Opening Screen on the VCS

[bluenomadgaming]

I love the Asteroids screen when you turn on the VCS. It reminds me of the Sega games that would play with the SEGA logo at the beginning of games.   I wish with a future update, you got different games featured when you booted up your system.  
 

Like the eyes from Haunted House, or Missile command stuff falling towards the logo.  What would you like to see as the opening?

[+sramirez2008]

9 minutes ago, bluenomadgaming said:

I love the Asteroids screen when you turn on the VCS.

Asteroids is my favorite coin-op. I have copies of it for my Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Lynx, Vectrex and Colecovision, so I'm very happy that it was chosen as the boot up screen.🙂 I'm fine with Asteroids.

[bluenomadgaming]

1 minute ago, sramirez2008 said:

Asteroids is my favorite coin-op. I have copies of it for my Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Lynx, Vectrex and Colecovision, so I'm very happy that it was chosen as the boot up screen.🙂 I'm fine with Asteroids.

Asteroids is awesome and the recharged version is super fun as well.  I just like variety in my log in screens.  

[+sramirez2008]

2 minutes ago, bluenomadgaming said:

Asteroids is awesome and the recharged version is super fun as well.  I just like variety in my log in screens.  

I hear ya. If I had to pick another, I'd like to see Battlezone on Startup. I always liked the way it runs its demo mode with screen glitch when your tank takes a hit.

[joeatari1]

I'm a Centipede guy (I actually like Millipede better), so...  Yeah that's the one I'd like.  When the VCS was being created, there were multiple confirmations that the startup screen could be changed.  I'd like to see it refreshed to maybe a randomly selected startup screen.  One time it's Asteroids, next it's Centipede, next Haunted House and so on.  Maybe have a rotating selection of 6 to 10 different screens.

[+jeremiahjt]

8 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

I hear ya. If I had to pick another, I'd like to see Battlezone on Startup. I always liked the way it runs its demo mode with screen glitch when your tank takes a hit.

I doubt Atari would want to pay licensing fees to Rebellion just for a startup attract mode.

[+sramirez2008]

Just now, jeremiahjt said:

I doubt Atari would want to pay licensing fees to Rebellion just for a startup attract mode.

It'll never happen, but I would love to see it. 

[+jeremiahjt]

Just now, sramirez2008 said:

It'll never happen, but I would love to see it. 

I am actually hoping we get word that Atari has reacquired the rights to Battlezone from Rebellion.  Atari has been doing some acquisitions lately, so I could see it happening. Maybe we can ask @davpa to ask around Atari to see if this has any chance of ever coming to fruition.

[joeatari1]

1 minute ago, jeremiahjt said:

I am actually hoping we get word that Atari has reacquired the rights to Battlezone from Rebellion.  Atari has been doing some acquisitions lately, so I could see it happening. Maybe we can ask @davpa to ask around Atari to see if this has any chance of ever coming to fruition.

NDAs and I'm sure davpa would love to keep his job.  If he were to release information that could jeopardize a potential acquisition deal then he would not be working for Atari anymore (they already had a guy lose his job because of that).  That said, anything is possible with Atari right now.  There was some chatter about acquiring the older Activision IPs form Micro$oft, and the silence on Discord from the Atari employees was golden!  All of a sudden they clammed up, so you know something is in the works because they can't talk about it.  Whether it comes to fruition or not remains to be seen.

[+jeremiahjt]

12 hours ago, joeatari1 said:

NDAs and I'm sure davpa would love to keep his job.  If he were to release information that could jeopardize a potential acquisition deal then he would not be working for Atari anymore (they already had a guy lose his job because of that).  That said, anything is possible with Atari right now.  There was some chatter about acquiring the older Activision IPs form Micro$oft, and the silence on Discord from the Atari employees was golden!  All of a sudden they clammed up, so you know something is in the works because they can't talk about it.  Whether it comes to fruition or not remains to be seen.

Literally nobody has asked davpa to release insider information.  Not everything said within the walls of a company constitutes company secrets.

[davpa]

On 7/16/2023 at 1:38 AM, jeremiahjt said:

I am actually hoping we get word that Atari has reacquired the rights to Battlezone from Rebellion.  Atari has been doing some acquisitions lately, so I could see it happening. Maybe we can ask @davpa to ask around Atari to see if this has any chance of ever coming to fruition.

Yes, @joeatari1, I would love to keep my job!  As far as I know, there is no deal being worked on with Rebellion.  The problem is that the IP acquisitions are headed by a tiny circle of the top brass of Atari, including Wade Rosen. If I understand correctly, Wade was the one that started out on the mission to get Berzerk when he first started as CEO. So most of those details are not revealed to the rest of Atari until much, much later.  Hell, I didn't even know about the Berzerk purchase until they made the public announcement. So what they are working on is a mystery to even Atari employees.

 

As a personal observation, I don't see a ton of value in paying for the title Battlezone. Yes, Battlezone was a big title in the 80s and many of us love that arcade cabinet.  Memberberries galore. The thing is, Atari has IPs that are similar to Battlezone already: Air-sea Battle, Tank (1, 2, and 3), Ultra Tank, and Combat just to name a few. Combat is arguably more iconic and more important of a brand than Battlezone. So while I'm a big fan of the original Battlezone (and the Battlezone Evolved from the collection made by Stainless Games in 2007), and feel bad they had to sell it off to keep the lights on back in the late 2000s, I don't think it makes a ton of business sense to go after Battlezone at this time. Rebellion is going to ask for a ton of money for that title, so you have to question whether Atari will be able to flip that around quickly enough to justify the cost. More importantly, can you achieve the same game under a different IP? In Battlezone's case, yes. There are other IPs already owned by Atari that can produce a Battlezone-like game, so the value of acquiring Battlezone is not that high vs the cost of getting it back.

 

Nobody likes to hear how a favorite title is evaluated under the lens of money.  You like Battlezone and you want Atari to have it back.  I get it.  I'd like to see it under Atari again too. I personally don't see the financial value of getting Battlezone back, but then again, Wade could be working on this as we speak.

 

So in conclusion, I've given you no straight answer to your question.  I thank you for your time and I'm contemplating a career in politics.

[+jeremiahjt]

12 minutes ago, davpa said:

Wade was the one that started out on the mission to get Berzerk when he first started as CEO.

Has he said anything about why he wanted Berzerk? Was he a fan, or did he just see potential in the IP?

[zzip]

1 hour ago, davpa said:

I don't think it makes a ton of business sense to go after Battlezone at this time. Rebellion is going to ask for a ton of money for that title, so you have to question whether Atari will be able to flip that around quickly enough to justify the cost. More importantly, can you achieve the same game under a different IP?

Hell the Battlezone game that Rebellion put out doesn't have all that much resemblance to the arcade original anyway, so if Atari made a 3D tank game under the name "Combat", Rebellion would have a hard time proving damages I think.

[davpa]

1 hour ago, jeremiahjt said:

Has he said anything about why he wanted Berzerk? Was he a fan, or did he just see potential in the IP?

I don't sit with Wade and have drinks, so I don't know the full motivation, but I've been told it started out as basically "I love Berzerk, let's see if this is possible."  From what people tell me, Wade starts out with "is it fun?" thoughts and then goes through the practical and due diligence process after the "is it fun" thought.  Wade is a gamer, so he first thinks as a gamer in many ways. There certainly had to be a motivation to show the gaming world that Atari was not a company that sheds its IPs anymore, but one that is active and doing things.

Edited July 18, 2023 by davpa
grammar