What would you like Atari to produce of modern games?

[Giles N]

Ok, so with Atari doing the line-up of recharged games, continuing support for the VCS, releasing the 2600+, obtaining new IPs and firms, doing the PolyMega project, and most likely to re-issue old titles on physical carts, a question remains (some would say, questions will now flood in, its only begun, but I want to bring up one) And as AtariAge now is owned by Atari, and we users/buyers are here to word our opinions, I’d be really interested in the general interest here for where Atari (official) should head with game-developement, game-production, game-releases/products.

 

I’m all ears.

 

Bring it on!

[Wildstar]

I'll focus my answer to Question 6:

 

For example: I am looking at making a game that would run on VCS, PC, and potentially Android smart phones/tablets with Tilt Five.

Those who don't know what Tilt Five is: http://www.tiltfive.com

 

For example, I'm doing a sort of remake of a game I had worked on (with a couple others) for the Commodore 64. This game like many

others fits into the arcade genre and would be adaptable well for the Tilt Five (with some adjustments). I would encourage Atari to possibly

make games supporting Tilt Five and potentially make some deal with Tilt Five even with possible bundle deals so if they have a new console

or something and have a bundle with a T5 that can be ordered. T5 gets their money and Atari makes money and encourage sales of T5 units.

 

Even potential "arcade kits".

[famicommander]

How about wide Linux releases? There are a ton of games on the VCS store (including most of the Recharged games) that don't actually have native Linux versions for sale on GOG or Steam. Since the VCS is indeed just running Linux and they're already selling Windows (and in some cases Mac) versions it would seem a trivial matter to sell generic Linux versions on the major storefronts.

Edited September 16, 2023 by famicommander

[Wildstar]

9 minutes ago, famicommander said:

How about wide Linux releases? There are a ton of games on the VCS store (including most of the Recharged games) that don't actually have native Linux versions for sale on GOG or Steam. Since the VCS is indeed just running Linux and they're already selling Windows (and in some cases Mac) versions it would seem a trivial matter to sell generic Linux versions on the major storefronts.

I suppose they could do that for their games. I would likely have a wide net release with the Tilt Five and any future successor or related

tech as a supported accessory. 

 

I wouldn't be able to make those games I make that supports T5 run on old 8-bit system for obvious reasons. Doesn't stop me from making

8-bit releases of games built around those systems.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Wildstar

[Giles N]

You can also throw in votes in the poll.

Could be fun to see if something sticks out after a while.

[LatchKeyKid]

The game maker studio question interests and excites me the most out of all the questions.

[SwanSong]

I want to see Atari finish what they started with jaguar, it's capable of a bit more and then some lynx, them were my generation but I do have a 7800!

Remake the CD add on and expand that way as disk is way cheaper than a cart.

[Shaggy the Atarian]

Being an arcade guy, I have to agree with many of the Oldest School Atarians that the heart of Atari was in arcades and them getting back into that would be a better way to resurrect some of the IP, or create new ones. I think part of the problem the company has stumbled for so long is that they haven't had people there who really understands that market, as it is a different beast than consoles. I'd argue that most Atari 2600 games are "arcade" in nature, even aside from ports, which is also where it's been a challenge for them to revive in an exciting, memorable way.

 

Atari hasn't been completely absent from the arcade scene though. I'm not sure how many Atari fans know this but there have been a few Atari arcade licenses in recent memory

 

Centipede Chaos was created by a company out of Chicago called Play Mechanix (manufactured by a company called ICE). PM was founded by George Petro (Terminator 2 arcade, also did stuff for NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat) and is made up of several ex-Midway employees. They somewhat recently tested out an 8-player version of Asteroids but it apparently failed and was canned.

 

If you've seen the Atari PONG electromechanical games out there, that was designed by a French company then mass produced by a Chinese company called UNIS. 

 

A while back, an American company called Coastal Amusements redesigned Breakout on the iPad and released it as a video ticket redemption game. 

 

A lot more could be done, but developing and manufacturing arcade machines is not an easy endeavor and is very different from making consoles/carts/digital downloads. The way that the games play is also different, particularly if you want them to be successful. They'd need to put together a team that has some deep understanding of how that all works - which would be cool, but I don't know if that's in their wheelhouse.

 

All that aside, I've enjoyed the Recharged games all right but I think that some IPs could go beyond that, in the same sense that Bentley's Crystal Quest shook things up or what it looks like they are doing with Lunar Lander. I've got a couple of very early designs that I'm slowly working on in this regard but I'd prefer to develop them fully before starting to look for help on the coding side.

 

Ultimately though, they do need to continue to look at new IP, like they've done with Days of Doom or Pixel Ripper. Nostalgia shouldn't be forgotten but it can't be the only thing that a game company is built upon.   

Edited September 17, 2023 by Shaggy the Atarian
added hyperlinks

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

developing and manufacturing arcade machines is not an easy endeavor and is very different from making consoles/carts/digital downloads. The way that the games play is also different, particularly if you want them to be successful. They'd need to put together a team that has some deep understanding of how that all works - which would be cool, but I don't know if that's in their wheelhouse.

Many questions come up as one wouid begin to think about how modern contemporary Arcades would play and interact.

Thanks for the link to that video.

’social’ is an interesting aspect. The other aspects too, but they may be more obvious (like ‘simplicity’).

Whether or not Atari at the moment would have the money and production-means to pull it off, its an interesting idea to toy with:

what should arcades look, feel, soukd and play like today…?

 

I think that they of course should deliver visuals and sound of much, much higher quality than home-consoles (more like æ 7-10 gamer-PCs added up/combined together to run one game).

 

I think that having much larger screens - showing not only whats going on to the player, but screens showing the game-session to people watching, could be nice.

The arcade-cabinets being interlinked online, so that players from all around the world can join in the session, could make it more social. You either buy arcade-card account (an account with your player-profile, which you access by card) or without it you just become Player —> number, and join for that session.

But with player profiles it could become more like game-sports, only that people only get to know/see whats on your profile-data.

So whether its driving/racing games, or FPS-team or vs, or 3rd Person adventures, Space Combat or ehatever else, people use their account to show themselves m, or rather their Player-Self (rankings, wins and whatever else), and then the gaming feels more experiencing being part of an action-movie scene as to graphics, sound etc, with gameplays that are pick-up & play (simplicity).

 

If such cabinets would be then be set  in public spaces, it may put an upper limit on game-content, if everyone could watch how the player is doing, but, even at PG-level of intensity of effects, with graphics and sound and presentation becoming more cinematic/real in quality, it could still be little, local spectacle for people to watch and see if their ‘local player’ gets up there.

That would mean game-goals would have to be easily understood also by bystanders watching.

Well, that was some thoughts on the social part of it.

 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

57 minutes ago, Giles N said:

Many questions come up as one wouid begin to think about how modern contemporary Arcades would play and interact.

Thanks for the link to that video.

’social’ is an interesting aspect. The other aspects too, but they may be more obvious (like ‘simplicity’).

....its an interesting idea to toy with:

what should arcades look, feel, soukd and play like today…?

 

 

Fortunately there are several companies out there who have been making content for modern arcades and they've been successful at it - Raw Thrills, Sega Amusements, Bandai Namco, many others. Raw Thrills is run by Eugene Jarvis, which is a name most around here would be familiar with, and the guy who is the head of Bandai Namco's US arcade division did work at Atari Games early in his career.

 

Social gaming has always been an ace up the arcades' sleeve, whether that's linking multiple cabs together or offering 4,8, or 10 players. But as I'll get into below, how they play is different now than 40 years ago as today's arcade audiences don't like games that are hard, endless, or control with joysticks. 

Quote

Whether or not Atari at the moment would have the money and production-means to pull it off,

 

This is the tough part. The software development side of things tends to cost a few million $$$, that's NOT counting manufacturing/production of the cabinets. The popular Jurassic Park Arcade game cost $4m to develop; Sega hinted that the recent Daytona USA remake they did was about $3m. But that was all before inflation kicked into high gear so the numbers are probably higher now. There are ways to develop a game for less, such as the exA-Arcadia platform, which is kind of like the old Neo Geo MVS; There's also the Polycade which is done by one of Nolan Bushnell's son (Atari has licensed software out to it). Either of those would be the most economical route since you don't have to deal with cabinet production, but I don't think that Polycade exists in very many locations. ExA doesn't either but it is in more. 

 

I'm not 100% sure how much it costs to produce an arcade cabinet in terms of manufacturing but I do know that if you go that route, you have to purchase everything up-front - the wood, every bolt, the art, the monitor, PC, power supply, I/O board, controller molds and parts, etc. and labor. You also have to have a minimum production order, usually Raw Thrills does 100 units; So if you guess at what their cost is, say, $8000 a cab, multiply that by 100 and you know how much money it takes just for that element. It's a huge, expensive risk, which is why if a game doesn't test well like Asteroids, they won't move forward on it. 

 

Like I said though, if Atari hired a good team that really knows the business, they could make it work. They wouldn't have to setup their own cabinetry shop - there are a few different places out there who specializes in building cabinets for clients. But they'd have to create a few games that are just making bank out on location to tell them that it would be worth that kind of investment. It's just that most likely, the least risky and expensive way for them to get back into arcades is to continue to license existing IP out to places like Play Mechanix, where they have to take those financial risks.

 

Quote

I think that they of course should deliver visuals and sound of much, much higher quality than home-consoles (more like æ 7-10 gamer-PCs added up/combined together to run one game).

 

I think that having much larger screens - showing not only whats going on to the player, but screens showing the game-session to people watching, could be nice.

 

If such cabinets would be then be set  in public spaces, it may put an upper limit on game-content, if everyone could watch how the player is doing, but, even at PG-level of intensity of effects, with graphics and sound and presentation becoming more cinematic/real in quality, it could still be little, local spectacle for people to watch and see if their ‘local player’ gets up there.

That would mean game-goals would have to be easily understood also by bystanders watching.

Well, that was some thoughts on the social part of it.

Cabinet design is one major aspect of arcades but I think it ultimately comes down to what the game is like. I did a video about that, asking different arcade developers how they approach it:

 

 

A cabinet, the screen, and the graphics are all important in a modern arcade as that does help draw attention to it. The problem or challenge with that is that designing AAA-grade graphics is very expensive. You also have to be sure that the concept is sound enough to draw people in and draw them back over and over again. Redemption games earn well because they're fast and they give you a casino-like dopamine hit to play for tickets. Non-ticket games have a deeper challenge to create something that makes hundreds or thousands of dollars a week on location.

 

Everyone these days does create games with big screens - sometimes two. Here's the Super Deluxe model for Halo: Fireteam Raven that was released by Raw Thrills back in 2018:

 

 

More crazy than that is the new Fast & Furious Arcade, which has 2x 65" 4K screens per cabinet. This one is $25k per seat:

 

 

Or you've got Sega doing Mission: Impossible with 2x 55" screens in a different way. These SDX cabs have been popular for chains like Dave & Busters or Round1USA to grab. The issue is that they are a bit difficult for a small arcade op like me to have - in part due to space but mainly due to price. That model of Halo cost around $32k; Mission: Impossible costs around $28k. That's without going super crazy and also supporting things like raytracing in the graphics. I've asked and that would probably raise the cost of a machine $2~4000, depending (as it's not just the graphics card but the work in paying the artists during game development).

 

Still, I agree with your sentiment. One thing that's cool about arcades is that you can do things with displays, controls and cabinets that you can't do at home. The game is stupid, but Ice Man has done really well in many places out there since you shoot water at the screen. There are some ball toss video games here and there too. Or, with micro LED panels, you can create displays in uncommon shapes and sizes. Here's an upcoming game called Drakons which uses a perfect square screen, all with those LEDs:

 

 

Quote

The arcade-cabinets being interlinked online, so that players from all around the world can join in the session, could make it more social. You either buy arcade-card account (an account with your player-profile, which you access by card) or without it you just become Player —> number, and join for that session.

But with player profiles it could become more like game-sports, only that people only get to know/see whats on your profile-data.

So whether its driving/racing games, or FPS-team or vs, or 3rd Person adventures, Space Combat or ehatever else, people use their account to show themselves m, or rather their Player-Self (rankings, wins and whatever else), and then the gaming feels more experiencing being part of an action-movie scene as to graphics, sound etc, with gameplays that are pick-up & play (simplicity).

 

I do like the idea of cross-site play and player accounts. Unfortunately, where that's been tried, success is limited. Raw Thrills' MotoGP as well as Big Buck Hunter allows for cross-location play but it doesn't get used much. Big Buck does have player accounts and it is successful with that, but it's seen as it's own kind of thing, as it's more of a bar game.

 

Stern Pinball recently launched their Insider Connected platform which does have player accounts, achievements and some other cool features. I really like the idea but unfortunately it hasn't taken off for me yet (very, very few people know about it and use it, so I've seen no difference in game earnings since installing it on a couple of machines). I will be posting some new signage to help promote it but it's still a tough order that only appeals to the super fan so far. 

 

The biggest challenge there is that different companies don't want to help their competitors by having an all-encompassing player account system. Japan has them, but it's usually you need one for Sega games, another for Konami games, etc. I'd still prefer it if companies tried though, so if Atari really did jump into the arcade space again, developing a system like that could be a great way to stand out. 

 

Edited September 17, 2023 by Shaggy the Atarian
Added F&F

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

I do like the idea of cross-site play and player accounts.

 

1 hour ago, Shaggy the Atarian said:

The biggest challenge there is that different companies don't want to help their competitors by having an all-encompassing player account system. Japan has them, but it's usually you need one for Sega games, another for Konami games, etc. I'd still prefer it if companies tried though, so if Atari really did jump into the arcade space again, developing a system like that could be a great way to stand out. 

User-accounts could be optional, but with Arcades still being made with online-connection, just that player then puts in either a short name manually from the alphabet, or just push start being  Player(number-among possible participants) from location (Country/Region).

 

As to Atari doing this, ideaa such as what we discuss here, would of course take time to build-up, both financially and as to getting conceptual ideas that are found out to be interesting/good enough to pursue.

 

A small start for Atari could be to make a game which plays well 1Player, but becomes much, much more fulfilling/fun with online co-op mode. Couid be PONG26000 which now is full of vibrant color and sound, leaves the beefed-up vector-style for a more colorful, vibrant setting, like tons of PONG-stadions in many shapes and colors and themes, where you can get better equipment and balls which you can recombine, and not only 1 player vs another, but big PONG-stations seen from a high 3rd person view looking down and over the stadion, and perhaps 6-8 players who can score against others. Obstacles can pop up in the stadion, or you can make them pop up. You can get 5-10 seconds shields for the goal you protect, magnetic bars, both + poles and minus poles, bars where you can shoot balls at others players, small stadions, big stadions, double-bars, triple-bars where the 2 secondary bars follows your lead bar, so you can use them to expand the area you protect as long as you move. Stuff like that, but please, leave the TRON-graphics styling away for just a little while, release something for either many platforms which can do online-sessions with feel-good gaming, and hey, Atari may get on with testing out how much they can build themselves into online gaming.

 

If they start testing out things within what are their capability of production now, they may build up their company to be able to do much larger projects in the future.

 

Edited September 18, 2023 by Giles N

[Giles N]

On 9/16/2023 at 8:03 PM, LatchKeyKid said:

The game maker studio question interests and excites me the most out of all the questions.

What would you like to see something like do?

How would like its user-interface?

 

Would like something like a ‘Atari-game-maker’ along the lines of MarioMaker, just with different gameplays: night- or motorpsycho-driving, DarkChambers-style dungeon-level setup with some character-settings, Bars,Block&Ball-games, Top-Down space-shoot-something or land something…?

An Atari-Template game creator…?

 

Or a more fullfledged thing where you can choose to use drag and drop or coding, build up your game from libraries of elements which can be combined, then exported to PC or VCS (or other platforms)?

 

Something else?

 

How would you like it to work?

 

As to what you’d like to see; price-range do you think it should be within?

 

- - -

 

I’ve used Struckd and GameGuru.

I find stuff there that are sort-of cool, but given the amount of work to make something you’re satisfied with, I often get hung-up on the limitations.

 

MarioMaker was fun and fair; you knew the limits (and they expanded massicely in the follow-up); but you could get creative easily and share, even though it never could become your own franchise.

[LatchKeyKid]

1 hour ago, Giles N said:

What would you like to see something like do?

How would like its user-interface?

 

Would like something like a ‘Atari-game-maker’ along the lines of MarioMaker, just with different gameplays: night- or motorpsycho-driving, DarkChambers-style dungeon-level setup with some character-settings, Bars,Block&Ball-games, Top-Down space-shoot-something or land something…?

An Atari-Template game creator…?

 

Or a more fullfledged thing where you can choose to use drag and drop or coding, build up your game from libraries of elements which can be combined, then exported to PC or VCS (or other platforms)?

 

Something else?

 

How would you like it to work?

 

As to what you’d like to see; price-range do you think it should be within?

 

- - -

 

I’ve used Struckd and GameGuru.

I find stuff there that are sort-of cool, but given the amount of work to make something you’re satisfied with, I often get hung-up on the limitations.

 

MarioMaker was fun and fair; you knew the limits (and they expanded massicely in the follow-up); but you could get creative easily and share, even though it never could become your own franchise.

To be completely honest... I'm not sure as I'm not familiar with any of them both in terms of capability or pricing so my expectations for this hardware might well be unrealistic.  The last thing I coded from scratch was in Pascal in the early 90s with some Apple Basic coding prior to that as a kid so I'm *VERY* out of date.  I suppose something with expandable customizatable templates for different genres with a GUI would be my first thought.  For example, you could start with a top down "Adventure" style template which then allows you to customize an intro screen, various playfields/game screens individually to form the overall map as well as change the sprite animations, placement, and behavior of various enemies within some set of predetermined parameters (limited obviously by the hardware).   Basically a single app/program that combines many of the bB kernel options and minikernels in a plug and play fashion.  And when you're done, you can compile it and have a working bin/ROM file.   And they'd have something similar for a "Pitfall" style platformer, vertical SHMUP like River Raid, etc.   I suppose that sounds most similar to Mario Maker or that Sony cutesy yarn figure game from the PS3 era but I've never played that so can't say for sure.

 

 

[Shaggy the Atarian]

18 hours ago, Giles N said:

 

User-accounts could be optional, but with Arcades still being made with online-connection, just that player then puts in either a short name manually from the alphabet, or just push start being  Player(number-among possible participants) from location (Country/Region).

 

As to Atari doing this, ideaa such as what we discuss here, would of course take time to build-up, both financially and as to getting conceptual ideas that are found out to be interesting/good enough to pursue.

 

A small start for Atari could be to make a game which plays well 1Player, but becomes much, much more fulfilling/fun with online co-op mode. Couid be PONG26000 which now is full of vibrant color and sound, leaves the beefed-up vector-style for a more colorful, vibrant setting, like tons of PONG-stadions in many shapes and colors and themes, where you can get better equipment and balls which you can recombine, and not only 1 player vs another, but big PONG-stations seen from a high 3rd person view looking down and over the stadion, and perhaps 6-8 players who can score against others. Obstacles can pop up in the stadion, or you can make them pop up. You can get 5-10 seconds shields for the goal you protect, magnetic bars, both + poles and minus poles, bars where you can shoot balls at others players, small stadions, big stadions, double-bars, triple-bars where the 2 secondary bars follows your lead bar, so you can use them to expand the area you protect as long as you move. Stuff like that, but please, leave the TRON-graphics styling away for just a little while, release something for either many platforms which can do online-sessions with feel-good gaming, and hey, Atari may get on with testing out how much they can build themselves into online gaming.

 

If they start testing out things within what are their capability of production now, they may build up their company to be able to do much larger projects in the future.

 

It's an interesting thought, it's just a bit of a challenge for anything that isn't light-gun/racing to get noticed in the business. There was a 4-player version of the Electromechanical Pong called PONG Knockout which came out a little bit ago. But I haven't seen it pop up at all on earnings reports and it appears to already have ceased production which indicates it wasn't a good seller. Even with crazy-good graphics, ball-and-paddle games are a hard sell. I have a Minecraft Dungeons Arcade game, which has one of the biggest licenses in the world attached to it and it does 'meh.' It's a joystick game and those just generally don't do well anymore. 

 

Now if you had an 8-player Pong game with trackballs, or a new version of Tank 8, Sprit 8, or do an 8-player Centipede...that could be cool. It just has to be implemented correctly(most challenging problem with big multiplayer games is managing chaos), otherwise you end up with a dud. But it is doable, as 8-player Pac-Man shows.

 

It would be nice for the possibilities but I just don't think that having an online cross-location feature would move the needle much. As mentioned, there are games out there which do this but very, very few people use that feature. There is a new dance game called Pump It Up Phoenix which does this and it uses a camera so you can see your opponent - perhaps it's a hit, but I haven't heard anything chatter about that feature yet. There are also a few games in China and Japan which do that too but most people prefer local play. Those players just want to insert coins/swipe card, have fun, move on to the next, not get bogged down in making an account, signing in, waiting for a match to start, etc. The arcade is better for just instant play with friends or strangers right there than in another place. 

 

 

[Giles N]

On 9/18/2023 at 9:09 PM, Shaggy the Atarian said:

just a bit of a challenge for anything that isn't light-gun/racing to get noticed in the business.

If Atari manages to build up their production-capacities, a thing I really think could catch attention, would be some sit-down cabinet, online-connected, where you get to play some extraordinarily spectacular Space shooter, incorporating elements from many, many old Atari-space games: Star Raiders, Solaris, Asteroids.

 

It would have massive screen, button to change view (cockpit, 3rd person view), graphics like interacting with early CGI-sci-fi movies, dynamic score/music (adapting to situation), clear mission goals (easily picked from visual presentations), tight action either single player story mode, team in story-mode, team vs team, one-on-one dogfight.

Big button resets your ship back-on track if your lost. You can only use it so many times per minute. 
You have missions in space, outside planets, on planet-surfaces, in starfleets, around massive space-stations.

Think in the general direction of newest version of Elite for PC, but playing more Galaxy Force 2 (Sega Arcade), just much more advanced graphics and sound, and much more to do as choosing ship, missions, making money and buying better gunpower. But every aspect of the game presented directly, short, tight, to-the-point. Missions last 3-5 mins each. You get money, you get 90 seconds to buy better parts and weapons. You get to mission screen: 25 seconds to choose next mission, and whether to play single, team, VS etc. And then you’re thrown into spectacular space action looking and sounding like an interactive part of the beginning of Revenge of the Sith (without the actor-faces, only ships and the space- and planet-backdrop), with cinematic score in the background.

Everything is played with a simple-to-use flight-stick, a speed-lever w/ lightspeed button, one button to shift view, one to reset off-track ship.

 

On a screen or two on the sides or the front of cabinet, bystanders can watch the missions seen from a distance with the player highlighted by green circle.

 

Enemies includes everything from massive Galactic Despotic Warfleets, to Asteroids, space-pirates, massive space-monsters.

I think something like this could catch the attention of people.

 

And… if you get some game-account-card, you can store progress, score and add funds to it.

(perhaps just an App could do this for you).

Next time you come across such a cabinet, you access the game-card or App; your status is restored, and you commence from there, with the gear, score, game-money, etc, which you left last session with.

 

 

[Giles N]

Atari needs

 

- DLCs for home-console compilations, particulary 50th Anniversary since it’s the most monumental

 

- they should put out some Atari Game Maker Studio Light and Pro, the first more like drag and drop, ‘Pro’ having the possibility to combine coding and drag and drop

 

- Recharged-series should become a tad more modern in looks and sound; not everything of early Atari Arcades nor 2600 were vector-graphics or ultra-minimalist.

If they were, it was due to what was possible at the time, not trying to be stylish. Ok, make a retro-style of it, but not for every title! Let some recharged be more like what Battlezone 2600 was in its days in looks and sound contra its Arcade-counterpart: built up so different it looked better on many areas …

Recharged needs more variation…