[game_preservation] 1974 Atari memo by Jobs

[Devin Monnens]

Thanks for the comments about the memorial. Although that page hasn't been
updated in awhile...

Regarding 'speculation' and 'unsourced' information, there's a lot of that
on the web. I'm not sure where some of the ideas come from. I may have
helped contribute to one or two of them in my time, unfortunately...
(thankfully, nothing major...). It would be interesting to compile a list
of major myths and misconceptions people have and then go about tracing
where they came from and what the 'real' story is. That's why I really
appreciate all the work Marty and Curt put into their Atari book.

One of the most oddball stories I've heard is that Space Invaders was
inspired by Santa Claus. That's on Wikipedia and cites this trustworthy
source:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080205063546/http://archive.gamespy.com/legacy/halloffame/spaceinvaders.shtm

Gamespy probably got it from this site -
http://web.archive.org/web/20040321024025/http://www.spaceinvaders.de/history.html

or the Your Sinclair 1991 magazine the old Space Invaders homepage
references. Which sadly doesn't appear to be on the site, but I'm sure
someone here has access to the December 1991 issue...


>From a mail i received from Stuart Campbell: "The bit in the "History"

section about Mr Nishikado writing the game on Christmas Eve etc is
completely false - this was something written in UK Spectrum magazine Your
Sinclair as a joke in late 1991. You can find the article here.

So yes, that's where this dumb story came from. The story is absolutely
hilarious, but not the fact that people take it to be true. I've had a
student state that this was true (not citing any sources, and the only
thing that came up was Wikipedia). Said it was from a TV show he forgot (I
didn't accept that anyway since he didn't reference it), but it's just a
joke story from 1991 that's been taken as 'fact' by Wikipedia. And it's not
an isolated incident.


On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 3:32 PM, John Andersen <gamerep at hotmail.com> wrote:


> Thanks for the information guys, it really does help clarify some

> speculation that was written up and I remember reading years ago (but never

> confirmed or sourced).  Fascinating stuff Martin, thanks so much for that

> insight.  It appears the coin-op arcade version of Arkanoid was distributed

> through a deal Taito America made with Romstar in the U.S.  Atari

> Interactive was cracking down on iPhone Breakout clones in 2008 apparently.

>

>

> Just even reading about Atari Corporation and Atari Games - then reading

> about Namco's ownership of Atari Games around that same time period

> Arkanoid came out - it's very confusing.  Devin, your Hideyuki Nakajima

> memorial write-up was great btw, a really interesting character.  I'm still

> trying to figure out the time frame when Namco purchased shares of Data

> East Corporation and then sold them off to Sega near or around that time

> period as well - i'm looking into that at the moment.

>

> - John

>

> ------------------------------

> CC: game_preservation at igda.org

> From: wgungfu at gmail.com

> Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2013 22:05:53 -0600

> To: game_preservation at igda.org

> Subject: Re: [game_preservation] 1974 Atari memo by Jobs

>

>

> All good points. Atari never copyrighted the audio-visuals of the coin-op

> version of Breakout, just the name. Additionally, for half of it (the

> ball and bat), they would have had a problem for the same reasons they

> couldn't copyright the AV of PONG. Those were already provided in Baer and

> company's patents - the same ones Atari licensed in '76. That would have

> just left rows of blocks to argue about, which would be even harder to

> provide any evidence of unique visual qualities.

>

> As for Arkanoid, by the time that was out Atari Inc. was gone and you had

> Atari Corporation and Atari Games. If anyone would have launched a suit it

> would have been Atari Games, but besides the problems mentioned above there

> was also the fact they didn't own the rights to the Breakout name (all

> copyrights and trademarks to Atari Inc.'s  game names went to Atari

> Corporation).

>

> Regardless, coin lawsuits of the time period were much more successful

> when based on copying of code (illegal clones) vs. "inspired by" games. For

> example, look at the suit of Atari Inc. vs. Amusement World (which Ian

> Bogost most recently brought public attention to) where they lost the case

> even though the game was clearly based on the same basic concept. That's in

> contrast to clones of Centipede and other games where Atari was able to

> prove their code was used in production of the game (even if as in some

> cases minor changes were done in the graphics). In Centipede's case, Ed

> Logg put morse code in the game that literally stated "COPYRIGHT 1980

> ATARI." It looked like random junk bytes to anyone looking through the code.

>

>

> -

> Marty

>

> Sent from my iPad

>

>

>

> On Feb 13, 2013, at 9:19 PM, Devin Monnens <dmonnens at gmail.com> wrote:

>

> Well, Arkanoid was 10 years later, and Atari wasn't as powerful as it was

> in the 70s. It also has a lot of power-ups and enemies, so it's not just a

> blockbusting game (or rather, it puts a twist on the genre). So I think

> there wouldn't be much of a case as the gameplay is significantly different

> that it's not a Breakout clone. But it would be interesting to see if any

> complaints were lodged.

>

>

> On Wed, Feb 13, 2013 at 10:00 PM, John Andersen <gamerep at hotmail.com>wrote:

>

> Regarding Breakout and Super Breakout, did Atari ever have any type of

> legal dispute with Taito regarding their creation of Arkanoid in 1986?

>  Martin, could you shed any light on this?  Different Arkanoid websites

> list the game as being "based upon" or "inspired by" by Breakout, but I

> really can't find anything concrete if Atari had a problem with Arkanoid.

>

> - John Andersen

>

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>

> --

> Devin Monnens

> www.deserthat.com

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>

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-- 
Devin Monnens
www.deserthat.com

The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
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