real Atari 2600 console.

 

Audacity now basically owns the game as the completing developer and publisher so if they see it in their best interest to cut ties with the VCS then that is their prerogative to do so.

 

Like I said earlier, Audacity is primarily in the business of making Atari 2600 physical game cartridges that run on real Atari 2600 hardware. That is their main focus and their quality of work for Atari 2600 so far with Circus Convoy and now the final complete version of 80 level Alien Abduction, far surpasses anything Atari has done recently for the 2600.

 

Mr Run & Jump 2600 is not even in the same ballpark and they took people's money nearly a year ago with the promise to ship in 3 to 4 months and here we are now going on a year and the people at Atari thinks this is business as usual. 

Edited June 19 by E. King

[+jeremiahjt]

5 hours ago, Mockduck said:

JVR approached Audacity with it and they wanted to expand the game significantly then release it through their label

Audacity Games approached John Van Ryzin. He made the game and showed Audacity. Audacity wanted him to add some more stuff. He got Tennis Elbow from developing the game and could not do what Audacity wanted. He then went to Atari with the game.

 

5 hours ago, E. King said:

Mr Run & Jump 2600 is not even in the same ballpark and they took people's money nearly a year ago with the promise to ship in 3 to 4 months and here we are now going on a year and the people at Atari thinks this is business as usual. 

Mr. Run and Jump was released on cartridge months ago. The collectors edition is still not released, but the game has been released.

[E. King]

22 minutes ago, jeremiahjt said:

Mr. Run and Jump was released on cartridge months ago. The collectors edition is still not released, but the game has been released.

When did I say it wasn't released?

 

Atari took the money for the "collectors edition" way before they even offered the standard edition.

There is no defending these borderline scam lying tactics by Atari when they knowingly, repeatedly gave false shipping promises to their customers.

[TwiliteZoner]

Judging by this video of the Audacity Games version being played the game has 20 initial levels and then once level 20 is completed it unlocks "Hero" mode to add the additional levels to the game. 

 

 

Edited June 19 by TwiliteZoner

[E. King]

On 6/14/2024 at 7:02 PM, Mockduck said:

Really isn't ok to take this away from people who purchased it. There is no ability to re-download. 

It looks like Atari has fixed their VCS store to now allow people who purchased Tailgunner and Alien Abduction to be able to have easy access to the download.

 

Nice job Atari!

Edited June 22 by E. King

[scifidude79]

I didn't even know this was an issue, since it's been installed on my VCS expansion drive since I bought it. However, it's nice to know that they fixed the problem with it not being up for re-download, in case I ever need to do that. Games get de-listed on stores like Steam from time to time, but they still appear in your library and are available to download. It's nice to know that Atari is doing that as well.

[SoyBoy]

Are there any more games that have been removed from the store except for Alien Abduction and Tailgunner?

[Atari_JaguarVCS]

2 hours ago, SoyBoy said:

Are there any more games that have been removed from the store except for Alien Abduction and Tailgunner?

4th and Inches

[+swlovinist]

On 6/22/2024 at 6:01 AM, scifidude79 said:

I didn't even know this was an issue, since it's been installed on my VCS expansion drive since I bought it. However, it's nice to know that they fixed the problem with it not being up for re-download, in case I ever need to do that. Games get de-listed on stores like Steam from time to time, but they still appear in your library and are available to download. It's nice to know that Atari is doing that as well.

I am pretty sure that I purchased Alien Abduction.   Is there a simple walkthrough to get games delisted that people have purchased redownloaded?    Where do I navigate on the VCS to download this game again?   Any help would be most appreciated.   

[Mockduck]

On 7/4/2024 at 10:31 AM, swlovinist said:

I am pretty sure that I purchased Alien Abduction.   Is there a simple walkthrough to get games delisted that people have purchased redownloaded?    Where do I navigate on the VCS to download this game again?   Any help would be most appreciated.   

If you purchased Alien Abduction from the VCS Store before it was removed it should just show up for you in the VCS Store, I didn't even have to search for it other than scroll through the list until I found it.

[Aking]

On 6/18/2024 at 7:15 PM, Atari_JaguarVCS said:

I would say the 20 levels on the Atari VCS 800 version is more than plenty. I certainly couldn't see myself sitting through more levels than that, no matter how much i enjoyed Alien Abduction. I still feel ripped of though as we got what looks like a demo now but i guess that's the way it goes.

yep 20 levels is more than enough , it's an average game at most.