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Pong, Pac-Man and Space Invaders meet in mega mashup
We may have reached peak video game nostalgia. Mega-hybrid game Pacapong takes Pong, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders and crams them into a two-player mish-mash extravaganza. Players launch Pac-Man from Pong paddles through his maze hoping that he makes it to the other side without running into a ghost. If a player does launch the gobbling hero into a ghost, the other player gets to serve. Meanwhile, the players are also battling Space Invaders with the same paddles. It sounds confusing, but after few minutes, you'll be wondering when someone will build a mashup of Galaga, Joust, and Dig Dug.
The top tech gifts of holidays past
Remember the mad rush to secure a Teddy Ruxpin under the tree? Or how about how badly you begged your parents for the Nintendo DS as a year-end treat? As we head into another hectic, yet hopeful holiday season, we look back at some of the geeky gadgets and technological toys that stormed the charts (and stole young hearts) over the years.
More games for Xbox One: XBOXIE collects HTML5 controller games
Xbox One supports a controller, Internet Explorer and HTML5 games, but not all HTML5 games support a controller – and that's where XBOXIE comes in. Run by Reddit user CitadelSaint, XBOXIE lists HTML5 games you can play with a controller in IE on the Xbox One. So far the list includes Pac-Man, Bejeweled, Super Breakout, Pong, Contre Jour, Sketch Out and Solitaire, among others. "Even though the Xbox One can play HTML5 games, it doesn't mean developers are supporting the controller," XBOXIE's About page reads. "Most game are aimed at keyboard and mouse. So we at XBOXIE search and test each game to make sure it runs smooth and plays well on a controller. So to sum up, if it's on XBOXIE then you can play it on your Xbox One." That's right: Pong has entered the next generation. Take that, Tetris.
Atari Inc. seeks to generate $22M by auctioning assets in July
Atari Inc., the US branch of French parent company Atari S.A., filed for court approval this week to auction its assets in July. Those assets include the Atari logo, as well as the Test Drive, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Asteroids, and Pong franchises among others. As Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reports, Atari Inc., which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year in a bid to sell its assets and separate itself from Atari S.A., has failed to secure a "stalking horse" or lead bidder since then. Atari Inc. approached more than 180 parties about purchasing assets, but only 15 came back with preliminary bids. Atari Inc. didn't deem a single bid acceptable to set the minimum price for the division's clearout. As it is, Atari Inc.'s own listed minimum bids for the July auction total "nearly $22.2 million." They include $15 million for the Atari brand, $3.5 million for the Rollercoaster Tycoon franchise, $1.5 million for Test Drive, and RTS franchise Total Annihilation at just $250,000. Atari Inc. has already secured $5 million through debtor-in-possession financing. While the auction is still pending court approval, Atari Inc aims to hold it between July 16 and July 19. While the Atari name is synonymous with the arcade's pioneering years, Atari Inc. traces its roots to a company called GT Interactive, founded in 1993. GT Interactive was eventually acquired by French company Infogrames Entertainment, and in 2001 Infogrames seized Atari Corporation and its Atari properties through the purchase of Hasbro Interactive. In 2009, Infrogrames renamed itself as Atari S.A., with what was GT Interactive by then renamed as Atari Inc. After some forty or so years that have seen the Atari brand transfer across several entities, if things go to plan then in two months time it'll find itself at a new home once more. What the ramifications of that sale would be for Atari S.A., financially and nominally, are unclear. In a financial statement published on May 15, Atari S.A. said, "Faced with the uncertainties relating to the proceedings that are underway in the US, where the Group's strategic assets and most of its business are located, the outcome of the Chapter 11 proceedings in the US will be decisive for all the stakeholders." The statement also reveals Atari S.A. recently sold the ownership of its Outcast franchise for a "nominal amount," and negotiations are underway at similar prices for its Desperados and Silver franchises.
Atari files for bankruptcy, hopes to survive by selling off Pong and other assets
Atari Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection, looking to separate from its not-so-profitable French owners and pitch for independent funding. In the process, the elder statesman of gaming has secured $5.25 million of debtor-in-possession financing and will aim to sell assets, including its famous logo (which is already licensed out) and games like Pong, Asteroid and Tempest, in the next 90 to 120 days. In the last few years, Atari Inc. has shifted its focus from traditional retail gaming to digital titles and licensing, with mobile platforms proving especially lucrative for the parent company, Atari SA. The gaming arm is aiming for a return to former glory and, it hopes, the chance to go another 40 years. [Photo Credit: Marc Grimm]
Dutchman celebrates Pong's 40th birthday with a global, augmented reality edition
Don't think the festivities surrounding Pong's 40th are limited to official channels. Sander Veenhof of the Netherlands is marking the occasion in his own way with an augmented reality version built as a Layar plugin. Instead of batting the ball across a TV screen, players play across whole continents: anyone who's been online recently is fair game as a fresh target, and the camera's field of view gives a sense of where opponents reside in real life. Games won't be nearly as fast-paced as you might remember from that classic system from the arcade or living room. However, they'll still be reminders that people worldwide have a soft spot for the Nolan Bushnell title that arguably started the video game industry -- and global Pong sure beats a game of global thermonuclear war.
Pong World paddles out into iOS App Store
Pong World is not the Atari take on McWorld (hey, it could happen). It's the winning entry in Atari's Pong Challenge, which has just been officially released on iOS. It's the "first-ever official new PONG game for smartphones and tablet devices," at the cost of all those unofficial ones.Pong World by zGames is a version of the ancient game with upgradeable (animal) paddles, special bonus abilities, and varying stages full of environmental hazards. You can see the game for yourself with no risk, except for the risk of extreme irritation after playing against the first AI opponent, who can curve the ball mid-flight. Pong World is free-to-play.
Atari announces iOS lineup for the rest of the year and beyond
Atari has dropped a press release announcing its mobile game lineup for the rest of 2012 and first part of 2013, and there are some really interesting titles in there. Here's the full list, for your viewing pleasure: RollerCoaster Tycoon (Q1 2013, iOS and Android) Dungeons & Dragons: Warbands (December, iPad) Atari Casino (Q4 2012, iOS) Outlaw (November, iOS) RollerCoaster Tycoon should be a fun addition to mobile platforms. Dungeons and Dragons Warbands is a D&D-themed game that sounds nice and tactical, and Outlaw is presumably either a port or an update of the old Atari game from back in 1976. Atari Casino is another old Atari title, but given how popular poker and other casino games have been on iOS, it's more likely that Atari is working on its own freemium gambling simulation rather than remaking the old classic. One thing you might not notice on this list is any of the Pong variants that won Atari's developers challenge earlier this year (for which I was a judge). Atari's reps have confirmed to us that those games are still under development, and not yet ready for a release announcement. But even without those Atari-published indie titles on the slate, this seems like a nice lineup for the company. We'll keep a lookout for the first two especially, and let you know when they drop.
Atari classics go HTML5 for Windows 8 tablets and browsers
A new platform means a new chance for Atari to sell its classics. For Windows 8 tablets, it's partnered with Microsoft for a browser-based "Atari Arcade," featuring updated, remade games like Pong, Missile Command, and Centipede, done in HTML5.They're designed to work in all "modern" browsers, but have extra features on multitouch Windows 8 devices. Extra features ... and no ads. In addition, the Atari Arcade allows devs to create and publish their own Atari Arcade games through Atari's interface.Pong seems like an odd way to emphasize the future-tech of your tablet, but hey, free Pong! Plus, a new development environment!
Winners revealed for Atari's Pong Dev challenge, Pong World earns first place
The winners have finally been announced in the long-running Atari/Pong Indie Dev Challenge, and the three winning entries have been revealed prior to their eventual release on the App Store. Atari's contest sought out modern versions of Pong for the App Store, and offered cash prizes and revenue sharing for the top contestants. Before we go through the winners, please note that I served as a volunteer, unpaid judge on this contest, along with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, developer David Whatley, and Pocket God's Dave Castelnuovo. That means I got to play through all of the finalists and deliver scores based on my impressions of the games. According to those scores (as well as Atari's input and a popular vote), zGames' Pong World came out in first place -- it's a very colorful take on the old school game, with furry creatures as paddles and lots of ball tweaks and fun twists. Mad Ruse's Pong Tournament picked up second place, featuring a very wild 3D version of Pong, with high level tournament play and quite a few powerups and extra items to try and protect your wall while a ball is passed back and forth between two players. And Eppy Games' Fong variant got third place -- it's a really crazy circular version of Pong, with some strange rotational controls and some really frantic action elements. Each of those winners will get a cash prize for winning and a three-year revenue share agreement, enabling them to use the Pong name for their titles as well as earn money alongside the commercial releases. There's more information on those coming soon, so hopefully you'll be able to play some of these titles when they arrive.
Atari: celebrating 40 years of gaming history
Forty years. That's a long time in the tech industry and Atari knows it. Today it celebrates four decades in the game, and quite the tale it is. Highs, lows and everything in between, Atari has been there. As one of the most influential brands both in gaming and technology, it only seems right to take a look over the company's history and chart some of the more significant twists in its less than straightforward journey. After the break we speak to the man that started it all and the one currently at the helm, as well as some of the many people whose lives were irreversibly changed by its influence. Happy birthday to you, Atari!
Atari Dev Challenge finalists announced, voting now open
Atari has announced the finalists in its ongoing dev challenge contest, in which developers from around the Internet have pitched updates to the classic Pong game for the iOS and Android App Stores, with the winners to be published and rev-shared by Atari itself. All of those finalists look pretty interesting -- they almost all have gone with a relatively classic take on the game (which is what Atari told us they were looking for), although all of them have updated the old ball-and-paddle gameplay to be a little more complicated. These finalists are all guaranteed a revenue share agreement with Atari to have their titles published, but we still need to decide who's getting the cash prizes for the best entry. And by we, I mean both you and me. You get to vote on Atari's page (over on the side, you can put a star rating up for each different finalist in the contest), and I, Mike Schramm, am serving as a judge in the competition along with Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Pocket God creator Dave Castelnuovo, developer David Whatley, and a few other folks selected by Atari. The judge's ratings and user ratings are all being thrown into one big pot, and then the winners of the various cash prizes will be announced on August 2nd. It's cool to finally see some actual games coming out of this competition after so long. I'm hoping we judges will get a chance to play all of the finalists soon, and then we'll see the final results in a little over a month.
15 indie developers re-imagine Pong for iOS, hope to win Atari contract
As far as video games go, it doesn't get much simpler than Pong -- two paddles, one ball, no complications. A classic, to be sure, but definitely not the flashiest game when pitted against the average smartphone title -- maybe that's why Atari is asking indie developers to jazz it up. Yes, the Pong Indie Developer Challenge is in full swing, and Atari has pared down some 90-odd submissions to mere 15. Not familiar with the contest? Here's a quick refresh: Atari is looking for indie developers to re-imagine Pong for iOS as a fun, original, visually interesting and overtly marketable title. The stakes? Winners can score up to $100,000 and a publishing contract with Atari. Many of the semi-finalists' redesigns are as simple as adding multitouch gestures or bending the traditionally square playing field into a more circular court, but a few ambitious developers mixed it up with 3D playing fields, anthropomorphic paddles or augmented reality multiplayer. Check out Mashable's collection of contestant trailers at the link below for a look at the Pong of tomorrow. As for us? We're still pretty pleased with yesterday's model.
Semi-finalists revealed in Atari's Pong Indie Developer Challenge
Atari's Developer Challenge has been taking submissions for possible Pong-inspired iOS games since late February (Disclaimer: I'm serving as a judge on the final panel for the contest, though I haven't done anything yet and am not being paid for my time), and the company has finally selected 20 semifinalists from more than 80 submissions. You can read through the list of the semifinalist studios on the link there. Quite a few of them, as some quick Google searches will show, already have their own apps in the App Store. The next step for the contest will be for these semifinalists to put together some demo videos of their proposed projects, which will be due in June. We judges will get a crack at the proposals then, and finalists will be announced on June 19, with the full winners list announced in August. The winners will get their apps published by Atari, with proceeds split between Atari and the original creators. It sounds like the contest is going well. I look forward to seeing what's been submitted!
Atari Pong review (1976)
Multiplayer gaming today has become an inherently and bewilderingly antisocial affair. You grab a controller, take up as much space as possible on your couch at home, then connect to some random game hosted by some random server filled with some random people with whom you do your damnedest to fill with some collection of lead thrown from some assortment of futuristic weaponry. Along the way, you'll be taunted, insulted and, if you're playing a Halo game, quite possibly physically shamed.Back in 1976, of course, things were a bit different. Pong was the height of at-home multiplayer gaming. Two dials, one button and one switch is all you had, and with your opponent sitting in extremely close proximity to you, chances are most of the heckling would be the good-natured variety. It is a vastly simplified experience versus what we have today, but in some ways a vastly superior one. Click on through to see why.
Atari updates rules and deadline, adds judge to Pong developer contest
(Disclaimer: I am serving as a judge in this contest for Atari, though I'm not getting paid or compensated in any way for contributing my time.) After Atari announced a recent contest to encourage iOS developers to come up with new ideas for a Pong-style remake, there was feedback among the iOS community in general that the terms for the new contest were a little too limiting. Specifically, Atari is basically offering a share of earnings from the final published app as prize money (in addition to a series of cash prizes, including $50,000 for first place), and some developers have said that's a bad deal to take. Now, Atari tells TUAW that it has updated the rules on the contest, and as Atari says, "are intended to offer developers larger incentives for participation and increase their potential revenue as a result of their winning Pong submission." The biggest change is that winning developers will now share revenue with Atari for a longer period of time, from one year up to three years. That should provide a extra revenue for devs who win, and maybe encourage anyone turned off by the initial rules to reconsider. Additionally, Atari will be putting all of the winners in a "Developer Spotlight" page on its official site, so everyone can see the fruits of the contest when they're announced in June. And finally, David Whatley (of Critical Thought Games, maker of Tiny Heroes and geoDefense) is going to join the judging panel, which also includes Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Pocket God's Dave Castelnuovo, and me, TUAW editor Mike Schramm. Entries are now going to be accepted until April 15, 2012, so if you have an idea for a new take on Pong, be sure to submit it over on the official site. Yes, for experienced developers who already have the experience and ability to publish and promote apps on the App Store, this might not be for you -- aside from the Pong trademark itself, why go through Atari when you can do it on your own? But for devs with a great Pong-centered idea and not a lot of resources to back it up, joining up with Atari in this way could be a real windfall. Good luck to everyone who enters.
Atari's Pong Indie Developer Challenge is a real coin opportunity
Atari's legendary Pong has captured plenty of hearts and minds over the years. Now, to celebrate its fortieth birthday, the gaming stalwart is offering up $100,000 for you to re-invent it for iOS as part of its Indie Developer Challenge. To be in with a chance of winning the cash, developers are being asked to recreate the time-honored classic in a new and original way. Then, simply submit your idea, or playable demo and keep your paddles crossed. Those creations that make it to the final will get published under the Atari brand as an official release, and you get eternal bragging rights (and the cash). The competition is open now, and you've got until March 31st to be in the game. Feel like a winner? Then bat your eyes down to that source link for the full deets.
'Atari's Greatest Hits' app brings 100 new old games to iOS
A new universal iOS app from Atari is making the standard App Store rounds today, starting in New Zealand and propagating worldwide throughout the day. The Atari's Greatest Hits app is a free download that provides paid access to 100 games from Atari's arcade and 2600 library, including classics like Yars Revenge, Haunted House and Asteroids, weird games like Circus Atari, and even rarities like Quadrun. The app comes bundled with Pong, with additional titles available in four-game packs for $1 each, or $15 for the whole collection. Some of the games, including the whole RealSports series, Warlords and Breakout, have been updated with Bluetooth multiplayer. This is the latest in a recent Atari effort to repackage its classics once again. Atari's Greatest Hits: Volume 1 was released as a retail cartridge on DS in November 2010.
Researchers pit microorganisms in deadly game of 'PAC-mecium'
At first glance, the so-called "biotic games" research conducted by a Stanford University team that's installed microorganisms into crude, real-life video games merely raises the question: Wow -- that's a job? A summary of the team's experimentation on living organisms (red flag!) in this month's Lab on a Chip journal suggests that biotic games could "have significant conceptual and cost-reducing effects on biotechnology and eventually health care," not to mention that they could also "educate society at large to support personal medical decisions and the public discourse on bio-related issues." Those sure sound like complicatedly-worded, yet noble goals -- or at least good cover for playing video games all day -- but we sense a distressing undertone in the work here. Just watch the clip (after the break) of the researchers' Pac-Man prototype clone, "PAC-mecium," wherein, ostensibly, a player would "guide" unwitting paramecia to happy-face yeast pellets and attempt to keep the poor protozoa from being devoured by a giant zebrafish larvae, or not. It's pretty clear to us that the next "guinea pigs" in this diabolical plan will be mice, and then probably monkeys. The final stage? Gerard Butler.
Casemate's iPhone 4 Bounce case protects your noodle from inevitable radiation baking
As the everlasting debate rages on, and brains continue to / not to melt with every passing phone call, Casemate's taking no chances whatsoever. By collaborating with Pong -- a company that makes its ends by "protecting users of cellular telephones from the potentially harmful effects of radiation exposure" -- the Bounce was born. For all intents and purposes, it's a simplistic form-fitting iPhone 4 case (BlackBerry models are en route), available in a foursome of hues and tested to reduce normal cellphone radiation (SAR) by at least 60 percent. Purportedly, the case can redirect your phone's electromagnetic energy away from your head... right into the brain of some lucky chap sitting next to you on the subway. But hey, at least it serves another purpose: solving that blasted iPhone 4 reception issue. Two birds, one $49.99 dent in your credit card. Propaganda vid is just past the break.