1
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:07,800
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.

2
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:14,280
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

3
00:00:14,320 --> 00:00:16,800
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland, EMIT executive producer with iHeart Radio and I

4
00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:19,439
Speaker 1: love all things tech. One of these days, I'm just

5
00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:24,680
Speaker 1: gonna make that one unintelligible rant. I mean it's pretty

6
00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:27,640
Speaker 1: close already. Right. Anyway, it is time for a tech

7
00:00:27,640 --> 00:00:30,240
Speaker 1: Stuff Classic episode. We are going to continue the story

8
00:00:30,320 --> 00:00:33,920
Speaker 1: that we started last week with the last classic episode.

9
00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,520
Speaker 1: So this week's episode is titled The Rise and Fall

10
00:00:37,640 --> 00:00:43,000
Speaker 1: of Atari, Part two. Part one was last week. This

11
00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:46,720
Speaker 1: episode originally published on March fourth, two thousand and fifteen.

12
00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:51,760
Speaker 1: Hope you enjoy so nineteen seven this we were teasing

13
00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:53,519
Speaker 1: it at the end of the last episode. This is

14
00:00:53,520 --> 00:00:58,880
Speaker 1: when Atari releases The Revolutionary And I mean that sincerely.

15
00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:03,320
Speaker 1: I am not being Archy Revolutionary Atari Video Computer System

16
00:01:03,520 --> 00:01:08,440
Speaker 1: a k A. The Atari VCS a k A. Yeah,

17
00:01:08,440 --> 00:01:09,920
Speaker 1: and where I didn't even know, but I saw that

18
00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:13,000
Speaker 1: you research where the name from. Yeah. So all right,

19
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:16,039
Speaker 1: when you're a company and you make stuff, you give

20
00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:19,640
Speaker 1: units part names. Right, So like in a hardware store,

21
00:01:19,959 --> 00:01:22,320
Speaker 1: you might have a typical, like a type of screw

22
00:01:22,400 --> 00:01:25,640
Speaker 1: of a certain length that's a Phillip's head screw, and

23
00:01:25,760 --> 00:01:29,240
Speaker 1: to describe the whole thing would take you like five

24
00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:31,839
Speaker 1: lines of text because you're talking about the length, the

25
00:01:31,920 --> 00:01:34,760
Speaker 1: type of screw head, you know, how how close the

26
00:01:34,800 --> 00:01:36,360
Speaker 1: treads are, or you could just give it a part

27
00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:39,759
Speaker 1: name and then you say, I need fifteen of hc

28
00:01:40,080 --> 00:01:42,440
Speaker 1: X blah blah blah blah blah. Well, the part name

29
00:01:42,520 --> 00:01:46,360
Speaker 1: for the this unit, this this system was the c

30
00:01:46,959 --> 00:01:50,160
Speaker 1: X to six hundred. So they just said, all right,

31
00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:52,760
Speaker 1: we're just gonna call it the AY because it sounds,

32
00:01:52,800 --> 00:01:56,680
Speaker 1: you know, futuristic. Yeah, whereas the rest of us are thinking,

33
00:01:56,680 --> 00:02:01,520
Speaker 1: like where we're atari is one? I always thought that, yeah,

34
00:02:01,560 --> 00:02:04,360
Speaker 1: so this this is just an identifier that that makes

35
00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:07,440
Speaker 1: it easy to refer to a part. Now in this case,

36
00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:11,400
Speaker 1: it just made a really compelling sounding device. Uh. And

37
00:02:11,440 --> 00:02:12,920
Speaker 1: it goes on sale in the United States for a

38
00:02:12,960 --> 00:02:15,360
Speaker 1: hundred ninety nine on the low end. The high end

39
00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:18,519
Speaker 1: was to twenty nine. Sure it chipped with two joysticks,

40
00:02:19,600 --> 00:02:22,000
Speaker 1: I guess the two nine version came with the paddles.

41
00:02:22,120 --> 00:02:24,679
Speaker 1: I guess. So I had that. I had the paddles, Yeah,

42
00:02:24,680 --> 00:02:26,400
Speaker 1: I had the paddles to there's no other way to

43
00:02:26,400 --> 00:02:30,480
Speaker 1: play breakout properly without paddles. Um and uh. It came

44
00:02:30,639 --> 00:02:34,440
Speaker 1: with Combat. Yeah, it came with one game, which was

45
00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:37,680
Speaker 1: really I can't remember actually how many variations there were, right,

46
00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:40,640
Speaker 1: because they had the tanks, they had the airplane jets.

47
00:02:40,919 --> 00:02:42,400
Speaker 1: I told you in the last episode. My brother and

48
00:02:42,440 --> 00:02:44,800
Speaker 1: I were playing Combat last week at his house on

49
00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:49,320
Speaker 1: and we were kind of cracking up at um. You know, like,

50
00:02:49,440 --> 00:02:52,280
Speaker 1: here's one version where it's the two tanks, and then

51
00:02:52,320 --> 00:02:55,000
Speaker 1: the next version is it's the same thing, but they're invisible,

52
00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:57,520
Speaker 1: and the next version is it's the same thing, but

53
00:02:57,800 --> 00:02:59,600
Speaker 1: the bullets bounced off the wall. So that was my

54
00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:01,639
Speaker 1: favorite one. Yeah, where you could bank shots into each

55
00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:06,640
Speaker 1: other and or you could hit yourself. Oh I didn't. Yeah,

56
00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:09,160
Speaker 1: if you if you bake it, if you bank it

57
00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:11,639
Speaker 1: so that it it bounces back and hit goes through

58
00:03:11,680 --> 00:03:13,840
Speaker 1: your tank and it could actually hit yourself and that

59
00:03:13,919 --> 00:03:16,120
Speaker 1: was really fun. Yeah. And then of course they had

60
00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:19,280
Speaker 1: the air combat games of you know, you could be

61
00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:21,240
Speaker 1: fighter pilots, or you could be biplanes, you could be

62
00:03:21,240 --> 00:03:24,040
Speaker 1: that giant whatever that was. And there were clouds in

63
00:03:24,080 --> 00:03:26,560
Speaker 1: some versions you fly behind clouds, not in other versions.

64
00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:30,440
Speaker 1: So they managed to really Milk Combat for many, many

65
00:03:30,440 --> 00:03:33,919
Speaker 1: different versions of essentially the same game. Yeah, And as

66
00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:35,960
Speaker 1: I recall, the way you would play that is there

67
00:03:35,960 --> 00:03:39,080
Speaker 1: were physical switches on the Atari itself that you you

68
00:03:39,080 --> 00:03:42,040
Speaker 1: could manipulate and get different versions as well. It was

69
00:03:42,080 --> 00:03:44,720
Speaker 1: there one that was it Like, it wasn't a menu system, right,

70
00:03:44,720 --> 00:03:46,600
Speaker 1: it was it was a menu. It was a toggle

71
00:03:46,760 --> 00:03:48,560
Speaker 1: on the front of the game, just toggle through the

72
00:03:48,600 --> 00:03:50,840
Speaker 1: different versions, which is kind of interesting. Like it was

73
00:03:50,880 --> 00:03:53,600
Speaker 1: the actual console itself that had physical switches in the

74
00:03:53,680 --> 00:03:56,000
Speaker 1: upper down position, and that's how you could determine which

75
00:03:56,080 --> 00:03:59,280
Speaker 1: version you were playing. And um, yeah, so those days

76
00:03:59,360 --> 00:04:02,520
Speaker 1: of having video screen with the menu where it's like start,

77
00:04:02,680 --> 00:04:08,760
Speaker 1: load game, save game didn't exist. And and once that game,

78
00:04:08,800 --> 00:04:10,880
Speaker 1: like we mentioned in the previous episode, once you turn

79
00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:14,480
Speaker 1: that console off, all that information disappears because it's only

80
00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:18,000
Speaker 1: in read only memory. That's right. And I think any

81
00:04:18,040 --> 00:04:20,560
Speaker 1: of us that got three quarters of the way through

82
00:04:20,640 --> 00:04:25,200
Speaker 1: Raiders of the Lost Art and someone accidentally flicked the

83
00:04:25,279 --> 00:04:31,400
Speaker 1: reset switch, bad. Yeah, oh man, And that and that

84
00:04:31,520 --> 00:04:35,880
Speaker 1: game was one of the most complicated Atari games that

85
00:04:35,920 --> 00:04:38,320
Speaker 1: I can recall. And what we're talking about it Yeah,

86
00:04:38,320 --> 00:04:40,320
Speaker 1: we'll save that, we'll save it. We'll we'll talk on

87
00:04:40,320 --> 00:04:43,160
Speaker 1: our reflections of some of our favorite games later on.

88
00:04:43,240 --> 00:04:48,200
Speaker 1: But technically the system was ready for shipping a year

89
00:04:48,240 --> 00:04:52,560
Speaker 1: before it came out, but Atari sat on it. And

90
00:04:52,600 --> 00:04:54,840
Speaker 1: the reason they sat on it was because of something

91
00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:58,760
Speaker 1: we mentioned in the last episode that that big agreement

92
00:04:58,760 --> 00:05:02,200
Speaker 1: they had with Magnavox. Part of that agreement was they

93
00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:05,960
Speaker 1: would give Magnavox the rights to anything Attari produced within

94
00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:09,720
Speaker 1: that year, and so they thought, well, if we wait

95
00:05:09,760 --> 00:05:13,200
Speaker 1: a little longer, we don't, Yeah, we won't give them

96
00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:17,440
Speaker 1: the rights to the all will retain them ourselves. So

97
00:05:17,600 --> 00:05:20,000
Speaker 1: they sat on it and released it a year late.

98
00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,320
Speaker 1: And originally they were only going to create ten titles

99
00:05:24,360 --> 00:05:26,080
Speaker 1: for this thing. They thought that the market for it

100
00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:28,599
Speaker 1: would be something that would last two or three years,

101
00:05:29,040 --> 00:05:31,000
Speaker 1: and they would just produce it for that before moving

102
00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:32,920
Speaker 1: on to something else, and therefore you would have more

103
00:05:32,960 --> 00:05:37,840
Speaker 1: flexibility because you could switch out titles. But they thought, well,

104
00:05:37,920 --> 00:05:40,960
Speaker 1: there's there's no real market here. We're not gonna go

105
00:05:41,080 --> 00:05:44,000
Speaker 1: beyond that. But some of the programmers started playing around

106
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:46,600
Speaker 1: with and said, wait a minute, we have the opportunity

107
00:05:46,640 --> 00:05:49,880
Speaker 1: here to make stuff that has never been in the arcades,

108
00:05:50,520 --> 00:05:53,599
Speaker 1: that that could be totally new, groundbreaking. There's a lot

109
00:05:53,680 --> 00:05:58,560
Speaker 1: more potential with this hardware. Like here's where the money is. Yea,

110
00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:02,120
Speaker 1: how about two hundred titles right that you can sell

111
00:06:02,200 --> 00:06:05,960
Speaker 1: for thirty dollars a piece. Yeah, and so they said

112
00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:10,440
Speaker 1: this sounds like a good idea. Well, yeah, but Uhtar

113
00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:13,520
Speaker 1: was not was not a smash hit right out of

114
00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:15,360
Speaker 1: the gate. No. It actually there's a couple of years

115
00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:18,240
Speaker 1: were sort of lackluster because people didn't really get that

116
00:06:18,320 --> 00:06:20,880
Speaker 1: it was more than pong right at first, and one

117
00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:24,880
Speaker 1: of communications didn't really market it well either, So there

118
00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:27,040
Speaker 1: was there was some some downfalls in the market. They

119
00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:28,919
Speaker 1: weren't a video game company, they didn't really know what

120
00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:31,160
Speaker 1: to do with it. And it was expensive. I mean,

121
00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:34,200
Speaker 1: you know, hundred nine dollars that that doesn't sound like

122
00:06:34,240 --> 00:06:37,159
Speaker 1: it's expensive today, but keep in mind we're talking nineteen

123
00:06:37,240 --> 00:06:40,000
Speaker 1: seventies money. You know, that's like more than seven hundred

124
00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:44,000
Speaker 1: bucks for this thing that, at least at first was

125
00:06:44,080 --> 00:06:46,479
Speaker 1: only going to play ten titles. That's not that's not

126
00:06:46,520 --> 00:06:49,840
Speaker 1: a big selling point for someone who's I'm gonna I'm

127
00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:52,000
Speaker 1: gonna shell out the better part of a grand to

128
00:06:52,040 --> 00:06:54,039
Speaker 1: get a machine that can play ten games. Yeah, I

129
00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:56,600
Speaker 1: remember my brother and I how, um, you know how

130
00:06:56,600 --> 00:07:00,840
Speaker 1: you would submit the Christmas list to the to the parents. Yeah, uh,

131
00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:02,960
Speaker 1: here's what Scott wants, here's what Chuck wants. We had

132
00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:06,200
Speaker 1: to share. Um, we had to both go in all

133
00:07:06,240 --> 00:07:09,720
Speaker 1: in on Atari this Christmas. All both of us went

134
00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:12,720
Speaker 1: together is this one item of my parents are like,

135
00:07:12,760 --> 00:07:15,840
Speaker 1: all right, well, you better play it. It's funny because

136
00:07:15,880 --> 00:07:21,880
Speaker 1: I actually got may Atari fairly close to the um

137
00:07:21,920 --> 00:07:24,480
Speaker 1: not not too long before the Great video game Crash,

138
00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:27,320
Speaker 1: which we will get to, which meant that the price

139
00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:29,720
Speaker 1: had actually come down because there was a lot of

140
00:07:29,760 --> 00:07:33,440
Speaker 1: competition in that space pretty early on. Yeah. I wish

141
00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:36,120
Speaker 1: I could remember what year, but um, I don't think

142
00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:37,680
Speaker 1: it was seventy eight, but I bet I bet it

143
00:07:37,760 --> 00:07:42,240
Speaker 1: was eight. Yeah, my I was probably closer for me.

144
00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:48,080
Speaker 1: Uh so in eight that's when Nolan Bushnell leaves Atari. Yeah,

145
00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:49,840
Speaker 1: And we talked a little bit in the last episode

146
00:07:49,840 --> 00:07:53,120
Speaker 1: about the corporate structure at Warners and um, how it

147
00:07:53,200 --> 00:07:57,280
Speaker 1: just did not jib at all with these creative, sort

148
00:07:57,280 --> 00:08:01,320
Speaker 1: of pot smoking hippie the game designers, and um, he

149
00:08:01,440 --> 00:08:04,960
Speaker 1: just got more and more upset and discontented and or

150
00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:10,760
Speaker 1: discontent discontent. He felt discontentment to where he basically tried

151
00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:15,240
Speaker 1: to get himself fired to and he had a huge

152
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:18,640
Speaker 1: fight with a Warner executive in front of the board

153
00:08:18,680 --> 00:08:21,720
Speaker 1: of directors and that was that. He was told to

154
00:08:21,760 --> 00:08:27,920
Speaker 1: pack his things and go. So he leaves. Um and uh,

155
00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:29,920
Speaker 1: it was a big bummer after that. I mean he

156
00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:32,480
Speaker 1: was already sort of a bummer, but him leaving was

157
00:08:32,760 --> 00:08:37,960
Speaker 1: a very symbolic deal for Atari's sort of the downfall

158
00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:42,960
Speaker 1: of Yeah, some people refer to the sale of Atari

159
00:08:43,040 --> 00:08:45,679
Speaker 1: to Warner as the first quote unquote death of Atari.

160
00:08:46,120 --> 00:08:49,240
Speaker 1: Some people refer to Nolan's departure as the first death.

161
00:08:49,240 --> 00:08:51,000
Speaker 1: But at any rate, they're kind of tired. I think

162
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,080
Speaker 1: it was. It's a big change. I mean, they did

163
00:08:53,160 --> 00:08:55,640
Speaker 1: happen fairly close to one another in time. He didn't

164
00:08:55,720 --> 00:08:57,600
Speaker 1: last long there. Uh, there was a c E. The

165
00:08:57,640 --> 00:09:01,359
Speaker 1: new CEO of Attari is Ray cassaw Are. Yeah, he

166
00:09:01,520 --> 00:09:04,360
Speaker 1: was not well liked, but no developers. No. In fact,

167
00:09:04,600 --> 00:09:07,880
Speaker 1: at least his name would be used for a famous

168
00:09:08,240 --> 00:09:11,800
Speaker 1: Autori title later on. What was it? Yards Revenge? It's

169
00:09:11,880 --> 00:09:15,719
Speaker 1: just Ray backwards, It's pretty yards Revenge. And then apparently, uh,

170
00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:21,120
Speaker 1: Cassar said that's clever. So it must have been a

171
00:09:21,120 --> 00:09:27,000
Speaker 1: few moments where at any rate, al Al Corn, Harry Jenkins,

172
00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:29,120
Speaker 1: and Roger Hector at this time begin to work on

173
00:09:29,160 --> 00:09:35,120
Speaker 1: a handheld electronic game system that used holography as its display.

174
00:09:35,240 --> 00:09:40,160
Speaker 1: So so a holographic display and it was called the Cosmos.

175
00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:42,960
Speaker 1: I haven't heard of that. Yeah, it was a handheld thing.

176
00:09:42,960 --> 00:09:45,480
Speaker 1: It was supposed to have nine games with all the

177
00:09:45,520 --> 00:09:48,240
Speaker 1: game information actually on the device itself, but you would

178
00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:51,880
Speaker 1: switch cartridges out because the cartridges had the information for

179
00:09:51,920 --> 00:09:56,000
Speaker 1: the holographic display. Yeah. I had a Merlin, remember that.

180
00:09:56,280 --> 00:09:58,320
Speaker 1: I do remember the Merlin, a little red. It looked

181
00:09:58,320 --> 00:10:01,120
Speaker 1: like a telephone. Yeah, and then I can't remember the

182
00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:03,080
Speaker 1: name of it. Again. If someone knows this, I know

183
00:10:03,160 --> 00:10:08,360
Speaker 1: you'll right in. It was a really great handheld UM

184
00:10:08,360 --> 00:10:10,200
Speaker 1: that had a dial on the bottom and it was

185
00:10:10,280 --> 00:10:14,240
Speaker 1: about nine inches tall about three inches wide, and I

186
00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:16,920
Speaker 1: had a screen and it had cartridges you load had

187
00:10:16,920 --> 00:10:19,880
Speaker 1: like breakout. I can't remember the name of it, but

188
00:10:19,880 --> 00:10:22,800
Speaker 1: it was really advanced for the time. Yeah. I did

189
00:10:22,800 --> 00:10:25,840
Speaker 1: a tech Stuff episode, a series of them actually about

190
00:10:26,320 --> 00:10:28,960
Speaker 1: a lot of the consoles and handheld consoles that came

191
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:32,800
Speaker 1: out during this time. UM which was fairly extensive, but

192
00:10:32,840 --> 00:10:36,080
Speaker 1: not exhaustive. We didn't can't cover everything. There's just there's

193
00:10:36,080 --> 00:10:37,760
Speaker 1: a lot of no name ones that sort of came

194
00:10:37,760 --> 00:10:40,920
Speaker 1: and went. Yeah ones that or or they had like, uh,

195
00:10:40,960 --> 00:10:43,760
Speaker 1: you know, a very limited release in South America, and

196
00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:46,040
Speaker 1: they're like three people in the United States who have

197
00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:49,840
Speaker 1: one that kind of thing. Yeah, I can't. I think

198
00:10:49,880 --> 00:10:51,880
Speaker 1: I want to say that they were both named after cats,

199
00:10:51,880 --> 00:10:55,360
Speaker 1: and one of our one of our listeners drew me

200
00:10:55,559 --> 00:11:00,360
Speaker 1: as one of the two cat uh characters you sing this,

201
00:11:00,520 --> 00:11:03,480
Speaker 1: and Lauren was the other one. So I've I've got

202
00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:07,520
Speaker 1: I've got that picture somewhere. Uh. Nineteen seventy nine, one

203
00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:10,720
Speaker 1: of the great arcade games of all time comes out

204
00:11:10,760 --> 00:11:15,480
Speaker 1: from Atari Asteroids. That's right, that's you know, fantastic game,

205
00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:20,400
Speaker 1: addictive gameplay, the one that still holds up. Very challenging still.

206
00:11:20,559 --> 00:11:24,319
Speaker 1: Once you start flying that spaceship around, right because because

207
00:11:24,320 --> 00:11:27,319
Speaker 1: it actually used inertia and momentum, right, you you had

208
00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:30,040
Speaker 1: to actually turn your ship and thrust in the opposite

209
00:11:30,080 --> 00:11:33,160
Speaker 1: direction to stop yourself at the plan ahead. Yeah, the

210
00:11:33,240 --> 00:11:35,400
Speaker 1: asteroids when you would when you shoot them, would break

211
00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:38,440
Speaker 1: apart into different directions, and if you were flying around

212
00:11:38,440 --> 00:11:40,439
Speaker 1: and if you've got going too fast and those asteroids

213
00:11:40,440 --> 00:11:43,360
Speaker 1: you start shooting them, you broke apart into little sticks.

214
00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:45,600
Speaker 1: For they have that little teleport button that you could

215
00:11:45,679 --> 00:11:48,400
Speaker 1: use like once a game and yeah, but that would

216
00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:50,719
Speaker 1: often drop you right in the path of a big asteroid. Yeah,

217
00:11:50,760 --> 00:11:54,800
Speaker 1: it wasn't necessarily a way to to save yourself. We'll

218
00:11:54,840 --> 00:11:59,559
Speaker 1: be back to talk about more of the amazing, amazing

219
00:11:59,600 --> 00:12:11,280
Speaker 1: story of Atari after these brief messages. This is also

220
00:12:11,280 --> 00:12:14,240
Speaker 1: when Atari would release a game for the home game

221
00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:16,800
Speaker 1: market that that Chuck. I think you have a few

222
00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:19,640
Speaker 1: things to say about. It's a little game called Adventure.

223
00:12:20,840 --> 00:12:25,360
Speaker 1: Oh talk about my favorite thing every please do. Let's

224
00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:30,079
Speaker 1: do that. Yes, Adventure was was created by Warren Robinette

225
00:12:31,280 --> 00:12:35,640
Speaker 1: and it I played it yesterday online. Um, had a

226
00:12:35,679 --> 00:12:42,080
Speaker 1: great time. Still holds up, well, maybe it's nostalgia. Playing

227
00:12:42,120 --> 00:12:44,640
Speaker 1: a little little is definitely paying a role. It does

228
00:12:44,679 --> 00:12:47,000
Speaker 1: hold up in a way, though. But when you look

229
00:12:47,040 --> 00:12:49,960
Speaker 1: at it now, and if you're younger, you will scoff

230
00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:54,440
Speaker 1: at the square that represents the night, and the arrow

231
00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:59,679
Speaker 1: that represents a sword, and the ducks that represent the dragons. Um.

232
00:12:59,720 --> 00:13:02,560
Speaker 1: But at the time it was, there was nothing like

233
00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:07,440
Speaker 1: it there. It was the first game that put you. Uh.

234
00:13:07,559 --> 00:13:11,280
Speaker 1: It was the first first person adventure game. Yeah, it's

235
00:13:11,320 --> 00:13:14,719
Speaker 1: the It's considered the first action adventure game ever. It

236
00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:19,200
Speaker 1: spawned a genre of games. Yeah, and but I don't

237
00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:21,319
Speaker 1: think we can get across like when we were kids

238
00:13:21,360 --> 00:13:25,559
Speaker 1: playing this game, we didn't see a square in an arrow.

239
00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:29,240
Speaker 1: We had imagination to go along with it. And it

240
00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:32,880
Speaker 1: sounds corny, but you really did, in your mind's eye

241
00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:35,960
Speaker 1: see the dragon, the red dragon, coming at you, and

242
00:13:36,000 --> 00:13:37,320
Speaker 1: you felt like you were the night and you had

243
00:13:37,360 --> 00:13:41,439
Speaker 1: this great, big sword. So it really played on kids imagination, which, um,

244
00:13:41,480 --> 00:13:43,240
Speaker 1: I mean, I love the games now. Don't get me wrong.

245
00:13:43,240 --> 00:13:45,480
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you should go back and do things

246
00:13:45,480 --> 00:13:48,080
Speaker 1: like this anymore, although there are some games that have

247
00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:50,680
Speaker 1: come out recently that have more of this old school

248
00:13:51,720 --> 00:13:55,880
Speaker 1: feel to it and they're phenomenal. Uh. For example, if

249
00:13:55,880 --> 00:13:57,959
Speaker 1: you want a game that looks like it was made

250
00:13:57,960 --> 00:13:59,719
Speaker 1: back in the early this would be more like in

251
00:13:59,760 --> 00:14:03,679
Speaker 1: the computer game era. Papers Please. Now let me tell

252
00:14:03,720 --> 00:14:05,959
Speaker 1: you what Papers pleases, and you're not going to believe

253
00:14:05,960 --> 00:14:08,600
Speaker 1: that this is a game. In Papers Please. You play

254
00:14:08,679 --> 00:14:14,439
Speaker 1: the part of a border patrol agent who reviews documentation

255
00:14:14,480 --> 00:14:17,600
Speaker 1: of people passing from one Soviet style nation to a

256
00:14:17,640 --> 00:14:22,760
Speaker 1: different Soviet style nation. But it's fantastic and it's done

257
00:14:22,760 --> 00:14:24,840
Speaker 1: in this style, and like I said, it's more of

258
00:14:24,880 --> 00:14:26,960
Speaker 1: a computer game style than the video game, like the

259
00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:32,200
Speaker 1: home video games very retro. But the gameplay is phenomenal,

260
00:14:32,360 --> 00:14:38,920
Speaker 1: The style is perfect, the oppressive Soviet music and and

261
00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:41,920
Speaker 1: uh and game. The writing in the game is fine.

262
00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:45,720
Speaker 1: So we're seeing some people who are kind of going

263
00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:48,920
Speaker 1: back to it, maybe a little later in the development

264
00:14:48,960 --> 00:14:52,080
Speaker 1: cycle and adventure, but they're going back to those basics

265
00:14:52,120 --> 00:14:55,760
Speaker 1: of gameplay is really important and imagination can make up

266
00:14:55,800 --> 00:14:59,840
Speaker 1: for a lot of of what other people would see

267
00:15:00,080 --> 00:15:01,960
Speaker 1: is like a drawback. You know, this idea that the

268
00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:06,840
Speaker 1: graphics are not realistic or or or you know, they

269
00:15:06,920 --> 00:15:11,440
Speaker 1: they're very abstract. These days, I'm seeing more developers say

270
00:15:11,560 --> 00:15:14,280
Speaker 1: that's not a problem. You know, that's something you can

271
00:15:14,320 --> 00:15:17,760
Speaker 1: embrace if the game is good. Yeah, exactly, And an

272
00:15:17,760 --> 00:15:21,440
Speaker 1: Adventure was that. I mean, uh, there are three big

273
00:15:21,520 --> 00:15:24,440
Speaker 1: things that Adventure brought to the table um. There was

274
00:15:24,480 --> 00:15:28,000
Speaker 1: a large space for the first time, I think thirty

275
00:15:28,120 --> 00:15:30,360
Speaker 1: rooms and eight regions. Yeah, you move from screen to

276
00:15:30,440 --> 00:15:32,400
Speaker 1: screen and it would take you into a new region

277
00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:34,800
Speaker 1: with new new things that you had to maneuver around.

278
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:37,880
Speaker 1: You could pick up objects and drop them and move

279
00:15:37,920 --> 00:15:40,600
Speaker 1: them around and use them and manipulate them. That was

280
00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:43,040
Speaker 1: a new thing one of the time, as I recall well,

281
00:15:43,080 --> 00:15:45,120
Speaker 1: which turned out to be brilliant because it's because of

282
00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:47,680
Speaker 1: the lost ark made things very convoluted, right. Yeah, It

283
00:15:47,720 --> 00:15:49,920
Speaker 1: meant that you didn't have to have an inventory screen.

284
00:15:50,080 --> 00:15:53,760
Speaker 1: All the action could take place within that game, like

285
00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:55,920
Speaker 1: you had to plan out what you needed, like are

286
00:15:55,960 --> 00:15:57,960
Speaker 1: you going to need the sword on that next screen?

287
00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:00,000
Speaker 1: If you don't, do you want to move? The whole

288
00:16:00,200 --> 00:16:03,080
Speaker 1: point of the game was getting the chalice to the

289
00:16:03,960 --> 00:16:07,880
Speaker 1: exactly so you might not need your sword, so dropping

290
00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:10,040
Speaker 1: the sword, moving the chalice further along might be the

291
00:16:10,040 --> 00:16:12,160
Speaker 1: best thing to do. But there was also another element

292
00:16:12,560 --> 00:16:17,760
Speaker 1: that could really mess with you if you yes. The bat. Yeah,

293
00:16:17,760 --> 00:16:20,080
Speaker 1: there was a bat that would fly around and there

294
00:16:20,080 --> 00:16:24,040
Speaker 1: were several levels of difficult from three I think, and

295
00:16:24,360 --> 00:16:27,560
Speaker 1: I think the bat came out of number two. Um,

296
00:16:27,560 --> 00:16:29,600
Speaker 1: but either on level two or three, the bat would

297
00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:32,080
Speaker 1: just fly around and you would be so close to

298
00:16:32,160 --> 00:16:35,040
Speaker 1: getting what you needed, and it took work. This game time,

299
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:39,440
Speaker 1: there was no timer, which was another genius move. Um,

300
00:16:39,480 --> 00:16:41,480
Speaker 1: And it would take a lot of figuring out to

301
00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:43,880
Speaker 1: to find your way through these mazes and catacombs, and

302
00:16:44,240 --> 00:16:46,320
Speaker 1: sometimes you would have to use this bridge to get

303
00:16:46,360 --> 00:16:48,760
Speaker 1: through a wall, and it was really pretty genius. And

304
00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:51,720
Speaker 1: then the bat would come and steal the things and

305
00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:54,120
Speaker 1: steal the thing you wanted, or occasionally it would fly

306
00:16:54,160 --> 00:16:57,760
Speaker 1: away with like a dragon, which was funny. Yeah. And

307
00:16:57,800 --> 00:17:00,200
Speaker 1: then basically then you had to go on a us

308
00:17:00,240 --> 00:17:02,480
Speaker 1: to find this bat because the bat had the key

309
00:17:02,520 --> 00:17:06,920
Speaker 1: to the Black Castle. Black Castle had you know, Alice exactly,

310
00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:10,119
Speaker 1: So it's it was. It was levels of complexity. Also,

311
00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:14,399
Speaker 1: another really cool thing about Adventure, it's the first video

312
00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:16,680
Speaker 1: game that I know of to have an Easter Egg

313
00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:19,440
Speaker 1: in it. Yeah, it is the first game. I'm reading

314
00:17:19,480 --> 00:17:22,680
Speaker 1: Ready Player one right now. Fantastic. They talk a little

315
00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:25,600
Speaker 1: bit about that. Um, there's actually a game inside Ready

316
00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:29,040
Speaker 1: Player one. Oh really, Yeah, there was this game within

317
00:17:29,119 --> 00:17:31,359
Speaker 1: the book itself that if you figured it out, you

318
00:17:31,359 --> 00:17:33,800
Speaker 1: could win a prize. I can't remember the details. Yeah,

319
00:17:33,920 --> 00:17:36,040
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. It's actually one of those things where

320
00:17:36,440 --> 00:17:39,919
Speaker 1: they released the information that that there was stuff hidden

321
00:17:40,119 --> 00:17:42,640
Speaker 1: in the book that if you figured it out would

322
00:17:42,680 --> 00:17:44,639
Speaker 1: lead you down a pathway where you could want a

323
00:17:44,680 --> 00:17:46,679
Speaker 1: prize at the end. That's pretty cool. It was a

324
00:17:46,720 --> 00:17:51,920
Speaker 1: neat idea. Yeah, the easter reggon Adventure though at the time,

325
00:17:51,960 --> 00:17:54,680
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about this in a minute, with um

326
00:17:55,240 --> 00:17:58,360
Speaker 1: developers not getting credit, they didn't get credit at the time,

327
00:17:58,359 --> 00:18:02,120
Speaker 1: and so he hid a uh he hit his name. Basically,

328
00:18:02,240 --> 00:18:05,040
Speaker 1: there was this little invisible dot that you can only

329
00:18:05,040 --> 00:18:07,719
Speaker 1: find in certain rooms, hidden away, and you could pick

330
00:18:07,800 --> 00:18:09,520
Speaker 1: up this dot and bring it to a certain place

331
00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:12,760
Speaker 1: and it would basically take you. It would it would

332
00:18:12,840 --> 00:18:15,600
Speaker 1: show his name on the screen as the creator of

333
00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:17,840
Speaker 1: the game. And it was the very very first Easter Egg.

334
00:18:18,160 --> 00:18:20,600
Speaker 1: Pretty neat story, really cool, really cool. I can talk

335
00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:23,040
Speaker 1: about Adventure for the next hour, so we'll have to

336
00:18:23,080 --> 00:18:25,080
Speaker 1: move on, but we need to go back in time

337
00:18:25,119 --> 00:18:30,400
Speaker 1: to Space Invaders and an instrumentally important video game, one

338
00:18:30,440 --> 00:18:35,320
Speaker 1: of the most um popular arcade games to ever come out,

339
00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:38,320
Speaker 1: in fact, Asteroids in a way was Atari saying how

340
00:18:38,359 --> 00:18:41,080
Speaker 1: can we capitalize on that same kind of level of

341
00:18:41,080 --> 00:18:45,480
Speaker 1: of of obsession and it was a Tito Tito game

342
00:18:45,480 --> 00:18:48,360
Speaker 1: in the arcade And I think the last we left

343
00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:53,359
Speaker 1: off with the home unit was it wasn't selling super well. Um,

344
00:18:53,440 --> 00:18:57,080
Speaker 1: and everything changed when they brought licensed and it was

345
00:18:57,080 --> 00:18:59,439
Speaker 1: the first license game. When they licensed Space Invaders, it

346
00:18:59,520 --> 00:19:02,560
Speaker 1: was a huge hit. Yeah. And also it was a

347
00:19:02,640 --> 00:19:05,439
Speaker 1: very faithful port of the game, Like it was a

348
00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:08,639
Speaker 1: good representation of what the Arcade game was. You know,

349
00:19:08,680 --> 00:19:11,240
Speaker 1: it wasn't as as uh. I mean, if you look

350
00:19:11,240 --> 00:19:12,840
Speaker 1: at a space and very game game, you're not going

351
00:19:12,880 --> 00:19:15,040
Speaker 1: to think of it as being slick or sophisticated. But

352
00:19:15,320 --> 00:19:18,119
Speaker 1: the Atari version was you know, a little a little slower,

353
00:19:18,119 --> 00:19:21,240
Speaker 1: a little block here. But it was pretty good version though. Yeah,

354
00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:25,919
Speaker 1: it was very The gameplay was there, the important elements

355
00:19:25,960 --> 00:19:28,480
Speaker 1: were there, and so while it might not have been

356
00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:30,800
Speaker 1: quite the same experience as the Arcade, it was a

357
00:19:30,840 --> 00:19:34,479
Speaker 1: good representation of it. So it was a great move

358
00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:38,240
Speaker 1: on Atari's part, very savvy and ended up really turning

359
00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:42,320
Speaker 1: things around. Started helping with the push to market this.

360
00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:45,800
Speaker 1: And also we should point out another interesting thing was

361
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:49,960
Speaker 1: in the early days, Atari strategy was really to just

362
00:19:50,080 --> 00:19:53,280
Speaker 1: market around the holidays. This was like a Christmas line.

363
00:19:53,280 --> 00:19:55,120
Speaker 1: Because it was such an expensive thing. They thought, well,

364
00:19:55,119 --> 00:19:57,560
Speaker 1: this is a big ticket, this is when people are

365
00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:00,280
Speaker 1: going to be buying something for their kids, really was.

366
00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:02,600
Speaker 1: That was when I got my cartridges. I didn't like

367
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:05,720
Speaker 1: buy one in June. Yeah, it would only be later

368
00:20:05,800 --> 00:20:08,520
Speaker 1: on when they said why don't we promote this all

369
00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:11,879
Speaker 1: year round? And that started to really boost the sales

370
00:20:11,920 --> 00:20:16,120
Speaker 1: to Also around this time, they were debuting home computer systems,

371
00:20:16,160 --> 00:20:19,000
Speaker 1: the Atari four hundred and the Atari eight hundred. Now

372
00:20:19,040 --> 00:20:23,159
Speaker 1: these were both eight bit home computers, so you know,

373
00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 1: they were based around that same microprocessor technology that there used,

374
00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:33,680
Speaker 1: although the version that they us was technically the six

375
00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:35,840
Speaker 1: five oh seven, which had fewer pins than the six

376
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:40,720
Speaker 1: five oh two microprocessor. Um they could only address or

377
00:20:40,760 --> 00:20:43,600
Speaker 1: the vcs rather, the twicet center could only address eight

378
00:20:43,640 --> 00:20:47,360
Speaker 1: kilobytes of memory. So we're talking really really simple stuff here.

379
00:20:47,880 --> 00:20:49,920
Speaker 1: Now between the four D and hundred. You might wonder,

380
00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:52,320
Speaker 1: what's the difference. Is the hundred twice as good as

381
00:20:52,320 --> 00:20:57,360
Speaker 1: it twice as powerful? No? Maybe a little more expensive, Yeah,

382
00:20:57,400 --> 00:20:59,040
Speaker 1: but it was this was these were two of the

383
00:20:59,119 --> 00:21:02,000
Speaker 1: units that had code names that were named after women

384
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:05,720
Speaker 1: in the office. We mentioned that previously. So the four

385
00:21:05,840 --> 00:21:09,119
Speaker 1: hundred was marketed more as a gaming console and the

386
00:21:09,119 --> 00:21:13,120
Speaker 1: eight hundred was marketed more as a home computer. So

387
00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:15,960
Speaker 1: the four hundred had essentially the same stuff as the

388
00:21:15,960 --> 00:21:18,040
Speaker 1: eight hundred, but a lot of it was inaccessible to

389
00:21:18,080 --> 00:21:21,240
Speaker 1: the users. So, for example, your memory slots are closed

390
00:21:21,280 --> 00:21:24,000
Speaker 1: off the four hundred, So what you buy all the boxes,

391
00:21:24,040 --> 00:21:26,400
Speaker 1: what you get, whereas the eight hundred had things where

392
00:21:26,400 --> 00:21:29,960
Speaker 1: you could swap stuff out. I remember seeing that, but

393
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:33,200
Speaker 1: only to a certain degree. It had like five available slots. Yeah,

394
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:36,600
Speaker 1: it wasn't It wasn't like you could just continuously upgrade this.

395
00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:39,840
Speaker 1: Obviously the hardware itself had a limitation too, but it

396
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:43,200
Speaker 1: did mean that you could uh customize they hundred more

397
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:45,360
Speaker 1: than you could the four hundred, which was a big

398
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:49,679
Speaker 1: deal at the time. Yeah, so, uh, seventy nine is

399
00:21:49,680 --> 00:21:52,840
Speaker 1: a big year for them. They make twenty million dollars

400
00:21:52,920 --> 00:21:57,680
Speaker 1: in nineteen nine. Yeah, undred units started basically, you know,

401
00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:00,560
Speaker 1: they sold three hundred thousand, then five hundred and a million,

402
00:22:00,600 --> 00:22:04,600
Speaker 1: than two million, and they basically started doubling every year

403
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:10,840
Speaker 1: upon year until they hit ten million and uh units sold.

404
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:15,680
Speaker 1: And for Warners, they made up seventy of their income

405
00:22:16,840 --> 00:22:20,280
Speaker 1: of a company that also oversees music and movies. Yeah,

406
00:22:20,320 --> 00:22:23,679
Speaker 1: that's just crazy. Yeah, the rest of their business was

407
00:22:23,760 --> 00:22:26,960
Speaker 1: only thirty of their revenue. It's hard for me to

408
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:29,160
Speaker 1: wrap my mind around that. We talked about the video

409
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:33,440
Speaker 1: game industry being big today, Yeah, it was enormous back then,

410
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:37,399
Speaker 1: relatively speaking. I mean the pie size is differently, but

411
00:22:38,119 --> 00:22:42,639
Speaker 1: the portion of the pie was huge, unbelievable. And it

412
00:22:42,720 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 1: was that time that the CEO Cassar, started to do

413
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:52,720
Speaker 1: some really dumb things with the company, namely, hey, let's um,

414
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 1: let's lay off some of these developers, let's shut down

415
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:57,280
Speaker 1: the R and D department, and let's think all our

416
00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:00,840
Speaker 1: money into marketing this stuff. And this is bad timing

417
00:23:00,880 --> 00:23:05,399
Speaker 1: because just before he started messing around with the internal

418
00:23:05,440 --> 00:23:09,680
Speaker 1: structure of the company, there were already defections from Atari.

419
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:13,440
Speaker 1: Right you had you had four engineers from Attari who

420
00:23:13,560 --> 00:23:17,000
Speaker 1: left the company and they formed their own company to

421
00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:22,160
Speaker 1: create games. Sure please do. David Crane, Bob Whitehead, Alan Miller,

422
00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:27,880
Speaker 1: and Larry Kaplan and they formed Crane, by the way,

423
00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:30,320
Speaker 1: one of the best games from Atari. But they formed

424
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:36,280
Speaker 1: you said, Activision, Huge, huge, So that there were two

425
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 1: big reasons why they left. One is just that the

426
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:43,639
Speaker 1: developers weren't getting a share in the profits made from

427
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:46,280
Speaker 1: the games. Yeah, no money. They were being paid. They

428
00:23:46,320 --> 00:23:48,800
Speaker 1: were being paid on a make this game basis. But

429
00:23:48,840 --> 00:23:51,160
Speaker 1: if a game was selling really well, they didn't get royalties,

430
00:23:51,440 --> 00:23:53,680
Speaker 1: and they started to see these sales, They're like, I

431
00:23:53,800 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: make twenty grand a year. Yeah, I'm the one. I'm

432
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: the guy that made the thing that invented it that

433
00:23:58,840 --> 00:24:01,160
Speaker 1: that that you're so ling, and I'm not getting any

434
00:24:01,200 --> 00:24:03,560
Speaker 1: of that. The proceeds there's sort of in a vacuum

435
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:08,119
Speaker 1: like they were from what I read, sort of singular creators.

436
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:10,679
Speaker 1: Think there wasn't a team of people. Yeah, it was

437
00:24:10,760 --> 00:24:13,199
Speaker 1: like a dude wing up with an idea and then

438
00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:16,240
Speaker 1: seeing it through. Pretty much every game in these days,

439
00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:21,000
Speaker 1: you're talking about one person or maybe two people working

440
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 1: on a game, but more often than I was a

441
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:25,640
Speaker 1: single person per game. The other reason was the one

442
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:28,080
Speaker 1: that you had mentioned earlier. They weren't getting any credit

443
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:30,160
Speaker 1: for it, so they weren't getting paid, and they weren't

444
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:32,720
Speaker 1: their names weren't appearing on the packaging, it wasn't appearing

445
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: in the game, and they just wanted to have these

446
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,560
Speaker 1: two elements things they thought that they were over and

447
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:41,919
Speaker 1: so they went off and formed Activision with that, and

448
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: they decided they were going to continue to make games

449
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:49,760
Speaker 1: for the Atari. But they obviously wouldn't be Atari games

450
00:24:49,800 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: like they they'd be Activision games for the AD, and

451
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: this caused some friction. Atari resisted this. Atari did not

452
00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 1: want other companies making games for was really p oed

453
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 1: about the defection to begin with. Um I saw an

454
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: interview with Crane where he said that he at one

455
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: point when they were at first they went to ask like, hey,

456
00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:12,879
Speaker 1: maybe we should get some of this revenue, maybe we

457
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:15,640
Speaker 1: can get credit as developers, and he said, you guys

458
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 1: aren't any more important than the guy on the assembly

459
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: line putting these things together. And they were like, screw you.

460
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:24,520
Speaker 1: But yeah, I guess what have fun having that guy

461
00:25:24,560 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 1: on the assembly line putting together empty cartridges? So yeah,

462
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,919
Speaker 1: they all leave. Uh. Some of the games they create

463
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,639
Speaker 1: sell better than first party Atari games, Pitfall being a

464
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 1: great example of that, and Atari would sue Activision trying

465
00:25:38,560 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: to prevent them from producing games. But all of that,

466
00:25:41,320 --> 00:25:44,440
Speaker 1: by two all that had been decided third party games

467
00:25:44,480 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: would be completely allowed, and that was both a good

468
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 1: thing and a bad thing for the video game industry.

469
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: It was a good thing because companies like Activision we're

470
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,159
Speaker 1: making some really good games. It's a bad thing because

471
00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:59,080
Speaker 1: anybody else could make whatever crap they wanted to. Man,

472
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:02,400
Speaker 1: there were some bad had bad bad games. Yeah, we'll

473
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:06,399
Speaker 1: get to them of them. One of my favorite games

474
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:11,719
Speaker 1: arcade games was released in two of them actually, um.

475
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 1: One of them was Missile Command. Loved it, which brilliant. Also,

476
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:18,399
Speaker 1: one of the things I love about Missile Command is

477
00:26:18,400 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: when Atari went to the developers to make Missile Command,

478
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,919
Speaker 1: they had one demand. They said, this game can only

479
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:27,919
Speaker 1: be a defensive game. That's right, because it was about

480
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 1: essentially the Cold War, in nuclear war. And they said, yeah,

481
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:33,479
Speaker 1: we don't want to We don't want to have this

482
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: be a game where you drop in nukes on people. Know.

483
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:39,320
Speaker 1: It can be about we're shooting down missiles to stave

484
00:26:39,359 --> 00:26:41,879
Speaker 1: off a nuclear attack, but we're not going to have

485
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:44,720
Speaker 1: anything in the game where we launch a counter attack. Yeah,

486
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:46,880
Speaker 1: which was kind of cool. Missile Command to me still

487
00:26:46,880 --> 00:26:50,800
Speaker 1: holds up because version was really good. It moved it

488
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:54,159
Speaker 1: from a trackball in the arcade to the joystick. Um,

489
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:56,160
Speaker 1: but it didn't matter. No, it still worked really well.

490
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:59,640
Speaker 1: And as as anyone who played Missile Command knows, as

491
00:26:59,680 --> 00:27:03,000
Speaker 1: you agress through those screens, it gets really really hard

492
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:07,120
Speaker 1: because stuff starts coming down pretty fast. So the other

493
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: big game that came out in the one that I

494
00:27:09,880 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 1: also loved in the arcades, battle Zone man mind blowing

495
00:27:14,840 --> 00:27:18,080
Speaker 1: the dual joystick controllers to control the movement of a

496
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:20,959
Speaker 1: tank and you know, push both controllers forward to go forward,

497
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: pull one back to start turning in that direction to

498
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: three d uh. What do you call that? Vector graphics?

499
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:29,199
Speaker 1: Vector graphic? Yea, So what they would do is for

500
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:33,199
Speaker 1: vector graphics, you plot two points and it draws a

501
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 1: line between those two points, and then you draw another point.

502
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 1: It draws a line between those and that's how you

503
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: could create basic shapes and they'd be you know, kind

504
00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,719
Speaker 1: of at least wire frame look that you would you know,

505
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,440
Speaker 1: that was famous for battle Zone and also my favorite

506
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: Atari arcade game of all time, which comes out so

507
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 1: I'm gonna save it, but battle Zone about it also

508
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 1: had a scope view for some versions of the game.

509
00:27:57,200 --> 00:27:58,600
Speaker 1: Not all of them had the scope view. Some of

510
00:27:58,600 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: them were just the basic monitor and then you had

511
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 1: the controls only played the scope. So did I because

512
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: that you had to put your face up to like

513
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 1: a binocular type thing, and and it cuts away all

514
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:14,639
Speaker 1: other distractions. You don't anything. Yeah, and this is a

515
00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: good lesson too. We talk about immersion and things like

516
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: virtual reality and talk about how people say over and

517
00:28:21,560 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: over graphics matters, but it doesn't matter as much as

518
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:28,080
Speaker 1: you think it does. That you can feel immersed in

519
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 1: something has very simple graphics if it's a convincing experience.

520
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:36,400
Speaker 1: These were green lines, and uh, it was totally immersive. Great,

521
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:40,240
Speaker 1: great love that game. Always very disruptive, as someone would

522
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: tap on your shoulder when you're in that game, right,

523
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: what's going on? How did you get in my tank? Uh?

524
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,080
Speaker 1: So nine one they would come out with another phenomenal

525
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 1: arcade game, one of the best in the world. I

526
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,720
Speaker 1: know I keep saying that, but it's absolutely true. Tempest. Yeah,

527
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:58,959
Speaker 1: that was my favorite game. Well that in Galica, but

528
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:02,239
Speaker 1: those are both grade games. Yeah, and Tempests was just

529
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:05,920
Speaker 1: it didn't look like any other game that had come

530
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: out before it. Um if the gameplay was different, full

531
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: color vector graphics, so it wasn't just green or white lines.

532
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 1: Who actually yeah, and uh it had a feature too.

533
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: I remember where you could at the very beginning of

534
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:20,600
Speaker 1: the game you could skip forward. Um because when you

535
00:29:20,640 --> 00:29:22,560
Speaker 1: completed different levels in tempos, you would get a certain

536
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 1: amount of bonus points, but you could opt to start

537
00:29:25,760 --> 00:29:28,440
Speaker 1: later in the game and higher up on a higher level,

538
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: and uh immediately if you finished that one, you had

539
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: immediately like fifty points. Yeah, because you were you were

540
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:39,560
Speaker 1: you were jumping ahead, jumping to a level that mirror

541
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: mortals such as myself could not hope to complete. It

542
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: was tough, though, Man, it's still tough, buddy. Well yeah,

543
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,120
Speaker 1: because I mean, you know you you're doing like that's

544
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 1: task management right there, you know, figuring out Okay, well,

545
00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: this is the one that moves around in a circle

546
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: as it climbs up, so I gotta keep an eye

547
00:29:54,680 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 1: on that one. But this other one is one that

548
00:29:56,280 --> 00:29:58,480
Speaker 1: chimmy's up super fast, so I gotta get that one first.

549
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 1: And you can only fire and bursts. I remember, it

550
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,120
Speaker 1: wasn't like a continuous fire game. And uh man, you

551
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:06,479
Speaker 1: would just see people just spinning that disc like crazy

552
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:08,760
Speaker 1: to get the tempest to you know, the ship to

553
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 1: go around to the right part of the the board

554
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: in order to show yeah, or when you work to

555
00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 1: the next um, when you work to the next one.

556
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: I remember that was where you had to avoid the

557
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: spikes to the next level, and sometimes that was just

558
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: luck of the draw. The other big game that came

559
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:28,800
Speaker 1: out in the arcades, Centipede. Yeah, Centipede was huge because

560
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 1: it appealed to women and girls, and it was very colorful,

561
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:34,880
Speaker 1: very fun. It had a great game play with the

562
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 1: roller ball really maximized that. And I think it was

563
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: the first game actually written and developed by a woman.

564
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I didn't know that. That's cool. That's super cool. Well.

565
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 1: N one was also when Atari would show off the Cosmos.

566
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 1: That was that handheld game that used holography and we

567
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:55,080
Speaker 1: talked about previously. They showed it at the New York

568
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 1: Toy Fair. They ended up accepting eight thousand pre orders,

569
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 1: but by the end of nine Atari would reverse its

570
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:06,000
Speaker 1: decision to release the game console. The project is canceled,

571
00:31:06,400 --> 00:31:08,719
Speaker 1: so we never get to see what the Cosmos actually

572
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: looks like. Um. Yeah, I'm very curious how this holographic

573
00:31:14,080 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 1: type stuff was supposed to work from what I understand,

574
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 1: Like the description I read was that you would only

575
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 1: get two different images and it wasn't it wasn't um

576
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: important for gameplay, And I thought, well, what is important

577
00:31:27,800 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 1: for gameplay? That maybe there's like a permanent type screen

578
00:31:31,000 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 1: and and whatever you're looking at is interacting with the

579
00:31:34,120 --> 00:31:37,959
Speaker 1: quote unquote holographic image, which would be kind of like

580
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: some of the overlays that that existed for other game systems,

581
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: where you would have to put overlay either on the

582
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:47,400
Speaker 1: controller or sometimes on your TV. Yeah, it's very bizarre.

583
00:31:48,840 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 1: Attari would launch Dig Dug in the arcades yea, and

584
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: it also distributed one of Namco's games, a very popular

585
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: game pole position. Yeah. So Atari is basically kicking butt

586
00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 1: on two levels. Here they're owning um, while they're sharing

587
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 1: ownership in the arcade along with the big boys UM,

588
00:32:09,600 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: and they're uh kind of owning the home system at

589
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah. Um, they have, you know, some competition

590
00:32:15,920 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: with Clico Vision and Inteltelevision, which we're both i think

591
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: more advanced with the controls and some of the graphics.

592
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: But Tari had such a strangle hold on people at

593
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:28,680
Speaker 1: that point. Yeah, it was tough to kind of put

594
00:32:28,720 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: a chink in their own I mean, they just they

595
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,400
Speaker 1: define the market. And Television was interesting because it was

596
00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: this was one that had overlays like I was talking about,

597
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: not necessarily for the screen, but for your controller. The

598
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:41,960
Speaker 1: controller it look kind of like a remote control with

599
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,560
Speaker 1: a little joystick at the base. Yeah. Yeah, I had

600
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:48,440
Speaker 1: a wheel that you could snap a joystick onto, so

601
00:32:48,480 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 1: the joystick would move the wheel around, which in turn

602
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: operated whatever you know, sent the commands to the game system.

603
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:56,280
Speaker 1: And then you had a number pad, but you had

604
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,400
Speaker 1: little overlays. You would slide into the number pad depending

605
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: upon what game you're playing, so that tell you you know,

606
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 1: which number of corresponds to what command. Yeah, I remember

607
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:07,960
Speaker 1: in television was for me the Rich Kid game, because

608
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 1: they were the only ones that whose parents would let

609
00:33:10,600 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: them get a new one. Everyone else's parents were like,

610
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 1: you've got the Atari. I think that's that's You're not

611
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: going to get a different game now. I inherited it

612
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: in television from my cousin sometime around like the late eighties.

613
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 1: So well after that, well after there's nothing else coming

614
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:27,800
Speaker 1: out for it, right, this is that that game system

615
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: had been dead. So the things I had, and it

616
00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: was funny because the collection I games of games I

617
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:35,920
Speaker 1: had and the collection of overlays I had, it was

618
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: kind of like a Venn diagram with about coverage and

619
00:33:39,560 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 1: then there was overlap, and then for everything else. I

620
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 1: either had an overlay for a game that sounded awesome,

621
00:33:45,760 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: but I didn't have it or a game where I'm like,

622
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: I have no idea what these buttons are supposed to do.

623
00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: But at any rate. Getting back to Atari two was

624
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:59,320
Speaker 1: also when some some things happened that would end up

625
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:03,320
Speaker 1: hurting a company in the near future. One is that

626
00:34:03,360 --> 00:34:07,680
Speaker 1: they rushed a home video game port of a smash

627
00:34:07,760 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 1: hit in the arcades pac Man, Can I do my

628
00:34:10,920 --> 00:34:17,879
Speaker 1: impression now? Please? Don't got got gone? That it really

629
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 1: sounded about that bad. Yeah, it didn't look like pac Man.

630
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: It didn't sound like pac Man. It barely played like

631
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: pac Man. I mean you had a maze and you

632
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:30,839
Speaker 1: ate dashes instead of dots, and ghosts would chase after you.

633
00:34:30,920 --> 00:34:33,280
Speaker 1: They wouldn't turn blue if you ate a power pellet,

634
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:37,640
Speaker 1: they would just start flashing um. And it didn't sound

635
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:41,200
Speaker 1: like it. The colors weren't even the same it was.

636
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:44,880
Speaker 1: They botched it on almost every single level. But I

637
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,760
Speaker 1: was one of those kids who bought it on Christmas

638
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: Day that year because it was the most exciting thing

639
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,759
Speaker 1: to come out. Well, pac Man was groundbreaking in that

640
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: He's like, yeah, we had a whole song about it

641
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: was legit. There was a dance and everything. Uh yeah,

642
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: it uh. The worst thing to me is that they

643
00:35:04,960 --> 00:35:08,759
Speaker 1: could have done it right, because later on released a

644
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 1: MISS pac Man, which actually wasn't bad. Yeah, that's one

645
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: of the one of the better games. Actually. Yeah, it's

646
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: kind of crazy that MS pac Man was. You know,

647
00:35:17,440 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: it just showed that they could have done it better,

648
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:22,839
Speaker 1: but they rushed it through and uh, that ended up

649
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:26,719
Speaker 1: being a big, big downside. Now it's sold well. They

650
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,280
Speaker 1: I think they produced twelve million copies and they sold

651
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 1: seven million of them or something. Yeah. They at the

652
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:35,360
Speaker 1: time there were ten million hundred units and they said

653
00:35:35,440 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 1: every single person is going to buy one, and then

654
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: two million more people will go out and buy it

655
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:44,000
Speaker 1: to play pac Man. That is some hubris. Yeah, and

656
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 1: then when backfired in a big way, word comes around

657
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:49,120
Speaker 1: that the game is not so good. People started to

658
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: put the brakes on that. But they also two released

659
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: Yars Revenge. That was the one that took a good game. Yeah,

660
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:58,240
Speaker 1: it was a good game, and it took great Kassar's

661
00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:02,080
Speaker 1: name and reversed the first the reverse ray to Yar.

662
00:36:02,640 --> 00:36:08,720
Speaker 1: They eventually would ship I remember, um pac Man instead

663
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: of Combat. That's how low it fell, right. I'm glad

664
00:36:11,800 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 1: I got but I got mine in the combat day. Uh,

665
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 1: So the game Yards Revenge was developed by a guy

666
00:36:18,880 --> 00:36:23,440
Speaker 1: named Howard Scott Warshaw, who also developed two other games

667
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: that are notable. One is one we talked about before

668
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:28,960
Speaker 1: the Indiana Jones Raiders Lost. Our game was developed by him,

669
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:34,759
Speaker 1: which was fun but yeah, totally uh confounding. Yeah, it

670
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 1: was hard game to play. It was I. I was

671
00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: talking to Chuck before we recorded. In fact, I was

672
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,360
Speaker 1: talking to you earlier this week about how Um. I

673
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:45,880
Speaker 1: played that game a lot, and I remember being stuck

674
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 1: on the first couple of screens for really like how

675
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,359
Speaker 1: snake would come out of behind a rock and bite

676
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:53,040
Speaker 1: me and I die, and and I think, well, I've

677
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:55,320
Speaker 1: got this gun, but I'm almost certain this gun is

678
00:36:55,360 --> 00:36:57,200
Speaker 1: going to be important for something else. So if I

679
00:36:57,280 --> 00:36:59,439
Speaker 1: shoot the snake, is that a good idea? Should I?

680
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 1: Should I with the snake? That? Yeah? Well, And it

681
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: was the first game where you use both joysticks to play,

682
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: and um, the first game I think where you could

683
00:37:09,560 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: pick up multiple things and had like an inventory. Uh.

684
00:37:13,280 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 1: It was just really confusing, um and and challenging, but confusing. Yeah.

685
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:20,839
Speaker 1: When I finally watched the play through, it was maybe

686
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 1: a year ago. I watched the playthrough of it. Yeah,

687
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:25,479
Speaker 1: I kept thinking, well, now as I was watching, was like, oh, yeah,

688
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:28,000
Speaker 1: I got that far. Because I kept forgetting how far

689
00:37:28,040 --> 00:37:30,080
Speaker 1: I got. I just remembered the frustration of not knowing

690
00:37:30,120 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 1: what was going on. Well, I realized later on that

691
00:37:32,800 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: I actually played that game, if not to completion, nearly

692
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: to completion, I don't know, really stuck with that game.

693
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:43,239
Speaker 1: We've got a bit more to say about Atari. I mean,

694
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: there's a whole part three coming up after this one,

695
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 1: So we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be

696
00:37:47,320 --> 00:38:01,200
Speaker 1: right back. Warshaw is probably most famous poor guy for

697
00:38:01,320 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 1: a game that is often talked about as being the

698
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: worst video game ever made. In fact, Tech Stuff we

699
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:08,920
Speaker 1: did an episode about the worst games ever made, and

700
00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 1: this was number one on our list because it was

701
00:38:11,120 --> 00:38:14,919
Speaker 1: voted on by the listeners. E T. The Extraterrestrial. Yeah,

702
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:17,479
Speaker 1: I saw a list that UM did not even listen

703
00:38:17,520 --> 00:38:20,840
Speaker 1: in the top ten worst because they're saying it gets

704
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:25,399
Speaker 1: unnecessarily ribbed even though it is bad. People don't know

705
00:38:25,600 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: about the worst of the worst games. They were produced

706
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 1: by these third party companies. Et was produced by Atari, right,

707
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:34,040
Speaker 1: this was not one of those little third party Probably

708
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,040
Speaker 1: the worst Atari game. For sure. I could tell you

709
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 1: what the worst what I think, at least from a

710
00:38:39,239 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 1: concept point of view, what the worst game that was

711
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:47,120
Speaker 1: made for the Atari. No Custers Revenge. I don't think

712
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:49,279
Speaker 1: any of that one. You you need to look that

713
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: up later. And for all my listeners who are furiously

714
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:58,280
Speaker 1: looking up Custers Revenge at I'm sorry. It is a racist,

715
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:06,040
Speaker 1: misogynist game that uses awful graphics to depict um violating

716
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:09,680
Speaker 1: Indian ladies. Yeah. No, there was a third party that

717
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:14,920
Speaker 1: made and because Atari didn't have a process to uh

718
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,839
Speaker 1: to approve or deny games on its system, people could

719
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 1: make stuff like that, or companies, like I said, kool

720
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 1: Aid could say, hey, let's make a game that's sort

721
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 1: of a TV commercial. Yeah, exactly. We can make a

722
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: commercial that's interactive and convince people to buy our stuff more.

723
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: And we can even make it so that the only

724
00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:34,360
Speaker 1: way you can get this game is by buying our

725
00:39:34,400 --> 00:39:38,359
Speaker 1: stuff and sending proof of purchase in to get the game. Yeah. Well,

726
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:41,240
Speaker 1: at any rate, et was a huge setback for the company.

727
00:39:41,280 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: They had spent an enormous amount of money to get

728
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:46,800
Speaker 1: the license, like between twenty and twenty five million dollars

729
00:39:47,239 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: for Spielberg to give that up. It was a big deal. Yeah.

730
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: They produced four million copies of the game, and about

731
00:39:55,120 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: three and a half million were returned to Atari, either

732
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: unsold or people had returned their copy to the game store. Yeah,

733
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 1: and the legend, and I should say, I've never ever

734
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: played it. Yeah. I don't know why it got by

735
00:40:08,239 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: me because I was so into all that and I

736
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,279
Speaker 1: love DT. I don't know. Maybe I heard it was

737
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: crappy and I just don't remember, but I never played it. Um.

738
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 1: But then the story gets kind of interesting because for

739
00:40:18,320 --> 00:40:21,160
Speaker 1: many many years that was, uh, what was thought to

740
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 1: be an urban legend that Atari took those in other

741
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,160
Speaker 1: games and buried them in a landfill in New Mexico

742
00:40:27,239 --> 00:40:30,440
Speaker 1: and covered it with concrete. Um. And for many years

743
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 1: that was like, now, that's just an urban legend. But

744
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: wasn't it last year that they finally dug them up.

745
00:40:36,280 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: It was actually April April two, and it was true. Yeah,

746
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 1: they found In fact, part of the legend. At one

747
00:40:43,160 --> 00:40:45,279
Speaker 1: point was saying, all right, yes they did it, but

748
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 1: first they crushed all the games, so all they're gonna

749
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: end up finding is black plastic. And this is of

750
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:54,080
Speaker 1: of circuitry. Not true though. No, they found full intact cartridges.

751
00:40:54,160 --> 00:40:57,799
Speaker 1: Whether or not they still play is another question. Yeah,

752
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: and the truest irony those things were fetching some good

753
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,759
Speaker 1: money on eBay. Man, it makes me wish I had

754
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:04,680
Speaker 1: held onto my copy and just put a little dirt

755
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:06,880
Speaker 1: on it and then said, like straight from New Mexico

756
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:13,839
Speaker 1: may still play. Um yeah, but uh, because granted, psychological

757
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: scars never healed, but the money would have helped, right. Yeah,

758
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: So so that was not the death knell for Atari.

759
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:23,520
Speaker 1: Some people like to say, but um, I saw one

760
00:41:23,560 --> 00:41:26,560
Speaker 1: writer put it, it may have been the final straw. Yeah,

761
00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: I think. I think it's a great thing to point

762
00:41:29,160 --> 00:41:32,160
Speaker 1: out as a symbol of the issues that were that

763
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:34,959
Speaker 1: came about with the video game crash. But that's way

764
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: more complex. Also, this two we're talking about the video

765
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:41,040
Speaker 1: game crash happened in eight three. Yes, two big flops

766
00:41:41,040 --> 00:41:43,440
Speaker 1: though with pac Man and et and a lot of money.

767
00:41:43,719 --> 00:41:48,440
Speaker 1: You know, if Atari hadn't a squandered money elsewhere, they

768
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 1: could have survived the financial impact of both of these flops,

769
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:54,319
Speaker 1: and they didn't themselves kill it off. On top of that,

770
00:41:54,360 --> 00:41:58,200
Speaker 1: we have the added problem that Atari was trying to

771
00:41:58,239 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 1: push a news system on to the market, the Atari

772
00:42:01,200 --> 00:42:05,840
Speaker 1: fifty two hundred super system coming out. It was based

773
00:42:05,840 --> 00:42:08,840
Speaker 1: off the four hundred slash eight hundred line of Atari computers.

774
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 1: The controllers had a joystick and a number pad. They

775
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:17,640
Speaker 1: were big and hard to use, and they broke pretty easily.

776
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: But the joystick was interesting. Like the old uh Atari

777
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:25,759
Speaker 1: joysticks were eight point analog joysticks UM, which meant that

778
00:42:26,160 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 1: it could only detect if the joystick was pressing down

779
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 1: on any of those eight points. This one was a

780
00:42:31,120 --> 00:42:34,319
Speaker 1: three hundred sixty degree analog joystick, giving you much more

781
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:37,239
Speaker 1: precise control. But it was also non centering. There was

782
00:42:37,280 --> 00:42:39,480
Speaker 1: no spring to have it moved back to the center. Yeah,

783
00:42:39,480 --> 00:42:41,839
Speaker 1: they had a lot of problems with the joystick. Yeah,

784
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:44,360
Speaker 1: and apparently Atari um had so many problems with the

785
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:48,439
Speaker 1: joystick while the game was released. In release, they they

786
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 1: tried and reshipped like I don't know how many versions

787
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: of the joystick, like six or eight different versions. Well,

788
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:57,839
Speaker 1: and on top of that, it couldn't play games. So

789
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:00,320
Speaker 1: if if you are a really big deal, if you

790
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:02,520
Speaker 1: had your library of games, I mean we all we

791
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:07,120
Speaker 1: anyone who plays video games knows about issues with backwards compatibility.

792
00:43:07,520 --> 00:43:09,960
Speaker 1: We love it when a system is backwards compatible with

793
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 1: earlier systems, and we hate it when it's not, because

794
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: you spend all this money accruing a library of games

795
00:43:18,160 --> 00:43:20,560
Speaker 1: and you don't you know, you only have so many

796
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:23,080
Speaker 1: options to hook things up to your TV. You don't

797
00:43:23,120 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 1: want to negate all that. So another blow against it

798
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:31,719
Speaker 1: was that the games, in large part, we're just updates

799
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: of games, So you have to buy the same game twice,

800
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: you have to buy a new which people who buy

801
00:43:37,719 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: who have the Xbox One are probably laughing right now

802
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:42,520
Speaker 1: because that's what's happening over there. Also the PS four.

803
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: Several of the games that have come out for the

804
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,000
Speaker 1: PS four and the Xbox One over the last year

805
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 1: or so have been a remasters of games that came

806
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 1: out for the previous systems, like Grand Theft Auto five

807
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 1: is coming out this year for the Xbox One. Um well,

808
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:03,120
Speaker 1: they're higher quality graphics. Sometimes there's also some added gameplay elements,

809
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:05,480
Speaker 1: so it's not the exact same game. It is an enhancement.

810
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:08,240
Speaker 1: But it does mean that if you had an Xbox

811
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,399
Speaker 1: three sixty and a copy of Grand Theft Auto five,

812
00:44:11,080 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: now are you going to go and purchase a Grand

813
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:17,160
Speaker 1: Theft Auto five for your Xbox One, because even with

814
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: the enhancements, there's something in your brain that's saying, you

815
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:24,479
Speaker 1: bought this once already, you know, like, you know, yeah,

816
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:26,359
Speaker 1: I might have more stuff in it, but you still

817
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 1: did buy it already. H. This was also the year

818
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,440
Speaker 1: when Pitfall came out, so insult to injury for Atari

819
00:44:32,480 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 1: because you're having all these issues and and meanwhile Activision

820
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:39,960
Speaker 1: puts out Pitfall. Also, j Minor, who designed the Atari

821
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 1: eight hundred chips set, left Attari to design a new

822
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: computer called the Amiga, which was based off similar chip

823
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:50,680
Speaker 1: set idea um and that was originally going to be

824
00:44:50,719 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: a video game console but was reimagined as a general

825
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:59,800
Speaker 1: purpose computer. Because now we're the video game market comes

826
00:45:00,200 --> 00:45:04,320
Speaker 1: rashing down, especially the home video game market, specifically the

827
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 1: home video game market, and tech Stuff did a full

828
00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: episode on the Great Video Game Crash. UH. We're still

829
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 1: going to talk about some because obviously it was monumentally

830
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:17,760
Speaker 1: important in the history of Atari. Part of the issue

831
00:45:17,840 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 1: was that you had this enormous number of crappy games

832
00:45:21,160 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 1: coming from all these third party UH companies. Plus Atari

833
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:29,239
Speaker 1: had already made some really bad first party games like

834
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: the Pac Man version and the et game so well,

835
00:45:33,680 --> 00:45:36,560
Speaker 1: not only that, and not just the games, but there were, um,

836
00:45:36,680 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 1: there was console were I mean, if you look at

837
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 1: the the list of the console games that came out

838
00:45:44,120 --> 00:45:47,200
Speaker 1: that were just barely even made a register in the market.

839
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 1: H it was just it was flooded with it. You know,

840
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:53,359
Speaker 1: it's just a glood of bad games, bad consoles. Yeah, yeah,

841
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:55,319
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we talked about the Intellivision, the

842
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 1: Click of Vision, and the Atari twenty. There were a

843
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:02,840
Speaker 1: lot of other consoles that hit the market because everyone

844
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: saw this as a way to make huge amounts of money.

845
00:46:05,320 --> 00:46:09,160
Speaker 1: I mean, Atari had proven that this was a multimillion

846
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: dollar industry and everyone wanted a piece of that. But

847
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:15,879
Speaker 1: the problem was now you had a glut of consoles

848
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:18,120
Speaker 1: and games. It was there was confusion in the marketplace.

849
00:46:18,120 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 1: I mean, imagine Chuck for a moment, your parents going

850
00:46:22,200 --> 00:46:25,800
Speaker 1: to the toy store and thinking, this is the game

851
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,560
Speaker 1: he wants, and it says in television across the top,

852
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 1: not Atari, and they buy it, not knowing that this

853
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:35,560
Speaker 1: was for a totally different game console system. I mean

854
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: it was and only that we had all these elements,

855
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: you also had the burgeoning personal computer market. Yeah, that's

856
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:47,040
Speaker 1: the thing. It wasn't like the home tech was was

857
00:46:47,200 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 1: bottoming out. Computers were more popular than ever, and they

858
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,799
Speaker 1: started to market. Hey, you can play games and do

859
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:56,560
Speaker 1: home computing on these things, So why just get this

860
00:46:56,880 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: console that just plays games? You can this is going

861
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:00,520
Speaker 1: to be the thing of the past. Actually, you can

862
00:47:00,560 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: get this thing that lets lets your kids waste hours

863
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: and hours staring at the TV as they move a

864
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:09,040
Speaker 1: little dot around. Or you could get our thing which

865
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: lets the play games that they want to, but it

866
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: also lets them do their homework and you can do

867
00:47:14,040 --> 00:47:17,120
Speaker 1: your taxes and all this kind of stuff. And I

868
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,600
Speaker 1: mean it was a very compelling argument. So this combination

869
00:47:20,680 --> 00:47:24,120
Speaker 1: of events caused the market to just bottom out. You

870
00:47:24,200 --> 00:47:29,560
Speaker 1: had stories of games discounting, or stores like toy stores

871
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 1: discounting games putting them in bargain bins where you get, like,

872
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:36,120
Speaker 1: you know, a dollar or two bucks to pick up

873
00:47:36,160 --> 00:47:40,280
Speaker 1: these cartridges. So was I quality was not an issue?

874
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: I was like, I want quantity you all right? Well

875
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 1: you know that was I mowed the lawn for that.

876
00:47:48,560 --> 00:47:50,800
Speaker 1: The lawn will regrow and I will mow it again.

877
00:47:51,520 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: Um and uh. Also, Atari made another dumb mistake, which

878
00:47:58,400 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: I can't completely blame them for. Alright, So there were

879
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:05,600
Speaker 1: some issues that happened, the video game crash, the ET Plan,

880
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 1: the pac Man Plan. There was also supposedly some questionable

881
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:12,319
Speaker 1: stock dealings that led Attari to the border directions to

882
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: fire the CEO, Ray Kassar. Yeah, and I don't know

883
00:48:16,120 --> 00:48:18,919
Speaker 1: if Kassar was. He had not made the best moves

884
00:48:18,960 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 1: for that company anyway, So it wasn't like Bushnell leaving,

885
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:26,600
Speaker 1: but um it was. It definitely made the company unstable. Yeah,

886
00:48:26,680 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 1: so he was pushed out. A guy named James J.

887
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:32,879
Speaker 1: Morgan would take over as CEO. But here was something

888
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:36,600
Speaker 1: else that was going on behind the scenes, EDITORI that

889
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 1: could have totally helped the company coast through the video

890
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,880
Speaker 1: game crash and rise to new heights. There was a

891
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:50,720
Speaker 1: company in Japan, company that started out selling playing cards.

892
00:48:51,160 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 1: That's how it started. It made a game console in

893
00:48:55,000 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 1: Japan referred to as the fami Com. We know it

894
00:49:00,320 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 1: as the Nintendo Entertainment System. In a nineteen three, Nintendo

895
00:49:05,120 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 1: and Atari were in talks for Atari to be the

896
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:13,520
Speaker 1: United States distributor of the Famicom Entertainment System. They said, well,

897
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 1: we'll keep Japan Yeah, Atari's big over there. You guys

898
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: do a great job. Let's partner up. Yeah, you can

899
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 1: put your branding on it. We'll have it all planned

900
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 1: out to be a partnership and Nintendo was moving forward

901
00:49:25,280 --> 00:49:27,640
Speaker 1: with our Atari and Nintendo were moving forward with this,

902
00:49:28,239 --> 00:49:31,120
Speaker 1: but there are a couple of things that caused some hiccups.

903
00:49:31,120 --> 00:49:34,240
Speaker 1: One of them was that Kaliko was shipping the Clico

904
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:38,399
Speaker 1: Vision with Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong is a Nintendo game,

905
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:41,560
Speaker 1: and under this agreement, this partnership agreement, Attari was supposed

906
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:46,319
Speaker 1: to get exclusive rights to Nintendo games, and so the

907
00:49:46,360 --> 00:49:50,200
Speaker 1: fact that a Nintendo game was appearing on a Collico

908
00:49:50,320 --> 00:49:55,399
Speaker 1: product caused this deal to slow down. Meanwhile, Kassar, who

909
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:57,759
Speaker 1: was kind of the moving force of this deal, this

910
00:49:57,840 --> 00:50:02,360
Speaker 1: could have been his redemption. He's fired. Now there's no

911
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:04,279
Speaker 1: one at the ship who was actually in charge of

912
00:50:04,320 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 1: this deal. And yeah, and there's no one for them

913
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:10,480
Speaker 1: to talk to anymore. So they said, you know what,

914
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:14,399
Speaker 1: we're gonna try this ourselves. We're gonna work on this

915
00:50:14,600 --> 00:50:16,040
Speaker 1: and in a couple of years, we're gonna launch in

916
00:50:16,040 --> 00:50:18,759
Speaker 1: the United States under our own brand name. And that's

917
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 1: what they did. But with just a couple of changes

918
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 1: in history. Atari could have been Nintendo Nintendo. Yeah, it

919
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:31,680
Speaker 1: could have been the Atari Entertainment System. And uh and

920
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:34,280
Speaker 1: by the way, the reason it's called the entertainment system

921
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: is because by that point Nintendo had seen the video

922
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 1: game market crashed and there was now this kind of

923
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:42,640
Speaker 1: stigma against video games. So they said, let's call it

924
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:45,600
Speaker 1: an entertainment system. We won't call it a video game system,

925
00:50:45,719 --> 00:50:48,279
Speaker 1: and we'll make it look very you know, boxy and

926
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:51,400
Speaker 1: r Yeah, and it'll sit on the shelf and your

927
00:50:51,400 --> 00:50:53,480
Speaker 1: parents won't mind it. It It won't look like some crazy

928
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:57,680
Speaker 1: game and very savvy move. As it turns out, Nintendo

929
00:50:57,760 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 1: made all the right decisions there, so really rough times

930
00:51:02,120 --> 00:51:05,319
Speaker 1: for a Torii. Um. And this is also when the

931
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:09,800
Speaker 1: arcade branch of Atari released the licensed first person space

932
00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: simulator game. That's my favorite arcade game of all time, Chuck,

933
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:16,600
Speaker 1: what do you think it is? Oh? Gee, I don't know.

934
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:21,000
Speaker 1: It's a first person game. First person it's a space setting,

935
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:29,319
Speaker 1: vector graphics, voices from a movie. Yes, my favorite arcade game,

936
00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:33,040
Speaker 1: Real Time Star Wars. Yeah, you know, I didn't. Oddly enough,

937
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 1: I didn't play that that much. I if I found

938
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,680
Speaker 1: an arcade that had the cockpit version where you sat

939
00:51:39,760 --> 00:51:43,360
Speaker 1: down and you held onto that yoke and the music

940
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 1: would come up. And you know, keep in mind, guys,

941
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:50,040
Speaker 1: this is not like orchestra level music, but it sounded

942
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 1: good at the times, and it actually had the voices

943
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:56,320
Speaker 1: of the actors in there too. You would hear Obi

944
00:51:56,400 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: Wan say the Force will be with you always, right.

945
00:52:00,440 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 1: I loved this game without reservation, my favorite game of

946
00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 1: all time. If I could actually find a version of this,

947
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:12,759
Speaker 1: I would buy it for you. Yeah. The hardest thing

948
00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:15,000
Speaker 1: would be talking to my wife and saying, you know,

949
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 1: where are we gonna put this in the limited space

950
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:18,360
Speaker 1: in our house. I know it would have to go

951
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:20,399
Speaker 1: in my office. I just don't know how I would

952
00:52:20,440 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 1: make room in their room. I would make room. I

953
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:24,640
Speaker 1: couldn't get the cockpit version. That would be way too big.

954
00:52:24,680 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 1: I'd have to get the stand up version. But hey,

955
00:52:26,120 --> 00:52:27,719
Speaker 1: if you've got a stand up cabinet version of Star

956
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:29,920
Speaker 1: Wars you're looking to unload and it works, let me know,

957
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:34,320
Speaker 1: or let Chuck know, because he's gonna buy it foray Um. Also,

958
00:52:36,040 --> 00:52:39,520
Speaker 1: two other games would get Atari to release them in Europe,

959
00:52:39,520 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 1: not in the United States. The United States a different distributor.

960
00:52:42,280 --> 00:52:44,840
Speaker 1: But there were two other games that were really important

961
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:49,479
Speaker 1: in the history of video games, dragons Layer and Space Ace. Yeah.

962
00:52:49,560 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 1: Dragons Layer, remember was that was the first game that

963
00:52:52,520 --> 00:52:55,759
Speaker 1: used um laser disc. Yeah, it was. It was the graphics.

964
00:52:56,640 --> 00:52:59,719
Speaker 1: It was animated cart Yeah. Don Bluth did all the animation.

965
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:02,600
Speaker 1: He was a Disney animator for a long time, worked

966
00:53:02,600 --> 00:53:05,799
Speaker 1: on Oliver and Company and other game movies. Also did

967
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:09,359
Speaker 1: uh five Old the five Old movies like American Tale those. Yeah.

968
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:12,440
Speaker 1: The gameplay I remember wasn't great though, because you couldn't

969
00:53:12,440 --> 00:53:16,600
Speaker 1: really control live wasn't Didn't You make moves and then

970
00:53:16,600 --> 00:53:18,560
Speaker 1: it would play it out. Yeah. The way the way

971
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:20,879
Speaker 1: it would work is there would be a moment where

972
00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:24,279
Speaker 1: you had to put in a command, whether it was left, right, up,

973
00:53:24,320 --> 00:53:27,720
Speaker 1: down or sword swing whatever. Uh, And if you didn't

974
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:30,880
Speaker 1: do it at the exact time the right move, you died,

975
00:53:31,280 --> 00:53:33,279
Speaker 1: and if you did you would progress to the next

976
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:35,640
Speaker 1: scene and it was essentially play out like yeah, I

977
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:38,759
Speaker 1: remember now. I remember thinking, man, that looks amazing when

978
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: me put my quarter in and then saying this sucks

979
00:53:41,040 --> 00:53:43,319
Speaker 1: and going to play like right, well, you'd you'd put

980
00:53:43,320 --> 00:53:46,320
Speaker 1: your your four quarters then right because that was really expensible.

981
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:47,719
Speaker 1: It was either I think it actually might have been

982
00:53:47,719 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: the first game to go fifty cents. Well it was.

983
00:53:49,719 --> 00:53:52,520
Speaker 1: It was tokens at the time. I remember you would

984
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 1: go on Tuesdays to battle Zone and you would get

985
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:58,279
Speaker 1: like twenty tokens for a dollar. I remember what was it?

986
00:53:58,400 --> 00:54:01,320
Speaker 1: The good deal going? Was the one the gold nuggets

987
00:54:01,320 --> 00:54:04,600
Speaker 1: something like that. There was there was one that there

988
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:07,479
Speaker 1: was I think it was a Gwynette actually, um because

989
00:54:07,520 --> 00:54:11,400
Speaker 1: oh oh no, Northlake Mall had the the gold Mine,

990
00:54:11,520 --> 00:54:13,920
Speaker 1: gold Mine, that's it. Gold Mine. That was one of

991
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:17,960
Speaker 1: the great mall arcades. Yeah, in Atlanta, and then Fantastic. Well,

992
00:54:18,000 --> 00:54:20,920
Speaker 1: you know what we is gonna be a three partner.

993
00:54:20,920 --> 00:54:22,839
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a three partner. We we talked about

994
00:54:22,840 --> 00:54:24,759
Speaker 1: the possibility of it being a three partner in the game.

995
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:29,200
Speaker 1: And we are now fifty five minutes in and we

996
00:54:29,280 --> 00:54:32,319
Speaker 1: still have the rest of atari. We we just hit three.

997
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: But here's here's the good news, folks. From to the

998
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:38,719
Speaker 1: present day, a lot of stuff happens, but we don't

999
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:41,160
Speaker 1: have a whole lot to say about each individual part.

1000
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:43,920
Speaker 1: We just have to explain what goes on from a

1001
00:54:43,960 --> 00:54:46,920
Speaker 1: corporate level. But I think we can clearly say that

1002
00:54:46,960 --> 00:54:51,680
Speaker 1: the video game crash. If you don't consider Bushnell selling

1003
00:54:51,960 --> 00:54:54,960
Speaker 1: Atari to Warner as being its first death, this has

1004
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:57,440
Speaker 1: got to be the first death because the company was

1005
00:54:57,719 --> 00:55:02,879
Speaker 1: absolutely devastated by this. The arcade business was still going

1006
00:55:02,960 --> 00:55:06,839
Speaker 1: fairly well, but the home video game market completely bottomed out.

1007
00:55:07,320 --> 00:55:11,520
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that continuation of the Atari story. Uh,

1008
00:55:11,680 --> 00:55:13,239
Speaker 1: there are a lot of parts of the story that

1009
00:55:13,320 --> 00:55:16,560
Speaker 1: I think I would actually amend now, But the reason

1010
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:19,400
Speaker 1: why I wanted to present it is because I had

1011
00:55:19,440 --> 00:55:21,319
Speaker 1: a lot of fun working on these episodes back in

1012
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:24,440
Speaker 1: two thousand fifteen and really wanted to present them again.

1013
00:55:24,680 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you want to listen to more of

1014
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:30,719
Speaker 1: this after next week's part three, then I do recommend

1015
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:33,120
Speaker 1: checking out the more recent episode I did about the

1016
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 1: video game Crash, of which heavily ties into Atri's history

1017
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:42,279
Speaker 1: as well. But if you have suggestions for topics I

1018
00:55:42,320 --> 00:55:45,839
Speaker 1: should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please reach

1019
00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:47,719
Speaker 1: out to me. You can do so on Twitter. The

1020
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:50,000
Speaker 1: handle for the show is tech Stuff H s W.

1021
00:55:50,600 --> 00:55:59,000
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Tex Stuff is

1022
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:02,200
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from I

1023
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:05,919
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

1024
00:56:06,000 --> 00:56:12,520
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H