New Atari Company

[Idea Revolutions]

Hey, I'm Chad Campbell, and I have some cool news! Me and my long-time friend have started an Atari company called Atari Arts. We meet for about 30 minutes a day and discuss new games for the Atari 2600. So far we have 5 major ideas. However, we do not know how to make the games. We would very much like to just get our ideas made. We are not asking for any money, just to overview production and get 5 free copies. Soon we will have a website about our company. But for the meantime if you're interested in helping a new Atari company rise, and know how to make the games, e-mail me at john.r.campbell@att.net.

-Chad Campbell,

President of Atari Arts

[King Asmo]

Are you for real?

 

KA

[Nukey Shay]

H is for Homebrew.

 

* scratches Kalamazoo off "places to visit" list

[General Atarian]

Let me be the first one to offer a 267 million dollar investment.

[Idea Revolutions]

Yes, King_Asmo, I am for real. This isn't a joke. If you know someone that would accept, tell me.

[Chuck Gill]

Didn't I see this in a Dilbert comic?

 

-Chuck

[General Atarian]

I hope you went through all of the hoopla with Infograme for permission, like I did. By the way the Trademark rights to Infograme are still VERY ACTIVE. And they would love nothing more than to bust an unauthorized company making profit with the Atari name. Take my word for it. GO GET PERMISSION if you can.

 

Good luck

[Nukey Shay]

If this is "for real"...you may find it a long hard battle. For a number of reasons. This subject has come up before.

Producing game carts for the 2600 is not very profitable...which is contrary to how businesses can function. Producing carts on a very large scale is not really feasable because of the capital needed for an injection-mold tool (about $40k). Currently, the chosen method of producing carts is to cannibalize existing carts for the case and PCB...which offers no guarantee of how large of a production can be made, as well as raising the cost of the initial run. This can be eliminated by securing pre-orders for a game...which again, would be harder to do the larger the production gets.

So why do homebrewer's do it? Not for the money...but for the recognition. As it was said before, the 2600 is one of the few consoles that a homebrew software author can have total control of his or her "vision"...and very few would probably be willing to step aside to let other people share in that accomplishment. This is also contrary to how businesses work. Many people have game ideas, very few have the knowledge to make it work (especially on the tricky 2600 console).

 

Here's the score:

• No tool

• No components

• No capital

• No programming insight

• No profit (or very little)

 

That might be a hard sell to a homebrew author who can do it all himself and get all the credit...but good luck.

[Atari-Jess]

*urge to kill rising*

::warning angry-jess has arrived::

 

your ideas most likely would be killed the

moment a 2600 programmer looked at them.

 

"Oh i make video games, but i dont know how, i just come up with ideas!"

 

"oh i love atari so much i OBVIOUSLY can make games for people"

 

"Oh look at my ideas! they are so fantastic

yet, i cant do a lick of the actual programming

help!! please join us!!"

 

ARGH

 

if you EVER looked at the limits of the 2600

you would crap your pants. the games do not

really tell you didilly squat!!

 

you WILL be sued by infogrammes

you WILL NOT be making any games unless you

know how to 6502 assembly program and

then you have to learn 6507 and work

around the 2600's limits

you WILL NOT make much money AT ALL

you CAN NOT see that this idea is a dud.

 

do you know how many bloody people have tried

to start a "neoatari"?

 

and how do we know that we will like your games?

 

I mean, just because you have atari in your

name doesn't make you good.

 

people didn't like hasbro and "atari interactive"

they did quite the shoddy job using atari.

 

so PLEASE rethink what you are saying/doing

 

it will be a insanely impossible road ahead

and I cant wish you luck cause frankly i cant

do it.

 

::end::

 

no, I dont hate you

i just dont think the idea is gonna work

i am always like this ask liquid sky.

[Nukey Shay]

* applause for Atari-Jess

He usually only says two-word sentances...well done, Jess! j/k

 

That is another thing about programming games for the 2600. Many times games are programmed "in reverse". A programmer finds a cool effect and comes up with an idea to build around it. Given the limitations of the platform, going the other way doesn't always work (and is sometimes disasterous).

Case in point "Tempest"

 

Or, a game starts out as one idea...and ends up as a different one.

Case in point "Yar's Revenge"

 

[ 06-04-2002: Message edited by: Nukey Shay ]

[Stella'sGhost]

What planet have you been on since the 1980's?

 

Yeah, I have a company too, it's called TimeWorks. I plan to build a time machine and go back to the early 80's and warn Atari that PacMan for the 2600 will suck large.

 

If anyone knows how to build a time machine, please let me know.

 

Otto 3. President of TImeWorks.

[Nukey Shay]

Get in touch with the ex-members of Iron Butterfly. One of them succeeded.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Atari Arts:

So far we have 5 major ideas. However, we do not know how to make the games. We would very much like to just get our ideas made.

---

Just give me $2000 and then I might(!) let one of your ideas come true.

[Nukey Shay]

I'd do it for $100...if you accept hacks of another game that loosely fit your game description.

 

Can't help you with cart production, though.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nukey Shay:

I'd do it for $100...if you accept hacks of another game that loosely fit your game description.

 

Can't help you with cart production, though.

---

$99.95

[Thelen]

i do two for the price of one

 

 

thelen

[Idea Revolutions]

Let's get something staight. This is a NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION!!!! We are not making any money AT ALL. We are going bankrupt just to get our ideas across. Crazy? Yes, thank you for noticing. We just want our ideas made. We're not asking for money. We just want people to know that there is an Atari company that makes games for the 2600. Heck, if you need a game made, we'll promote it for free if you'll put our name on the cartridge!! That's all we're asking! By and by, the people that said they would make a game will be contacted shortly. By and by, I'm making for a new company name, besides Atari Arts. Any ideas?

[Nukey Shay]

 

"What's a guy gotta do to screw someone out of a buck!?" -Paul Rodriguez (The Whoopie Boys)

[smf_4ever]

Huh??? Ok.. I have been learning (slowly) the 6502 programming.. and playing with how it relates to the 6507... Unless you completely know what the limitations are.. and understand how those work.. you cannot ask other people to make your ideas!.. Hell I have an Idea that it would be cool for DOOM II for atari.. but ya know what?? it CANNOT happen and be anywhere near playable... You want to start a game company.. that is cool.. but your only hope is to program yourself..

 

ps.. look for my new release somewhere around 2004..late... (I am a realist on my lack of skills... but I am busting my ass to get there..)

[Thelen]

maybe a company will write games with atari basic programming

 

thelen

[Darius Nefarious]

Why all the harsh negative responses? Let them try. If ten have failed, maybe this one can prevail. The more people are keeping the spirit alive, the better!

[Mindfield]

Um... pardon me for adding my negativity into the foray, but ... it's really quite a silly idea for a number of reasons, many of which have been mentioned here already. Of those that haven't, paramount among them would probably be that any real 2600 coder would automatically get plenty of publicity and recognition by the simple expedient of this and other Atari-oriented sites catching wind of the project. 2600 development is rare and sporadic enough to attract a great deal of attention when it happens. No third-party hype required: it's pretty much self-generating.

 

Then there's the fact that you say, "We just want people to know that there is an Atari company that makes games for the 2600." Actually, you don't make games for Atari. Other people make games for Atari. All you'd be is a collection of idea men and would-be distributors, and anyone who's had energy, brainpower and time enough to learn VCS coding probably has an abundance of their own ideas, most of which will probably be far better than what you could come up with because they already know the ins and outs of the VCS and can immediately determine what will work and what won't, and to better refine the ones that will to fit within the confines of the 2600's capabilities. Ideas are all very fine and well, but they're a penny a pound, especially among dreamers like Atariphiles. I've got loads of ideas for games myself, and have in the past turned them into realities on other platforms. One day I'll probably work out 2600 coding and do something just for the hell of it -- to say that I did.

 

Let's face it: Homebrew 2600 coding is, among other things, simply a dream fulfilled for many of the coders. A way to virtually turn back the clock and be an Atari programmer. No one is in it for the money -- there really isn't any to be made despite the burgeoning interest in retrogaming. Anyone who does it wants to do it for themselves.

 

Sure, I'm certain that if ever retrogaming got to the point of being popular enough to go commercial and be a profitable venture, it'd be quite cool to work for a company that dealt in that sort of thing -- but that sort of thing is very far off even if it is ever to get to that point, which is doubtful in the extreme. It's a nice idea to want to start up a new Atari company -- loads of us have wanted to do so, even if just to have our name officially associated with the Atari name. Unfortunately, it's simply a dream that will probably never see the light of day. That's why we have homebrewers. They're dreamers enough to want to accomplish something on old hardware, but realistic enough to realize that it's just a hobby and could never amount to any kind of significant commercial venture even if they could secure permission from Infogrames to use the Atari name in any way.

 

Nice as it is to talk and dream about, you've basically only two options: Give it up, or read what documentation there is out there for 6502 coding and, specifically, for 2600 coding and, along with your friends, do it yourself. That's what I did back in the day; I wanted to write my own games, so I learned how -- and that's a hell of a lot more satisfying than giving my ideas to someone else to code. I mean, "I wrote that" sounds a lot nicer than "I thought of that."

[Nukey Shay]

It's not about being positive or negative, just looking at it realistically. Homebrew authors really shouldn't need any help as far as advertising is concerned...because word-of-mouth will kinda do that for them on "classic gaming" sites and message boards. To be frank, that is the only target audience left for the Atari 2600 (i.e. people that collect). Putting the Atari name on such projects without Infogrames' permission could also jeopardize it. Handing out permission to use it's trademark is not a common thing for a company to do. Take a look at Indenture...that one was on an entirely different platform not using any of the original code of a game 20 years old, and it was still turned down.

So if the homebrew authors are already creating the games by themselves, I need to wonder what's in it for them (other than added risk)?

If it's simply a matter of IDEA's of games being passed from one person to another, I doubt it would work as well. But if there is indeed no profit sought to be made of such ideas, they could just post them and maybe somebody will tackle it. Since they were the ones who came up with the ideas, we'll all know who the programmer should at least give thanks to for coming up with the concepts.

Is any of this making sense?

 

Case in point...

I am currently trying to figure out a way to add another bat in Adventure...which would make a much more challenging game without taking anything away from the existing concept (much like Indenture did). Expanding the rom image could do just that...and provide space enough to add in the extra rooms that Indenture has. The upshot would be that it would be totally playable on an actual console (unlike Indenture). I'm not asking for help, but I won't complain if somebody else does it...as it would be a dynamite hack in either case.

[Simon]

This is a funny thing...

 

So what are you doing the 30 minutes every day? Designing graphics and sprites?

 

You can't do anything serious right now, because you don't even know the limitations for graphics, sounds, coding and finally IDEAS at all.

 

My first game is finally done and I'm working on my second 2600-game, but I really won't like to work for others and realize THEIR ideas instead of MINE.

 

Thanks for the fun you gave me on this stressful day.

 

Simon

 

 

"I have a vision of a perfect girlfriend, could someone of you bio-scientists out there contact me and build that simple DNA-stuff. The plans are already done and realization should be quite easy..."

[Joel D. Park]

Speaking of adventure. I'm happy to report that my "Labeling" of adventure is nearing completion. All direct memory access has been replaced with labels so things can be moved around without messing anything up.

 

I know you won't want to change the original game probabably, but by shrinking the easter egg author's name and removing Black and White support I've freed up over 100 bytes of data on the 4K cart. That's enough room to add like 2 new castles or a different dragon image set or whatever you want.

 

Also, getting rid of the processor clicks used for checking out the Switches on the Atari, I hopefully freed up enough time to allow for an extra Bat. You never know.

 

Feel free to email me privately joelp@cyberspaceport.com for the code. I plan on releasing it to the Stella list shortly since everyone helped me out so much.

 

I've got plans to do a new adventure game, I'll just have to see if I can get my skills up to par..

 

I'm definatley not going to call it Adventure 2 though, that's reserved for a truly worthy remake.