[HN Gopher] Atari asks for help finding developer of mysterious ...
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Atari asks for help finding developer of mysterious 2600 game
(Aquaventure)
Author : dutchbrit
Score : 91 points
Date : 2022-02-08 20:46 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (venturebeat.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (venturebeat.com)
| [deleted]
| 3327 wrote:
| grae_QED wrote:
| I get some serious astroturfing vibes from this post
| evo_9 wrote:
| Kind of ironic considering Atari was super against letting their
| programmers take credit for the games they created, and this lead
| famously to a group of them leaving and forming Activision. It
| also lead to Warren Robinett hiding his name in the classic 2600
| game 'Adventure' (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJFao67acks)
| jftuga wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_(1980_video_game)#Ea...
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| > According to a blog post written by AtariProtos' Matt Reichert,
| "Until the mid 1980s, most games were only credited to the
| company that published them. In a fast growing market, studios
| wanted to make it more difficult for competitors to poach
| talented programmers by keeping their identities hidden. This
| practice is why we don't know exactly who conceived and
| programmed Aquaventure, along with many other titles from the
| early '80s."
|
| Oh that's rich, coming from the company that pioneered the
| responsible policy of suppressing developer credits from the
| games they made.[0]
|
| [0]https://www.pastemagazine.com/games/easter-eggs-the-
| hidden-s...
| toast0 wrote:
| This latest Atari has no corporate lineage to that Atari. Just
| like when the OG Atari picked the name, because it sounded cool
| and had something to do with games, so did this one --- but
| this one had to pay into the estate of the previous name holder
| to do it.
| jedberg wrote:
| This actually sounds like a cool game. I think I'll grab the ROM
| later today and give it a go.
| squarefoot wrote:
| According to some searches and the filename of a copy of the ROM
| I happen to have, the developer name appears to be Gary Shannon.
|
| https://atariage.com/software_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=855
| https://www.arcade-history.com/index.php?page=person&name=Ga...
| capableweb wrote:
| This "Gary Shannon" is mentioned in the original RFH ("Request
| for Help"): https://atarixp.com/blogs/discover/the-search-for-
| the-develo...
|
| > Aquaventure has never been spotted on internal Atari memos or
| status reports from the early 80s, so it has been a challenge
| to determine who was responsible for programming the game. For
| many years it was assumed that programmer Gary Shannon wrote
| Aquaventure during his short tenure at Atari. I first credited
| Gary, along with developer Tod Frye, with the development in my
| article about Aquaventure on atariprotos.com in 2008.
|
| From Gary themself:
|
| > "I had just come to Atari from Sega (coin op "Gremlin-
| branded" games) and was very new to the 2600, so I was
| definitely not the lead programmer and did mostly grunt work
| behind the scenes. After that I worked for a few weeks on
| another failed 2600 game, Miss Piggy's Wedding, which never got
| off the launching pad at all."
|
| Conclusion:
|
| > while Tod Frye may have programmed the kernel for the
| Aquaventure, and Gary Shannon did minor updates to an already
| existing code base, the identity of the original programmer who
| was responsible for the majority of the code remains unknown.
| tedivm wrote:
| Tod Frye is such an interesting guy. I had the luck to meet
| him taking an AI class in Berkeley a couple years ago- I
| don't think he'll ever stop learning.
| judge2020 wrote:
| > I worked for a few weeks on another failed 2600 game, Miss
| Piggy's Wedding, which never got off the launching pad at
| all.
|
| Another masterpiece lost to time.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > "In a fast growing market, studios wanted to make it more
| difficult for competitors to poach talented programmers by
| keeping their identities hidden. This practice is why we don't
| know exactly who conceived and programmed Aquaventure, along with
| many other titles from the early '80s."
|
| I don't think Activision did that. I remember David Crane's name
| on Activision newsletters and maybe instruction manuals, too.
| Then of course there is the first Easter Egg ever - Warren
| Robinett's hidden name in "Adventure", but that supports this
| statement rather than refutes it.
| [deleted]
| kgwxd wrote:
| Activision was formed by former Atari employees specifically
| because they didn't get the recognition they deserved.
| arwineap wrote:
| Wow, if that's true, then my perception of activision has
| been wrong for a long time
|
| [edit] it is!
| vanadium wrote:
| Not only that: "Activision was the first independent,
| third-party, console video game developer."
|
| Growing up, that was the lens I always saw them through
| (and I had minor addictions to Laser Blast and River Raid,
| among others), so to see what they've become, well, you
| know. Not the same in any way from the David Crane days,
| just as it is with Atari from the Bushnell days through
| Warner, then Tramiel, then JTS, Hasbro, etc through present
| day.
|
| Days long, long gone. The memories are nice.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| You should check out the origin of EA / Electronic Arts.
| They were really about empowering artists -- the initial
| concept was pretty highminded and artist-oriented.
| [Trip] Hawkins had developed the ideas of treating
| software as an art form and calling the
| developers, "software artists" [...]
| Their first such ad, accompanied by the slogan "We
| see farther," was the first video game
| advertisement to feature software designers. EA
| also shared lavish profits with their developers,
| which added to their industry appeal. The square
| "album cover" boxes (such as the covers for 1983's
| M.U.L.E. and Pinball Construction Set) were a
| popular packaging concept by Electronic Arts,
| which wanted to represent their developers as
| "rock stars" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ele
| ctronic_Arts#1982%E2%80%931991:_Trip_Hawkins_era,_founding,
| _and_early_success
|
| The name, "Electronic Artists", flowed from this idea.
|
| Incredible to think of, in light of the microtransaction
| nightmare hellscape seen in most EA software.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| Oh, don't worry. The Activision _you 're_ probably familiar
| with is the one purchased and revived by Bobby Kotick in
| 1991.
| vikingerik wrote:
| The current Activision and Atari each have nothing to do
| with the companies from the early 1980s - each shut down
| and ceased operations long ago, and the name was just
| bought out by successors.
| 300bps wrote:
| Interestingly, Atari was bought by Jack Tramiel who was
| the founder of Commodore Business Machines that made the
| Commodore Vic-20, Commodore 64 and more.
|
| January 1984, Jack Tramiel essentially got booted out of
| the company he founded (Commodore).
|
| July 1984, Jack Tramiel bought the Consumer Division of
| Atari Inc. from Warner Communications.
| geoelectric wrote:
| It's even more interesting. Commodore hired a bunch of
| ex-Atari people for the Amiga while Tramiel was building
| his cadre for what became the ST. They basically swapped
| talent.
|
| https://dfarq.homeip.net/atari-st-vs-amiga/
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2022-02-08 23:00 UTC)