AtariAge + Atari Q&A

[M-S]

15 hours ago, TrogdarRobusto said:

We are working with multiple distro partners at the moment. Limited Run is the only one who use the preorder + single production run model. It really isn't the only way we distribute titles. You can go online right now and order Days of Doom, Atari 50, Haunted House and Rollercoaster Tycoon Adventures Deluxe from Walmart, Best Buy, GameStop and Target. We will continue to do projects with Limited Run from time to time. They make a good product and they are legit gamers and fans of games. 

 

Here me out on this M-S ...  and sorry if I sound a bit strident that isn't really my intent.

I can tell you that much of the video is incorrect. I lost an hour of my life watching it. Long on conjecture, short on facts. Some odd complaints and a lot of ranting. You don't get 400k with a fair, sober look at an issue. You get 400k clicks by claiming to uncover a dark conspiracy. I took the time to refute a bunch of the claims in this video and then decided not to bother and deleted a few paragraphs of this post. Not my job to litigate this line by line.  I will say that many of the the things the narrator "uncovered" ... those dark secrets ... Limited Run spells them out in their buying guide https://limitedrungames.com/pages/buying-guide. 

 I haven't had the time to post here exactly what I wanted to say, but I'll try to explain it better. I'm not saying Atari should immediately stop releasing through Limited Run Games because they are a scam, but some games like System Shock and Atari Mania will never be available physically again that way. And with all respect to Days of Doom, but do you think it has more "mass appeal" than games like Quake Remaster and the Recharged Collection?

 And sorry, I didn't expect you to sit through the whole video I linked, which is from 2 years ago, and some things have in fact changed for better, but the core of the company still is based on a similar principle. You said this new Atari wanted to be more "pro consumer", but have you seen the reactions people had on this forum when the 100$ Atari collectible cartridges were announced? Compare that to what people have said about Mr Run n' Jump and Berzerk, which are available for a more reasonable price. The Recharged Collection was even worse, they decided to split it into 2 even though the 4 games would fit into the same cartridge/disc just fine, can't even call it a collection.

 In conclusion, Atari can continue to sell these collectable games and deluxe editions, it's fine, but good companies are about giving options to their consumers, so I just ask you to consider releasing these limited physical games in other ways too.

[guppy]

33 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

Did you know that none of the people that worked at Nintendo in 1889   work there any longer , it's shocking I know, maybe we should start treating Nintendo like we treat Atari because clearly it's not the same company it was before ( at least going by the logic of insufferable Reddit nerd's ).

Yes, but you're not making a good point there. 

 

Not everyone who has an opinion is "insufferable".

"Hey, did you know that you can apply logic that works in one situation to a completely different but superficially similar situation to show that the logic is absurd?"

 

The details do matter.

Nintendo became relevant to video gaming around the time they started making video games.  Whether that be arcade cabinets, game and watch, or the Famicom. 

Nintendo have had continuity of operation since that time until the present.

Nintendo fans DO complain about changes in the way Nintendo does business, and they do have favorite eras that they wish the company could somehow return to.  Sometimes gamers/collectors even say they wish Nintendo would go back to making Hanafuda playing cards, just so they could buy some OG Nintendo merchandise.  Or hanafuda cards that incorporate modern Nintendo video game characters.
 

It's also completely valid to give feedback on what a business does, whether or not it's the "same business" as it was before or not.  Praise, disappointment, criticism, hate, wish list, whatever.  The feedback may be good or bad, mistaken or spot on.  
 

... So what?  What is your point exactly?  This is a thread about Atari and AtariAge merging, and what Atari ought to do to ensure that the community at AtariAge remains strong and vital

[guppy]

31 minutes ago, JPF997 said:

So where does that leave young Atari fans like me , the Atari that I grew up with is the modern Atari SA, the Atari games I have nostalgia for are games like roller coaster tycoon 3, Superman shadow of the apokolips, Enter the Matrix, alone in the dark 2008, demolition racer, v rally, test drive, dragon ball Budokai and Tenkaichi,  Driver 3 etc. What I'm just supposed to take it in the chin and go with the narrative that modern Atari is not legitimate, I can tell you right now I have no intention of doing so, Atari SA is the real Atari for me. (also sorry I responded to the wrong person) 

It's a different era of Atari.  Still part of the history of the Atari name and brand.  I don't know all the details of that history, so I don't know what personnel stayed on or what business entities continued to exist into that era beyond the Jaguar.  It could be there's more continuity than I am aware of. 

 

There's room for players who enjoyed those games too, of course.    There are parts of the forums where those things are on-topic.  

 

But as far as homebrew... what would they be?  Modders of modern PC games are modders.  They release mod patches, not romhacks.  Often modding is officially permitted/encouraged for modern games. 

 

You wouldn't call a "homebrew developer" who makes original games that target Windows PC as the runtime platform an "Atari homebrew developer" just because the Atari logo appears on splash screens for some PC games that were produced during the Windows era.  

 

My point being, the concerns about Atari taking over AtariAge primarily seem to be about he homebrew scene being impacted by Atari's ownership necessitating changes with regard to the way the homebrew scene can operate.  And somewhere in that discussion I made a point that the homebrew scene had shouldered the legacy of software development for the legacy consoles that the original Atari had brought to market, and that gave the homebrew scene a morally greater claim to legitimacy with regard to those platforms than the current Atari has, despite its legal ownership of the names and trademarks.

Since they're now one entity, that's almost a moot point, I guess.  Except for that the individual homebrew programmers aren't Atari employees; they're independent. So they still have some concerns, opinions, etc. I think we all hope that whatever comes out of this acquisition, the disruption to what the community of independent homebrew developers has built will be minimized.  Unfortunately as we've already seen the disruption will not be zero.

[ApolloBoy]

5 hours ago, zzip said:

Atari Games was the arcade portion of Atari that Tramiel didn't want.

It was really more the portion that Warner wanted to keep since it was still making money, whereas the consumer division was bleeding money at an alarming rate by that point and Warner was itching to get rid of it.

[zzip]

5 minutes ago, guppy said:

It's a different era of Atari.  Still part of the history of the Atari name and brand.  I don't know all the details of that history, so I don't know what personnel stayed on or what business entities continued to exist into that era beyond the Jaguar.  It could be there's more continuity than I am aware of. 

 

There's room for players who enjoyed those games too, of course.    There are parts of the forums where those things are on-topic.  

It was Infrogrames, who was an Ubisoft-like publisher who acquired the Atari name and changed their entire company name to "Atari".   They were based in France, so it's not likely they had any old employees.

 

At the time I found it a little bit much to swallow...  on one hand it was cool that the name was back from the dead,  on the other hand,  the games that they were publishing didn't feel like proper Atari games, even though I liked a lot of the games they published.   Atari was "supposed" to be arcade/action games, not Dungeon and Dragons RPGs,  or point and click Tycoon games.    Guess it didn't help that they were using that fat-fuji logo instead of the classic one.   

 

Then a funny thing happened,  they went bankrupt and that era came to a close.  I started to actually miss the time when Atari was a relevant publisher of modern games!   I suppose the moral of the story is just be glad the brand is still around in some form doing something..   because given the history, you never know how long it's going to last

 

[zzip]

22 minutes ago, ApolloBoy said:

It was really more the portion that Warner wanted to keep since it was still making money, whereas the consumer division was bleeding money at an alarming rate by that point and Warner was itching to get rid of it.

Could be,  but seeing that Jack was mainly interested in creating a new C64,  I doubt he had much interest in the arcade division so it was likely a mutual agreement

[Raiu]

On the subject of the split, Atari Games was rather successful for a while the Atari consumer division was struggling.  Marble Madness, Paperboy, Gauntlet/Gauntlet II, 720°, Blasteroids, Cyberball/Cyberball 2072, Klax, Tetris (!), and Rampart were always popular in the local arcades, and Primal Rage and even Pit Fighter grabbed attention even if they were ultimately panned.  That's not a complete list.

 

On the subject of the 7800, I honestly think it would have done better if it had been released in 1984, rather than held back until the NES was already dominating the market to try to compete with it.  It didn't have a killer app like Nintendo did with Super Mario Bros, most of the first wave of games were the same old arcade ports that the 2600 and 5200 and most computer systems already had, and the tech was noticeably outdated in 1986 (with graphics that were still nowhere near arcade-perfect and sound effects that ... well, it used the 2600's sound chip, so nuff said there).

 

(On the subject of Atari Age being bought by Atari, I still ain't made my mind up yet about Toledo whether it'll ultimately be a good thing.  I'm going to just wait and see. I'm cautiously optimistic, even if I still don't exactly like it)

Edited September 12, 2023 by Raiu
Wanted to add that paragraph about the 7800. Get it out of my system. My PRO SYSTEM, if you will, yuk yuk yuk.

[Bakasama]

5 minutes ago, zzip said:

It was Infrogrames, who was an Ubisoft-like publisher who acquired the Atari name and changed their entire company name to "Atari".   They were based in France, so it's not likely they had any old employees.

 

At the time I found it a little bit much to swallow...  on one hand it was cool that the name was back from the dead,  on the other hand,  the games that they were publishing didn't feel like proper Atari games, even though I liked a lot of the games they published.   Atari was "supposed" to be arcade/action games, not Dungeon and Dragons RPGs,  or point and click Tycoon games.    Guess it didn't help that they were using that fat-fuji logo instead of the classic one.   

 

Then a funny thing happened,  they went bankrupt and that era came to a close.  I started to actually miss the time when Atari was a relevant publisher of modern games!   I suppose the moral of the story is just be glad the brand is still around in some form doing something..   because given the history, you never know how long it's going to last

 

I remember a time when Bally/Midway made some best pinball games and now their IPs are owned by Time Warner.

[Albert]

Just now, Bakasama said:

I remember a time when Bally/Midway made some best pinball games and now their IPs are owned by Time Warner.

Yeah, that was a golden time in Pinball, so many amazing games were created during that time.  I have a Star Trek: Next Generation machine from Williams.  Also a Black Knight 2000 from Williams, but that was much earlier.

 

 ..Al

[roots.genoa]

4 hours ago, zzip said:

Who owns the Epyx and Datasoft catalogs?

I don't know but there are both Epyx and Datasoft games on Evercade carts (Lynx and C64), so that would be feasible at least.

 

2 hours ago, Nall3k said:

Is Sega still the same Sega from 20+ years ago? Most of their original developers have left or passed away, their hardware division is gone, and they merged with Sammy.

No it's not, they only sold the game centers, but they still create arcade games. That being said, as a former SEGA gamer, the SEGA of today has almost nothing to do with the SEGA from 20+ years ago, clearly. PC wargames and football management are really not my thing. 😔

 

1 hour ago, zzip said:

the Amiga is really an Atari machine because of Jay Miner.

While the ST is a Commodore machine... My head hurts. 😅

[+jgkspsx]

1 hour ago, GoldLeader said:

SEGA Never went after its fans.

 

 

 

Sega issues MANY more cease and desist letters than Nintendo does.

[roots.genoa]

57 minutes ago, guppy said:

Sometimes gamers/collectors even say they wish Nintendo would go back to making Hanafuda playing cards, just so they could buy some OG Nintendo merchandise.

Uh when I hear people say that, they usually mean they want Nintendo to stop making video games (because they hate them). Nintendo is still making cards anyway, including Hanafuda.

 

That being said, I agree with everything else you said. 😉

[Nall3k]

7 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

I don't know but there are both Epyx and Datasoft games on Evercade carts (Lynx and C64), so that would be feasible at least.

 

No it's not, they only sold the game centers, but they still create arcade games. That being said, as a former SEGA gamer, the SEGA of today has almost nothing to do with the SEGA from 20+ years ago, clearly. PC wargames and football management are really not my thing. 😔

 

While the ST is a Commodore machine... My head hurts. 😅

I should have specified, their console hardware division is gone.

[desiv]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

But on the other hand, a lot of people over the years have used that logic to claim the Amiga is really an Atari machine because of Jay Miner.

While I don't agree with the concept that the Amiga is an Atari machine per se, I think the people who say that are talking about more just just Jay...

As I understand it, several of the core Atari designers left to design the Amiga...

 

I personally think the "is this the real Atari" concept is silly.

It's quantum in a way.  They are and they aren't Atari.

 

And it really doesn't matter, at least to me...

 

I mean, when I got my 7800 (my first Atari) about 20 years ago, I found out about AtariAge and this place became my source for everything Atari.

I suppose, to me, that means AtariAge was Atari.   

I think they "reverse bought Atari SA" and are combining the fold within themselves.   

Edited September 12, 2023 by desiv

[TrogdarRobusto]

53 minutes ago, M-S said:

 I haven't had the time to post here exactly what I wanted to say, but I'll try to explain it better. I'm not saying Atari should immediately stop releasing through Limited Run Games because they are a scam, but some games like System Shock and Atari Mania will never be available physically again that way. And with all respect to Days of Doom, but do you think it has more "mass appeal" than games like Quake Remaster and the Recharged Collection?

 And sorry, I didn't expect you to sit through the whole video I linked, which is from 2 years ago, and some things have in fact changed for better, but the core of the company still is based on a similar principle. You said this new Atari wanted to be more "pro consumer", but have you seen the reactions people had on this forum when the 100$ Atari collectible cartridges were announced? Compare that to what people have said about Mr Run n' Jump and Berzerk, which are available for a more reasonable price. The Recharged Collection was even worse, they decided to split it into 2 even though the 4 games would fit into the same cartridge/disc just fine, can't even call it a collection.

 In conclusion, Atari can continue to sell these collectable games and deluxe editions, it's fine, but good companies are about giving options to their consumers, so I just ask you to consider releasing these limited physical games in other ways too.

It is all good. I watched the video because you took the time to send it to me, and I want to take your input seriously. Granted, it did set me off a little  but I hear you. Not everything can and should be limited. There is a lot of thinking that goes into how to handle physical for every game. I am not saying the LRG's business is flawless ... 

 

Days of Doom I think will have retail shelf appeal. The chibi character art, the cover art, the post-apocalyptical theme. I think it will do fine. People really seem to like playing the game .. it was always a busy demo station at PAX West. And, the marketing benefits of being in big box retail are huge ... 

We can release System Shock and Atari Mania again in physical form, just not with Limited Run, and not until the Limited Run exclusivity period ends. As I said, if there is a market, we will do it. Atari Mania is coming out next spring in Europe at retail. Akka Arrh was also released in Europe with a different distro partner. Both of those were handled by LRG in the states. It is interesting. LRG through that two games per pack for Recharged would work best with their audience, and it did pretty well. In Europe we are doing 4-games per cart/disc, but we are also going to mass retail. We will get to compare performance and adjust based on what we see.

The $149.99 price of some of the XP carts was a high-point in our pricing so far with carts. Definitely targeted collectors.  The newer XP carts at $59.99 are priced lower, but they are also less complicated carts with less in the box. Label instead of painted surface on the cart. Less pack-ins, No light-up etched Lucite top. Still high quality, but different. The issue with these very short run/low quantity cartridge releases is that you don't get a lot of economy of scale that help you reduce retail price. With the Atari 2600+ coming we hopefully see a larger install base, which means more people are buying cartridges, and we are making carts in larger quantities which helps us bring down costs. 

Plus they are cool. 

[MegaManFan]

On 9/11/2023 at 9:04 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

My stomach feeling here is, that us older, long time members are more pessimistic than the newer ones.

I respectfully disagree Thomas. I've been here since as close to day one as possible and I'm very optimistic about this move, but as you're a developer I entirely understand the myriad number of concerns you've raised, and as a fan of your work I hope that all of them are fully addressed to your satisfaction.

[+Sauron]

1 minute ago, MegaManFan said:

I respectfully disagree Thomas. I've been here since as close to day one as possible and I'm very optimistic about this move, but as you're a developer I entirely understand the myriad number of concerns you've raised, and as a fan of your work I hope that all of them are fully addressed to your satisfaction.

Yeah same here. Although I don't know if I really count as a "long-time member"...does more than 20 years on this site count? 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Yeah same here. Although I don't know if I really count as a "long-time member"...does more than 20 years on this site count? 

Either you are exceptions to the rule. Or my stomach is getting old too.  

[PacManPlus]

Now I'm wishing I could have made it to PRGE this year. 

 

[GraffitiTavern]

34 minutes ago, Raiu said:

On the subject of the 7800, I honestly think it would have done better if it had been released in 1984, rather than held back until the NES was already dominating the market to try to compete with it.

I think it would have been better if they worked more closely with Atari Games, imagine if the 7800 got Paperboy and the Tengen titles, while Atari Games could release official follow-ups to the classics like Asteroids and Centipede. The notable collab they did was the COJAG board for Area 51 and it was a huge hit.

[zzip]

12 minutes ago, desiv said:

While I don't agree with the concept that the Amiga is an Atari machine per se, I think the people who say that are talking about more just just Jay...

As I understand it, several of the core Atari designers left to design the Amiga...

True, there was a team.   Also I think the fact that Atari had the rights to the Amiga (until Commodore swooped in at the last minute) stings.  

 

But we don't really know what the Amiga under Atari would have looked like.    Supposedly they were working on a console design for the chips and/or use it in an unreleased 1850XLD.    It may have been quite a bit different from the Amiga we know and love today. Maybe the project would have gone the way of the Transputer once Jack was in charge?  Keeping the chipset out of Commodore's hands being enough reward for him?

[zzip]

13 minutes ago, GraffitiTavern said:

I think it would have been better if they worked more closely with Atari Games, imagine if the 7800 got Paperboy and the Tengen titles, while Atari Games could release official follow-ups to the classics like Asteroids and Centipede. The notable collab they did was the COJAG board for Area 51 and it was a huge hit.

If the sale had not happened,  the 7800 would have released in 84 and almost certainly Atari would have continued to port their arcade titles to their home systems.   Also Nintendo did not want to compete with this Atari iteration so they may never have entered the American market.

[carlsson]

45 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Sega issues MANY more cease and desist letters than Nintendo does.

Maybe most people realize they shouldn't mess with Nintendo properties, or remain as anonymous as possible if they do, while Sega has less of a reputation to protect their IP so more people are trying to make money or get credits from it, and get surprised when they are struck down? It reminds me of that infographic from a survey which animals people think they would be able to beat without weapons: less than 10% think they can fight a grizzly bear but nearly 20% think they could defeat a chimpanzee (*).

 

(*) With that said, I am NOT comparing Sega to a chimpanzee.

[TrogdarRobusto]

so, what is the state of the Amiga platform in the opinion of this group? Hardware? Software? What is the appetite for Amiga content?

[Flojomojo]

3 minutes ago, TrogdarRobusto said:

so, what is the state of the Amiga platform in the opinion of this group? Hardware? Software? What is the appetite for Amiga content?

Sir, this is AtariAge, not https://www.amigalove.com/