Kotaku: Vintage

The Golden Years of Atari, 1978 - 1981

Maggie Greene — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:40:00 MDT

Have time to waste on this lovely August Saturday? If you do, there's an appallingly expansive look at the history of Atari's early years (19 pages, plus one for citations) over at Gamasutra. This is actually a companion piece to the first Atari retrospective, which looked at the years from '71 to '77 (also clocking in at a mere 20 pages). It's stuffed with quotes, so the length isn't simply 'and then ... and then ... and then ....' Steve Fulton describes this period as one of the most exciting for Atari:

This four-year period — from 1977 to 1981 — contains some of the most exciting developments the company ever saw in its history: the rise of the 2600, the development of some of the company's most enduringly popular games (Centipede, Asteroids) and the development and release of its first home computing platforms.

This comprehensive look back, filled with quotes from the original creators and other primary sources, offers a detailed peek into the company that popularized video gaming as the '70s turned into the '80s, and created the first viable market for home consoles.

If you've got the time, it's definitely worth a read — it's pretty comprehensive and some of the 'insider' insight is pretty interesting.

Atari: The Golden Years — A History, 1978-1981 [Gamasutra]

Preserving Our History: Preservation For Gamers

Maggie Greene — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 12:30:11 MST

By virtue of my profession, I'm a bit of a preservation nut - careers will be built on sources that would be rotting away if it weren't for intense efforts to preserve them, and there's still a large swath of the historical record that's gone forever. The list of lost films from the 'golden ages' of silent film, for example, is staggering, and that's for works created in the 20th century. Luckily for video games, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Maryland, Stanford, Rochester Institute of Technology and Linden Lab have banded together under the auspices of the 'Preserving Creative America' initiative of the Library of Congress. Our own Mark Wilson wrote about this months ago but there was even a GDC roundtable on the issue. The project is intended to get 'endangered' and rare games into the proper hands to preserve and archive them - but in a way that will also give a sense of the original experience:

These virtual worlds are actualized in user experiences that are sometimes unique, often social, and always necessary for understanding these worlds. Just as an archived book is of limited use if researchers cannot open its cover and read it, an archived world will be of limited use if researchers cannot visit it. Unless we also develop solutions for preserving user experiences, future generations will have no way to understand how these experiences became such an important part of our culture.

I'll be curious to see how libraries and archives deal with the unique challenges of preserving games in a meaningful sense. I also wonder what sort of access policies will be in place: the trend for print media is certainly to get as much of it digitized or online as humanly possible. This has the dual benefit of making materials more accessible, but also keeping the originals safe; in the face of preservation and access issues, how much do the physical trappings matter?

Save game now [The Brainy Gamer]

Video Tour of the 'Luna City Arcade'

Maggie Greene — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 10:30:44 MST

A couple of weeks ago, we mentioned the pretty awesome personal arcade of Peter Hirschberg, located in Linden, VA. Ryan R sent us the heads up that someone put together a video tour. It's an even better look at what a lot of us agree is an amazing collection of vintage arcade games.

World's Coolest Private Arcade

Pretty Amazing Personal Arcade Collection

Maggie Greene — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 11:30:28 MST

The Washington Post has a neat little article on Peter Hirschberg, a Linden, VA guy who has made a hobby out of restoring old arcade games. Hirschberg recently completed building his own personal arcade, dubbed "Luna City Arcade," filled with 65 restored arcade classics. It's a private collection, but Hirschberg seems happy to show it off within reason:

For Hirschberg, the arcade is a labor of love, not a business. There are change machines on either end of the arcade that freely spit out quarters at the touch of a button — Hirschberg doesn't ask his guests to spend their own money to play. The arcade is illuminated with blacklights, all the better to light up the space-themed carpet. To complete the scene, his personal soundtrack of 1980-era rock tunes by Foreigner and Journey play on the stereo.

A complete list of his arcade games and other stuff can be found at his website.

Heaven in His '80s Arcade [Washington Post, photo credit David Beltran-del-rio]

Sealed Chrono Trigger Fetching a High Price on eBay

fdemarco — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:00:00 MST

How much is a really good old game worth to you? What if it was still in it's original shrink wrap? According to eBay, the right game can be worth quite a bit to the right people. A seller is currently hosting an auction for a sealed copy of Chrono Trigger for the Super Nintendo that has shot up to an amazing $420.55. With thirty bidders and a day and a half still left to place bids, something tells me it will go even higher. My question is, what will the winner do with their expensive prize? Will they open it and play with it or will it become a pricey knick-knack that will take up shelf space and no doubt garner the envy of hardcore Chrono Trigger fans.

[via GoNintendo]

Atari Flashback Portable

Kim Phu — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 11:47:44 MDT

The only way to play Atari in this day and age is to go mobile. New details on the Atari Flashback Portable which willl run on three AAA batteries and come equipped with a USB port that can load games onto the handheld. The cutie-patootie will also come with two controller ports so you can plug in two joysticks and get some regular-sized Atari action going on. How that would work on the tiniest of screens is anyone's guess but if you don't mind being super close to your opponent, it could turn out to be more fun than fatal.

A Peek at the Atari Flashback Portable Prototype [Joystiq]

The Used Video Game Industry

Kim Phu — Wed, 30 May 2007 08:40:00 MDT

According to an article in The Ledger, the "mom and pop shops" that sell video games have to rely heavily on second-hand sales in order to keep up with their chain-store competitors. By focusing on the used games side of the business, retailers can control the pricing of their inventory, whereas with new games, the price is fixed and a retailer may only make $10 or less for one title. With the used games, buying low and selling high has allowed a lot of these stores to stay open.

(D)espite his near-exclusive emphasis on used games, Dionne said he still amounts to a small fish in Polk, where even rental chains like Blockbuster and Movie Gallery deal in secondhand sales.
"For me to be here after three years, I think that's a pretty tremendous feat," he said.

Big unhappy face on this one. I hate seeing the local shops struggling to stay in business when the big chains start moving into the neighborhood. Usually the smaller shops are friendly and don't have weird kids in them after school breaks out. I hate that. They always smell like sweaty fries. Kim Phu

Used Video Games Keep Some Retailers Afloat [The Ledger]

Steampunk Laptop

egauger — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:20:26 MDT

I type this from my bathtub, where I am currently transmitting raw text directly from my sinuses into a copper receptor dish situated atop my viewing screen in the other room. The water is tepid and I am clammy with soap scum and the patina from my plate-and-rivets bath ducky.

Squeak.

This is apparently a Japanese sculpture that apparently is actually functional. Says BoingBoing commentor Adam:

It's not a 'sculpture' — it's a working computer. In his notes, the creator resists comparisons to Gilliam and Cronenberg, saying "if you look carefully, you'll see it's totally different."

Now I know what to do with that hideous brick of pain and disappointment that was my first-gen TiBook after a year. Eliza Gauger

Steampunk Laptop [BoingBoing, via GayGamer]

Interview with Greatest Video Game Collector Ever

Brian Ashcraft — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 07:22:54 MST

Remember this? The lucky child and pretty much every video game ever printed. RedWolf over at VintageComputing was able to track down the owner and conducted a short email Q&A. "He's a bit reclusive (answering only 10 of 17 questions asked)," writes Red "and not exactly a master at typing the English language (I've had to clean up his answers quite a bit)." Huh, the greatest video game collector evar is not the greatest grammaritarian evar. Imagine that. (Is grammaritarian even a word?)

Vintage Computing and Gaming: What do you do for a living? Videogamecollector: Collect video games, for now.
VC&G: About how many games do you have in your collection? Have you ever counted all of them precisely?
VGC: I'm not sure if I really want to know.

VC&G: What has driven you to collect so many games?
VGC: It seems to be the rush of finding something I don't have. Or you can call it my addiction.

VC&G: Is the young boy in your collection pictures your son? If so, what does he think of your collection and video games in general? Do you ever let him play any of your games?
VGC: Yes, my son plays games. He has a few hundred games in his room that he plays.

A few hundred?! Notice how the Video Game Collector just tosses that out so casually.

Full Interview Here [VintageComputing]

Buy Extremely Rare GBA Game Cheap!

Brian Ashcraft — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 08:23:07 MST

It's the game that slipped through the cracks. The 2002 Tiny Toon Adventures: Scary Dreams for the GBA was believed by many gamers and by the game's Japanese producer to have only gotten a Europe release. The game, however, also got a U.S. release. Well, sort of. It actually got an extremely limited, stopped mid-production release with even review copies being recalled. The Treasure-produced software was barely brought to the States by a company called Conspiracy.

Scary Dreams follows Buster Bunny as he goes on a rampage, beating the crap outta cartoon badies. Ben "222b" writes that the game is hardly a masterpiece. "The music is terrible and even the cinematic images look weird, like the TV's tint is tilted toward yellow/green," 222b adds. "Only it's on a GBA screen, so go figure."

A seller on Ebay has something like 79 copies of the game, each for $13.99. Suckage sure, but super-rare suckage. Kewl!

Full Article Here [222b] via ffwd

Subotron - Vintage Games In Vienna

ataylor — Thu, 17 Nov 2005 08:22:09 MST

I'm in Vienna at the moment, checking out the cocktail robots: next door to the exhibition I find the best little vintage game gear shop evar: Subotron.

I tell you, this guy sells the lot - if there's anything you've been searching for that you can't find, I bet he has it. It's a treasure trove of Pac-Man bed linen, ancient consoles, Gameboy music CDs and entire Game+Watch collections; I've been in there and drooling for 45m.

Recommended!