Activision - Before and After the Crash

[Great Hierophant]

I imagine Activision was probably a pretty good company to work for back in the days when it was getting started. It was founded by some of the best of Atari's programmers as a company that put its programmers first. It gave them credit for their games, allowed them some "face time" and gave them the resources to create memorable games. It was also a company that players could appreciate. Their game boxes were colorful as their manuals and cartridge labels. The boxes usually tended to show what the game actually played like, rather than the artwork of Atari's boxes. Activision, while it committed itself to its hits, did not let them overshadow their product line like Atari did with its disastrous ports of Pac-Man and E.T. It sought to build a rapport with its customers with its patches. It must have been exhilarating to get to the required score and take a Polaroid of the TV screen. (More memorable back in the days when cheat devices were almost unheard of for video game consoles and digital tinkering with photographs was not feasible.) I am sure someone appreciated its one year warranty on games, as opposed to Atari's 90 day warranty.

 

But even the mighty Activision could not escape the crash unscathed. Post crash their games for the 2600 are few and only one is original (River Raid II). The others are pretty souless ports of games far beyond the abilities of the 2600. No more patches, bland black and white manuals, crappy text labels were the order of the day. No more newsletters or patches. Boxes with so-so artwork. 90 day limited warranties. No more programmer space in the manuals, just a mention on the copyright page. (Actually, Ghostbusters, released during the darkest days of the crash, shows the omnious signs of things to come No Activision game had been based off a movie license before, boy would that change.)

[Recycled]

Hey, did PRESSURE COOKER come out after the crash? That's an incredible game in my opinion.

[Big Player]

No Pressure Cooker came out in 1983, just before the Crash.

 

H.E.R.O. is the best damn game for the 2600 and came out right during the Crash. I agree with the main point of this thread, that after the Crash, Activision's games were nowhere near as good as their early games.

 

My guess is that all the good programmers left. Some even went back to work for Atari. Matthew Hubbard of Dolphin fame created Double Dunk in 1989.

[Mountain King]

Activision was smart and saw the home computer market and started making games for the Comadore 64 and apple2e. I'm sure they were affected by the crash, but at least they had the forsight to get into the new markets. Which is probably why they are still around today.

[128bytes]

Cosmic Commuter came out after the crash, and even though it's not entirely original (it's from the Defender family tree), and it's not the best Activision game ever, it is fun and worthy of the Activision label (and it's also by the programmer of H.E.R.O.). Plus, it's tied with H.E.R.O. for the highest rarity Activision cartridge I own

 

I also have the post-crash Ghostbusters 2600 cartridge, which is not easy to pick up and play without the manual, but is a solid effort nonetheless.

[Tempest]

IIRC...

 

HERO can out right before the crash

 

Cosmic Commuter was actually submitted before the crash, but not picked up (same author as HERO BTW). It was released during the crash after Activision reconsidered.

 

GhostBusters was released post crash. It was made out of a car chase game David Crane was working on at the time.

 

Double Dragon and Kung Fu Master were the last two 2600 releases by Activision. So there were only 3 post crash releases.

 

 

Tempest

[intvgene]

1984 (and late '83) had some of Activision's best games (especially if you look past the 2600): Pitfall II, Beamrider, Private Eye, Ghostbusters, H.E.R.O, Cosmic Commuter, Dreadnaught Factor, Zone Ranger, etc. I agree that Activision was smart to move on from the Atari 2600 after the crash, but you can see their greatness continued for a bit still (Great American Cross-Country Road Race is a super version of Enduro).

 

The late 80's Activision games however, are really nothing close to their earlier ones.

 

In case anyone needs a refresher on the release dates, here's Ken Love's original post about it:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14657&

[Mental Vortex]

Pitfall II is one of my all-time favorites, hands down. Probably one of the reasons why I like it is because it was HARD! It definitely kept your interest, even if you got mad when you kept falling into the water all the time!

 

H.E.R.O. was another good one. Definitely a unique game compared to your usual shoot 'em up games.

[Klove]

Actually, I spoke with Garry about this sometime ago. Pressure Cooker came out during the crash and DID suffer becuase of it. Private Eye was mentioned as well. Alot of the latter Acti 2600 titles DID suffer because of the crash.

 

In an effort to try ans stop the $$$ bleeding, Activision tried to find another money making avenue. "Computer Games."

 

They survived because of that. However, when Jim Levy was let go, most of the original Acti alumni jumped ship and did other things. Garry, Dave, Dan and and a few of the other guys, they went on to form Imagineering.

 

Bruce Davis was brought in and it was all downhill from there. I don't know many Acti alumni who care too much for / or admire Bruce.

 

One of the last good things Jim did for the company, was to buy out Infocom.

 

Imagineering did a few titles for Activision and a couple of other publishers. It was actually Imagineering that did OINK!. In particular Mike Lorenzen.

 

- K

[Big Player]

So Pressure Cooker was released in August of 1983? I didn't think the Crash started until 1984. I guess it was close enough that it severely affected sales for the game.

 

I disagree that Comic Commuter was a good game lost in the Crash. The senior designers were right to initally reject it for release because it wasn't up to standards. John Van Ryzin did hit gold with his second game--H.E.R.O. Too bad it came out at the wrong time and it didn't get the recognition it deserves.

[NovaXpress]

The actual crash occurred for retailers in Xmas 83, it was in 84 that we saw the aftereffects of the retailers' bloated unsold inventory.

 

That's another note about the crash, sales were actually very good but the glut of product made videogames unprofitable overall. If such a crash happened today we wouldn't see games diappear altogether.

[Tempest]

disagree that Comic Commuter was a good game lost in the Crash. The senior designers were right to initally reject it for release because it wasn't up to standards.

 

I disagree. I think Cosmic Commuter is a great game.

 

Tempest

[gavv]

...

 

They survived because of that. However, when Jim Levy was let go,  most of the original Acti alumni jumped ship and did other things. Garry, Dave, Dan and and a few of the other guys, they went on to form Imagineering.

 

...

 

Imagineering did a few titles for Activision and a couple of other publishers. It was actually Imagineering that did OINK!. In particular Mike Lorenzen.

 

- K

 

Was that what eventually became Absolute?

 

gavv

[tillenterprises]

Private Eye was mentioned as well.  

- K

 

I got Private Eye for my birthday in August 1983. I thought that was pre-crash.

[Klove]

Absolute went bankrupt in the early to mid 90's.

 

Remember, Absolute had also done some work for Akklaim, If I recall correctly, Garry worked on some of the Simpsons games. I think Dave the TOYS (movie license) game too.

[gavv]

Absolute went bankrupt in the early to mid 90's.

 

Remember, Absolute had also done some work for Akklaim, If I recall correctly, Garry worked on some of the Simpsons games. I think Dave the TOYS (movie license) game too.

 

Garry also said at cge this year that Absolute was basically the only real active 2600 developer, and had did the development not only for Activision titles, but also Atari titles from the same period (ie Crossbow,etc).

 

gavv

[Tempest]

but also Atari titles from the same period (ie Crossbow,etc).

 

I would like to know which Atari titles they did. It would be nice to give the programmers credit. I find it amazing that even in 2005 we don't have a complete programmer list for the 2600.

 

Tempest

[Mister VCS]

IIRC...

 

 

 

GhostBusters was released post crash. It was made out of a car chase game David Crane was working on at the time.

 

Double Dragon and Kung Fu Master were the last two 2600 releases by Activision. So there were only 3 post crash releases.

 

 

Rampage and River Raid 2 are post crash relaeses by Activision.

I am not sure about Ghostbusters II. The box says Activision and Salu.

 

Overall there a 5 post crah releases.

 

Mister VCS

[Klove]

You also forgot to mention Commando.

 

Ghostbusters 2 was licensed out to SALU to create a GB2 game for the 2600. Salu at that time, had licensed a better portion of Activision's Atari 2600 catalog for distribution over in Europe.

 

Of course, this is back when the Atari 2600 Jr. was re-introduced back into the market. Nintendo was doing so well with their 8-Bit system, that the Tramiels saw this and then realized they were sitting on tons of DEAD stock.

 

One of the "heads" of Toys 'R' Us ("and a very good friend of Jack Tramiel") called Jack and told him how well the NES was selling. He told him, that if you had anymore of those 2600's sitting 'round, he could probably sell quite a few of them. That is... "Now with video games being popular again."

 

Jack, never being one to let the perverbial Money Train go by, jumped at the chance and redesigned the system a little bit and "Voila!" The Jr. came out.

 

Activision ceased the moment as well, and reproduced several of it's earlier hits. "One's that people remembered best." On-top of that, we went one step further an obtained the rights to some of the more-popular coin-op classics. (Double Dragon, Commando, Kung-Fu Master)

 

By that time the only thing that would sell on the 2600, WERE well known arcade classics. Nobody was fooled by the 2600 Jr or Atari themselves. BUT, by putting out some titles that people could relate to, the Jr. stood a better chance of selling.

 

I recall, at that time in history.. I was working at a Dept. Store in the Audio and Video Dept. We started getting the Jr.'s in and I remember thinking.... "What the He** is this?" I thought this system died?"

 

We were selling tons of 'em. At the very end of the Jr's life, I recall us selling a sorta' package deal on the order of an Atari 2600 Jr + 10 Titles for $39.99.

 

Alo of people went for that too. My manager told me that they were discontinued and that Atari was no longer going to sell them. Boy! Thinking back now, all those peopel probably thought they were getting the best deal on earth. heheheh

 

Atari HAD TO put out coin-op titles in order to go up against Nintendo. This was what Nintendo was doing out the chute.

 

Hence the reason you saw alot of coin-op new and re-releases from Atari.

 

"Kinda' interesting."

 

As we all know though, that didn't last long.

[Tempest]

Rampage and River Raid 2 are post crash relaeses by Activision.

 

Doh! Doh!

 

You also forgot to mention Commando.

 

Doh!

 

 

I can't believe I forgot those! I guess that's what heppens when you've had 7 hours of sleep in 3 days.

 

Tempest