120-459: Dig Dug is a maze arcade video game released by Namco in 1982. It was distributed in North America by Atari, Inc. The player digs underground tunnels to attack enemies in each level, by either inflating them to bursting or crushing them underneath rocks. Dig Dug was planned and designed by Masahisa Ikegami, with help from Galaga creator Shigeru Yokoyama. It was programmed for
240-442: A Game Boy conversion in North America only in 1992, with an all-new game called "New Dig Dug" where the player must collect keys to open an exit door; this version was later included in the 1996 Japan-only compilation Namco Gallery Vol. 2 , which also includes Galaxian , The Tower of Druaga , and Famista 4 . A Japanese X68000 version was developed by Dempa and released in 1995, bundled with Dig Dug II . The Famicom version
360-495: A "Syzygy Engineered" label on the control panel of each Computer Space game sold to reflect their work in the game. Computer Space did not fare well commercially when it was placed in Nutting's customary market: bars. Feeling that the game was simply too complex for the average customer unfamiliar and unsure with the new technology, Bushnell started looking for new ideas. About 1,500 Computer Space cabinets were made, but were
480-697: A "competitor" called Kee Games in September 1973, headed by Bushnell's next door neighbor Joe Keenan, to circumvent pinball distributors' insistence on exclusive distribution deals; both Atari and Kee could market (virtually) the same game to different distributors, with each getting an "exclusive" deal. Kee was further led by Atari employees: Steve Bristow, a developer that worked under Alcorn on arcade games, Bill White, and Gil Williams. While early Kee games were near-copies of Atari's own games, Kee began developing their own titles such as that drew distributor interest to Kee and effectively helping Bushnell to realize
600-578: A 10 to 15% growth through 1982, which it considered fair given the current recession . However, earlier in 1982, Warner had expected a 50% growth and using Atari's profits to help support Warner's other media industries, and analysts were less confident in Warner's current outlook; one asked "Why did it happen so quickly? And why were they not in tune with it while it was building?" Later that month, Warner announced that Kassar along with one other Atari executive had sold numerous shares of Warner stock prior to
720-410: A Namco hardware engineer, and the late Shouichi Fukatani, along with Toshio Sakai. Other staff members were primarily colleagues of Shigeru Yokoyama. Yuriko Keino composed the soundtrack, as her first video game project. Tasked with making Dig Dug's movement sound, she could not make a realistic stepping sound, so she instead made a short melody. Hiroshi "Mr. Dotman" Ono , a Namco graphic artist, designed
840-416: A black and white television from Walgreens , the special game hardware, and a coin mechanism from a laundromat on the side which featured a milk carton inside to catch coins. It was placed in a Sunnyvale tavern by the name of Andy Capp's to test its viability. The test was extremely successful, so the company created twelve more test units, ten which were distributed across other local bars. They found that
960-582: A coin-op design and production company. Using investments and funds from a coin-operated machine route, they leased a former concert hall and roller rink in Santa Clara to produce Pong cabinets on their own with hired help for the production line. Bushnell had also set up arrangements with local coin-op-game distributors to help move units. Atari shipped their first commercial Pong unit in November 1972. Over 2,500 Pong cabinets were made in 1973, and by
1080-608: A difficult product to sell. While Bushnell blamed Nutting for its poor marketing, he later recognized that Computer Space was too complex of a game as players had to read the instructions on the cabinet before they could play. Bushnell said: "To be successful, I had to come up with a game people already knew how to play; something so simple that any drunk at any bar could play." Bushnell began seeking other partners outside of Nutting, and approached pinball game manufacturer Bally Manufacturing , who indicated interest in funding future efforts in arcade games by Bushnell and Dabney if Nutting
1200-544: A driving game, Bushnell had concerns that it might be too complicated for Alcorn's first game. In May 1972, Bushnell had seen a demonstration of the Magnavox Odyssey , which included a tennis game. According to Alcorn, Bushnell decided to have him produce an arcade version of the Odyssey's Tennis game, which would go on to be named Pong . Bushnell had Alcorn use Dabney's video circuit concepts to help develop
1320-567: A flexible video game console that was capable of playing all four of Atari's then-current games. Bushnell was concerned that arcade games took about $ 250,000 to develop and had about a 10% chance of being successful. Similarly, dedicated home consoles had cost about $ 100,000 to design but with increased competition, had a limited practical shelf-life of a few months. Instead, a programmable console with swappable games would be far more lucrative. Development took place at Cyan Engineering , which initially had serious difficulties trying to produce such
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#17327931123481440-493: A foe, Fygar's fire or getting squished by a falling rock. Players are given extra lives during the game, but at 900K points they must endure a "survival of the fittest" mode to the last Dig Dug, which ends the game. In 1981, Dig Dug was planned and designed by Masahisa Ikegami, with help from Shigeru Yokoyama, the creator of Galaga . The game was programmed for the Namco Galaga arcade system board by Shigeichi Ishimura,
1560-523: A form for the VCS, and Space Invaders for the VCS was released in March 1980. The game became the VCS's "killer app" , helping to sell the console alongside the game, and made Atari an estimated $ 100 million . It also set a roadmap for future game releases on the VCS under Kassar, with more scheduled release plans throughout the year and looking for more licensed arcade conversions and tie-in media. Until 1980,
1680-430: A frighteningly regular basis, from a highly-placed someone supposedly in charge of all publicity concerning the computer systems. And chilling as the individual happenstance was, it seems to have been endemic at Atari at the time." Despite losses, Atari remained the number one console maker in every market except Japan. Nintendo , a Japanese video game company, planned to release its first programmable video game console,
1800-515: A generic adventure game to the Superman -themed title. Robinett refused, but did help fellow programmer John Dunn to make the conversion after he volunteered. Further, after Warner refused to include programmer credits into game manuals over concern that competitors may try to hire them away, Robinett secretly stuck his name into Adventure in one of the first known Easter eggs as to bypass this issue. The transition from Bushnell to Kassar led to
1920-429: A home console by 1974, and initial design work on console began in earnest in late 1974 by Alcorn, Harold Lee and Bob Brown. Atari struggled to find a distributor for the console but eventually arranged a deal with Sears to make 150,000 units by the end of 1975 for the holiday season. Atari was able to meet Sears' order with additional $ 900,000 investments during 1975. The home Pong console (branded as Sears Tele-Game)
2040-516: A large number of departures from the company over the next few years. Four of Atari's programmers—David Crane, Bob Whitehead, Larry Kaplan, and Alan Miller—whose games had contributed collectively to over 60% of the company's game sales in 1978, left Atari in mid-1979 after requesting and being denied additional compensation for their performance, and formed Activision in October of that year to make their own Atari VCS games based on their knowledge of
2160-482: A large surge in VCS sales, and Atari's consumer division ended the year with $ 200 million in sales. Warner removed Bushnell as chairman and co-CEO of the company, but offered to let him stay on as a director and creative consultant. Bushnell refused and left the company. Bushnell purchased the rights for Pizza Time Theatre for $ 500,000 from Warner before leaving. Keenan was moved to Atari's chairman and Kassar assigned as president after Bushnell's departure; Keenan left
2280-407: A larger infusion of funds. Bushnell had considered going public , then tried to sell the company to MCA and Disney but they passed. Instead, after at least six months of negotiations in 1976, Atari took an acquisition offer from Warner Communications for $ 28 million that was completed in November 1976, of which Bushnell received $ 15 million . Bushnell was kept as chairman and CEO while Keenan
2400-971: A level by traversing all paths and a way of temporarily turning the tables on pursuers. While the character in a maze would have a limited view, the player is able to see much or all of the maze. Maze chase games are a specific subset of the overheard perspective. They're listed in a separate section. 1973 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1999 2003 2008 2009 2014 Differentiated from more diversified first-person party-based RPGs , dungeon crawlers , first-person shooters , and walking sims by their primary emphasis on navigation of largely abstracted maze environments often with little to no texture mapping or in-game objects and props. 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1987 1988 1989 1991 1993 1994 1995 1996 1998 2001 2017 This subgenre
2520-545: A lifespan of about three years, and decided to build the most powerful machine they could given that time frame. They set a goal to be able to support 1978-vintage arcade games, as well as features of the upcoming personal computer such as the Apple II . The project resulted in the first home computers from Atari, the Atari 800 and Atari 400 , both launched in 1979. These computer systems were mostly closed systems , and most of
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#17327931123482640-566: A limited number of units to Namco via its prior Atari Japan venture, and led Namco to create its own clone of the game to meet demand in Japan, and helped to establish Namco as a major company in the Japanese video game industry. Subsequently, Atari moved to microprocessors for its arcade games such as Cops ‘N Robbers , Sprint 2 , Tank 8 , and Night Driver . Alongside continuing work in arcade game development and their preparations to launch
2760-559: A logo for Atari. Opperman has stated that the logo that was selected was based on the letter "A" but considering Atari's success with Pong , created the logo to fit the "A" shape, with two players on opposite sides of a center line. However, some within Atari at this time dispute this, stating that Opperman had provided several different possible designs and this was the one selected by Bushnell and others. The logo first appeared on Atari's arcade game Space Race in 1973, and had become known as
2880-604: A long series of sequels for several platforms. The first of these, Dig Dug II , was released in Japan in 1985 to less success, opting for an overhead perspective; instead of digging through earth, Dig Dug drills along fault lines to sink pieces of an island into the ocean. A second sequel, Dig Dug Arrangement , was released for arcades in 1996 as part of the Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2 arcade collection, with new enemies, music, power-ups, boss fights, and two-player co-operative play. A 3D remake of
3000-492: A machine. However, in early 1976, MOS Technology released the first inexpensive microprocessor, the 6502 , which had sufficient performance for Atari's needs. Atari hired Joe Decuir and Jay Miner to develop the hardware and custom Television Interface Adaptor for this new console. Their project, under the codename of "Stella", would become the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS). Atari, as
3120-434: A perpetual license for Baer's patents and to share technical information and grant a license to use the technology found in all current Atari products and any new products announced between June 1, 1976, and June 1, 1977. Around 1973, Bushnell began to expand out the company, moving their corporate headquarters to Los Gatos . Bushnell contracted graphic design artist George Opperman , who ran his own design firm, to create
3240-801: A playable character in Namco Super Wars for the WonderSwan Color and Namco × Capcom for the PlayStation 2, only in Japan. Taizo appears in the now-defunct web browser game Namco High as the principal of the high school, simply known as "President Dig Dug". Pookas appear in several Namco games, including Sky Kid (1985), R4: Ridge Racer Type 4 (1998), Pac-Man World (1999), Pro Baseball: Famista DS 2011 (2011), and in Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U (2014). Dig Dug characters briefly appear in
3360-538: A poor reputation in the industry. One dealer told InfoWorld in early 1984 that "It has totally ruined my business ... Atari has ruined all the independents." A non-Atari executive stated: "There were so many screaming, shouting, threatening dialogues, it's unbelievable that any company in America could conduct itself the way Atari conducted itself. Atari used threats, intimidation and bullying. It's incredible that anything could be accomplished. Many people left Atari. There
3480-529: A private company under Bushnell, gained a reputation for relaxed employee policies in areas such as formal hours and dress codes, and company-sponsored recreational activities involving alcohol, marijuana , and hot tubs. Board and management meetings to discuss new ideas moved from formal events at hotel meeting rooms to more casual gatherings at Bushnell's home, Cyan Engineering, and a coastal resort in Pajaro Dunes . Dress codes were considered atypical for
3600-401: A professional setting, with most working in jeans and tee shirts. Many of the workers hired early on to construct games were hippies who knew enough to help to solder components together and took minimal wages. Several former employees, speaking in years that followed, described this as the common culture of the 1970s and not unique to Atari. This approach changed in 1978 after Ray Kassar
3720-428: A short period of time after the tile directly beneath them is removed by Dig Dug and he moves from the position, though he can still be crushed. Falling rocks are destroyed once they land on a tile. Bonus points are awarded for squashing multiple enemies with a single rock, and dropping any two rocks in a stage yields a bonus item, which can be eaten for points. Once all the enemies have been defeated, Dig Dug progresses to
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3840-517: A total of 10,000 across its three divisions of arcade games, consumer home consoles, and home computers. The company had more than fifty facilities in the Silicon Valley area. For the first nine months of 1982, Atari contributed half of Warner's $ 2.9 billion revenue and one-third of their $ 471 million operating profit. However, at the same time, the company was seeing a high rate of turnover in management positions, which Kassar attributed to
3960-430: A year, discontinued on April 21, 2009. Two Dig Dug -themed slot machines were produced by Japanese company Oizumi in 2003, both with small LCD monitors for animated characters. A webcomic adaptation was produced in 2012 by ShiftyLook , a subsidiary of Bandai Namco focused on reviving older Namco franchises, with nearly 200 issues by several different artists, concluding in 2014 following the closure of ShiftyLook. Dig Dug
4080-680: Is a main character in the ShiftyLook webseries Mappy: The Beat . A remix of the Dig Dug soundtrack appears in the PlayStation 2 game Technic Beat . The character Dig Dug was renamed to Taizo Hori, a play on the Japanese phrase "horitai zo", meaning "I want to dig". He became a prominent character in Namco's own Mr. Driller series, where he is revealed to be the father of Susumu Hori and being married to Baraduke protagonist Masuyo Tobi, who would divorce for unknown reasons. Taizo appears as
4200-438: Is exemplified by Namco 's Pac-Man (1980), where the goal is to clear a maze of dots while being pursued. Pac-Man spawned many sequels and clones which, in Japan, are often called "dot eat games". Some other maze chases don't feature dots, and the goal is to clear the maze of the pursuers themselves (e.g., Pengo , Guzzler , Jungler ). 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 Atari, Inc. Atari, Inc.
4320-599: The Family Computer (later redesigned and branded as the Nintendo Entertainment System) in Japan in July 1983. Looking to sell the console in international markets that same year, Nintendo offered a licensing deal whereby Atari would build and sell the system, paying Nintendo a royalty. The deal was in the works throughout 1983, and the two companies tentatively decided to sign the agreement at
4440-433: The Namco Galaga arcade board by Shouichi Fukatani, who worked on many of Namco's earlier arcade games, along with Toshio Sakai. Music was composed by Yuriko Keino, including the character movement jingle at executives' request, as her first Namco game. Namco heavily marketed it as a "strategic digging game". Upon release, Dig Dug was well received by critics for its addictive gameplay, cute characters, and strategy. During
4560-563: The VIC-20 . A short-lived Atari Electronics division was created to make electronic games that ran from 1979 to 1981. They successfully released one product, a handheld version of Atari's arcade Touch Me game, which played similar to Simon , in 1979. The division began work on Cosmos , a system that was to combine LED lights and a holographic screen. Atari had promoted the game at the 1981 CES, but following Alcorn's departure in 1981, opted not to follow through on making it and closed down
4680-401: The golden age of arcade video games that lasted until around 1983; Atari contributed several more games that were considered part of this golden age, including Missile Command , Centipede , and Tempest . A project to design a successor to the VCS started as soon as the system shipped in mid-1977. The original development team, including Meyer, Miner and Decuir, estimated the VCS had
4800-691: The golden age of arcade video games , it was globally successful, including as the second highest-grossing arcade game of 1982 in Japan. It prompted a long series of sequels and spin-offs, including the Mr. Driller series, for several platforms. It is in many Namco video game compilations for many systems. Dig Dug is a maze video game where the player controls protagonist Dig Dug (Taizo Hori) to eliminate each screen's enemies: Pookas , red creatures with comically large goggles; and Fygars, fire-breathing green dragons . Dig Dug can use an air pump to inflate them to bursting or crush them under large falling rocks. When
4920-407: The home computer market with their first 8-bit computers , but their products did not fare as well as their competitors'. Atari lost more than US$ 530 million in 1983, leading to Kassar's resignation and the appointment of James J. Morgan as CEO. Morgan attempted to turn Atari around with layoffs and other cost-cutting efforts, but the company's financial hardships had already reverberated through
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5040-464: The "Fuji" due to its resemblance to Mount Fuji . In 1976, Atari hired Opperman to establish the company's own art and design division. From late 1972 to early 1973, a rift in the business relationship between Bushnell and Dabney began to develop, with Dabney feeling he was being pushed to the side by Bushnell while Bushnell saw Dabney as a potential roadblock to his larger plans for Atari. By March 1973, Dabney formally left Atari, selling his portion of
5160-578: The 8-bit computer family, and the specialized magazine ANALOG Computing was established for Atari computer programmers to share programming information. While Atari did not formally release development information, they supported this external community by launching the Atari Program Exchange (APX) in 1981, a mail-order service that programmers could offer their applications and games to other users of Atari's 8-bit computers. By this point, Atari's computers were facing new competition from
5280-437: The Atari 400/800 system seller, but quickly emphasized the lack of software for the computers due to the system's closed nature and the limited rate that Atari's programmers could produce titles. Third-party programmers found means to get technical information about the computer specifications either directly from Atari employees or from reverse engineering , and by late 1980, third-party applications and games began to emerge for
5400-615: The Atari 8-bit version for retaining the arcade's entertaining gameplay and for its simple controls. Some home versions were criticized for quality and lack of exclusive content. Readers of Softline magazine ranked Dig Dug the tenth-worst Apple II and fourth-worst Atari 8-bit video game of 1983 for its subpar quality and failure of consumer expectations. Reviewing the Xbox Live Arcade digital re-release, IGN liked its presentation, leaderboards, and addictive gameplay, recommending it for old and new fans alike. A similar response
5520-528: The Atari VCS was the only major programmable console on the market and Atari the only supplier for its games, but that year is when Atari began to experience its first major competition as Mattel Electronics brought the Intellivision to market. Activision also released its first set of third-party games for the Atari VCS. Atari took action against Activision starting 1980, first by trying to tarnish
5640-399: The Atari VCS, Atari launched two more products in 1977. The first was their Atari Pinball division, which included Steve Ritchie and Eugene Jarvis . Around 1976, Atari had been concerned that arcade operators were getting nervous on the prospects of future arcade games, and thus launched their own pinball machines to accompany their arcade games. Atari's pinball machines were built following
5760-462: The Electronics division. Moving into 1980, the VCS still lacked a system-selling game. After Space Invaders had hit arcades in 1979, Warner instructed Kassar to try to get the rights to an arcade conversion for the game from Taito, while prototype work had already been started on a possible game by Rick Maurer on his own. Once Kassar has secured the rights, Maurer was able to take his work to
5880-455: The June 1983 CES . However, Coleco demonstrated its new Adam computer with Nintendo's Donkey Kong . Kassar was furious, as Atari owned the rights to publish Donkey Kong for computers, which he accused Nintendo of violating. Nintendo, in turn, criticized Coleco, which only owned the console rights to the game. Coleco had legal grounds to challenge the claim though since Atari had only purchased
6000-460: The VCS and improve quality assurance of the console and games. As they approached the end of 1978, Atari had prepared 800,000 VCS units, but sales were languishing ahead of the holiday sales period. Kassar's influence on Atari grew throughout 1978, leading to conflict between Bushnell and Warner Communications. Among other concerns about the direction Kassar was taking the company, Bushnell cautioned Warner that they needed to continue to innovate on
6120-492: The VCS to start a second wave of games for release in 1978. In contrast to the launch titles that were inspired by Atari's arcade games, the second batch of games released in 1978 were more novel ideas including some based on board games, and were more difficult to sell. Warner's Manny Gerard, who oversaw Atari, brought in Ray Kassar , formerly a vice president at Burlington Industries , to help market Atari's products. Kassar
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#17327931123486240-499: The VCS, Atari continued to manufacture dedicated home console units through 1977 though discontinued these by 1978 and destroyed their unsold stock. Another one-off device from the consumer products division released in 1977 was Atari Video Music , a computerized device that takes an audio input and creates graphics displays to a monitor. The unit did not sell well and was discontinued in 1978. Atari continued its arcade game line as it built up its consumer division. Breakout in 1976
6360-492: The air pump is activated, Dig Dug will stop moving and throw the end of the air pump forwards, where it may catch onto an enemy. If an enemy is hit, they are frozen in place, and the player can repeatedly press the air pump's button to inflate them. If no action is taken for a while or the player moves, the air pump disconnects and the action is cancelled, but the enemy will begin to deflate and will be stunned until fully deflated. Rocks are unable to be dug through but will fall after
6480-501: The arcade conversion of Taito 's Space Invaders for the VCS became the console's system seller and killer application . Atari's success drew new console manufacturers to the market, including Mattel Electronics and Coleco , and fostered third-party developers such as Activision and Imagic . Looking to stave off new competition in 1982, Atari leaders made decisions that resulted in overproduction of units and games that did not meet sales expectations. Atari had also ventured into
6600-544: The arcade game Zig Zag (1982), the Atari 8-bit computer game Anteater (1982) by Romox, Merlin's Pixie Pete , Victory's Cave Kooks (1983) for the Commodore 64 , and Saguaro's Pumpman (1984) for the TRS-80 Color Computer . The most successful is Universal Entertainment 's arcade game Mr. Do! (1982), released about six months later and surpassing clone status. Sega 's Borderline (1981), when it
6720-457: The company a few months later to join Bushnell in managing Pizza Time Theatre, and Kassar was promoted to CEO and chairman of Atari. With Bushnell's departure, Kassar implemented significant changes in the workplace culture in early 1979 to make it more professional, and cancelled several of the engineering programs that Bushnell had established. Kassar also had expressed some frustration with
6840-538: The company for US$ 250,000 . While Dabney would continue to work for Bushnell on other ventures, including Pizza Time Theaters , he had a falling out with Bushnell and ultimately left the video game industry. In mid-1973, Atari acquired Cyan Engineering , a computer engineering firm founded by Steve Mayer and Larry Emmons, following a consulting contract with Atari. Bushnell established Atari's internal Grass Valley Think Tank at Cyan to promote research & development of new games and products. Atari secretly spawned
6960-437: The company on in a consulting position. GCC developed arcade and VCS games for Atari, and also programmed most of the games for the upcoming Atari 5200 system. Atari launched its second major programmable console, the Atari 5200 , in late 1982. The unit was based on the same design features that had gone into the Atari 800 and Atari 400 computers, but repackaged as a home console. Alongside the 5200's release, Atari announced it
7080-401: The company's reputation, then by taking legal action accusing the four programmers of stealing trade secrets and violating non-disclosure agreements . This lawsuit was eventually settled out of court in 1982, with Activision agreeing to pay a small license fee to Atari for every game sold. This effectively validated Activision's development model and made them the first third-party developer in
7200-400: The company, but over the next few years, gave Kassar more of a leadership role in the company. Bushnell was fired in 1978, with Kassar named CEO in 1979. From 1978 through 1982, Atari continued to expand at a great pace and was the leading company in the growing video game industry. Its arcade games such as Asteroids helped to usher in a golden age of arcade games from 1979 to 1983, while
7320-513: The company. Bushnell and Dabney worked with Nutting Associates to manufacture their product. Dabney developed a method of using video circuitry components to mimic functions of a computer for a much cheaper cost and a smaller space. Bushnell and Dabney used this to develop a variation on Spacewar! called Computer Space where the player shot at two UFOs . Nutting manufactured the game. While they were developing this, they joined Nutting as engineers, but they also made sure that Nutting placed
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#17327931123487440-403: The console. Similarly, Rob Fulop , who programmed the arcade conversion of Missile Command for the VCS in 1981 that sold over 2.5 million units, received only a minimal bonus that year, and left with other disgruntled Atari programmers to form Imagic in 1981. Beginning in 1979, the Atari coin-operated games division started releasing cabinets incorporating vector graphics displays after
7560-399: The consumer market, first with dedicated home versions of Pong and other arcade successes around 1975, and into programmable consoles using game cartridges with the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS or later branded as the Atari 2600) in 1977. To bring the Atari VCS to market, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications in 1976. In 1978, Warner brought in Ray Kassar to help run
7680-461: The disruption of the exclusive distribution deals. In 1974, Atari began to see financial struggles and Bushnell was forced to lay off half the staff. Atari was facing increased competition from new arcade game producers, many which made clones of Pong and other Atari games. An accounting mistake caused them to lose money on the release of Gran Trak 10 . Atari also tried to open a division in Japan as Atari Japan to sell their games through, but
7800-766: The end of its production in 1974, Atari had made over 8,000 Pong cabinets. Atari could not produce Pong cabinets fast enough to meet the new demand, leading to a number of existing companies in the electro-mechanical games industry and new ventures to produce their own versions of Pong . Ralph H. Baer , who had patented the concepts behind the Odyssey through his employer Sanders Associates , felt Pong and these other games infringed on his ideas. Magnavox filed suit against Atari and others in April 1974 for patent infringement. Under legal counsel's advice, Bushnell opted to have Atari settle out of court with Magnavox by June 1976, agreeing to pay $ 1,500,000 in eight installments for
7920-415: The enemies eventually become faster and more aggressive, until the last one then attempts to escape on either side of the screen at the top of the stage. To escape, enemies will move straight up through any tiles before walking towards the nearest screen edge on the surface. The game has 256 stages. Later stages vary in dirt color, while increasing the number and speed of enemies. Lives are lost upon touching
8040-402: The exclusive distributor of Atari's games in Japan. Bushnell has claimed that deals arranged by Gordon saved Atari. Gordon further suggested that Atari merge Kee Games into Atari in September 1974, just ahead of the release of Tank in November 1974. Tank was a success in the arcade, and Atari was able to reestablish its financial stability by the end of the year. In the merger, Joe Keenan
8160-545: The expected demand. Distributors expected Atari's games to do well and ordered in large volumes, placing more orders than expected given Atari's past failures to meet demand. By the middle of 1982, a new home console marketplace had appeared, which one distributor called "a totally different business". In addition to Mattel, Coleco had introduced the Colecovision , which shipped in August 1982 with an arcade conversion of
8280-444: The film Wreck-It Ralph (2012). Maze video game Maze game is a video game genre description first used by journalists during the 1980s to describe any game in which the entire playing field is a maze . Quick player action is required to escape monsters, outrace an opponent, or navigate the maze within a time limit. After the release of Namco's Pac-Man in 1980, many maze games followed its conventions of completing
8400-424: The film, which was programmed by Howard Scott Warshaw over a period of five weeks to be able to produce the game for the 1982 holiday seasons. Raiders and E.T. were released in November and December 1982, respectively. As distributors had already cancelled orders, these and other games started to stockpile in Atari's warehouses without any sellers. Neither game sold as much as Atari had expected; notably, E.T.
8520-520: The first programmable home console that used cartridges to play different games. Following Warner's acquisition, they provided $ 120 million into Stella's development, allowing Atari to complete the console by early 1977. Its announcement on June 4, 1977, may have been delayed until after June 1, 1977, to wait out the terms of the Magnavox settlement from the earlier Pong patent lawsuit so they would not have to disclose information on it. The Atari VCS
8640-468: The floppy disk rights to the game, while the Adam version was cartridge-based. Negotiations became protracted after Kassar's departure in mid-1983, and with any deal unlikely to be realized before year-end sales, Nintendo dropped out. Instead, Nintendo worked through their Nintendo of America subsidiary to release the system on their own in 1985. In 1983, the company set up a partnership with MCA Videogames,
8760-438: The game but formally needed to get out of their contract with Bally. Bushnell told Bally that they could offer to make another game for them, but only if they rejected Pong ; Bally agreed, letting Atari off the hook for the pinball machine design as well. After talks to release Pong through Nutting and several other companies broke down, Bushnell and Dabney decided to release Pong on their own, and Atari, Inc. transformed into
8880-510: The game would be a sure-fire hit in the same manner as Space Invaders . However, the game exceeded the hardware capabilities of the VCS. While Tod Frye was able to get a version of Pac-Man on the VCS within the system's limitations, the resulting game was critically panned for many technical issues such as excessive flickering of the on-screen characters. Pac-Man was released in March 1982, with Atari running several promotions to increase sales. It sold over seven million units and ultimately
9000-521: The game, believing it would be a first prototype, but Alcorn's success impressed both Bushnell and Dabney, leading them to believe they had a major success on hand and prepared to offer the game to Bally as part of the contract. Meanwhile, Bushnell and Dabney had gone to incorporate the firm, but found that Syzygy (an astronomical term) already existed in California. Bushnell enjoyed the strategy board game Go , and in considering various terms from
9120-425: The game, such as their Super Missile Attack board that modified Atari's Missile Command . Atari initially filed suit to stop GCC's products but as they learned more about their products, recognized that GCC had talented engineers, as one of their other products, a modification board for Pac-Man was sold back to Midway and eventually became the basis of Ms. Pac-Man . Atari settled with GCC out of court and brought
9240-495: The game, they chose to name the company atari , a Japanese term 当たり that in the context of the game means a state where a stone or group of stones is imminently in danger of being taken by one's opponent (equivalent to the concept of check in chess ). Other terms Bushnell had offer included sente (when a Go player has the initiative; Bushnell would use this term years later to name another company of his ) and hane (a Go move to go around an opponent's pieces). Atari
9360-570: The games on those systems. They jointly developed the concept of using a standalone computer system with a monitor and attaching a coin slot to it to play games on. To create the game, Bushnell and Dabney decided to start a partnership called Syzygy Engineering in 1971, each putting in US$ 250 of their own funds to support it. They had also asked fellow Ampex employee Larry Bryan to participate, and while he had been on board with their ideas, he backed out when asked to contribute financially to starting
9480-490: The greatest arcade games of all time for its addictiveness and for breaking the traditional "dot-eater" gameplay used in games such as Pac-Man and Rally-X . In a 2007 retrospective, Eurogamer praised its "perfect" gameplay and strategy, saying it is one of "the most memorable and legendary videogame releases of the past 30 years". The Killer List of Videogames rated it the sixth most popular coin-op game of all time. Electronic Fun with Computers & Games praised
9600-421: The home console and could not simply release games for the VCS indefinitely like a music business. In a November 1978 meeting with Warner Communications, Bushnell said to Gerard that they had produced far too many VCS units to be sold that season and Atari's consumer division would suffer a major loss. However, Kassar's marketing plan, alongside the influence of the arcade hit Space Invaders from Taito , led to
9720-451: The industry, leading to the 1983 crash that devastated the U.S. video game market. Warner Communications sold the home console and computer division of Atari to Jack Tramiel in July 1984, who then renamed his company Atari Corporation . Atari, Inc. was renamed Atari Games, Inc. after the sale. In 1985, Warner formed a new corporation jointly with Namco, AT Games, Inc. , which acquired the coin-operated assets of Atari Games, Inc. AT Games
9840-500: The industry. In 1980, Namco produced the arcade game Pac-Man , and it reached the United States market by the end of the year. Pac-Man soon became a nationwide success, surpassing the popularity of Asteroids and creating a wave of "Pac-Mania". Atari was able to secure an exclusive deal with Namco to be able to convert Pac-Man to home arcade systems, starting with the Atari VCS version. Atari's management believed that
9960-407: The initial games were developed by Atari, drawing from programmers from the VCS line. Sales into early 1980 were poor and there was little to distinguish the computer line from the current console products. In March 1980, the company released Star Raiders , a space combat game developed by Doug Neubauer based on Star Trek game that had been popular on mainframe computers. Star Raiders became
10080-439: The investor announcement and were engaged with insider trading . The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigated Kassar's sale and in September 1983, fined Kassar about $ 81,000 . Kassar signed a consent agreement neither admitting nor denying the charges. Atari's financial troubles continued into the first quarter of 1983, with an operating loss of $ 45.6 million compared to an operating profit of $ 100 million in
10200-500: The machinery, while learning how it worked and developing his understanding of how the game business operates. In 1968, Bushnell graduated, became an employee of Ampex in San Francisco and worked alongside Ted Dabney . The two found they had shared interests and became friends. Bushnell shared with Dabney his gaming-pizza parlor idea, and had taken him to the computer lab at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to see
10320-410: The machines were averaging around US$ 400 a week each; in several cases, when bar owners reported that the machines were malfunctioning, Alcorn found that it was due to the coin collector had been overflowing with quarters, shorting out the coin slot mechanism. They reported these numbers to Bally, who still had not decided on taking the license. Bushnell and Dabney realized that they needed to expand on
10440-437: The next stage. Enemies can move through tiles, where they are represented in the form of ghostly eyes, and are invulnerable, slowed, and unable to attack, and will then return to being solid once in an empty space, whether that space is their destination or is along the way. The enemies can either do this to reach Dig Dug when they would otherwise be unable to or to escape from the stage as the last enemy. As enemies are defeated,
10560-456: The original, Dig Dug Deeper , was published by Infogrames in 2001 for Windows. A Nintendo DS sequel, Dig Dug: Digging Strike , was released in 2005, combining elements from the first two games and adding a narrative link to the Mr. Driller series. A massively-multiplayer online game, Dig Dug Island , was released in 2008, and was an online version of Dig Dug II ; servers lasted for less than
10680-585: The popular Donkey Kong as a pack-in game and add-ons that could play Atari 2600 games. Further, Activision, Imagic, and other third-party game developers like Parker Brothers had started releasing Atari 2600 titles that rivaled Atari's own games, reducing Atari's market share of games to 40%. Distributors started to cancel the Atari orders they had placed the prior year, which Gerard said they were "blind-sided" by, having never faced this type of competition before. Additionally around October 1981, Atari looked to other licensed properties for games. They secured
10800-505: The programmers at Atari, and was known to have called them "spoiled brats" and "prima donnas" at times. The changes in management style led to rising tensions from the game developers at Atari who had been used to freedom in developing their titles. One example was Superman in 1979, one of the first movie tie-ins that had been sought by Warner to accompany the release of the 1978 film . Warner, through Kassar, had pressured Warren Robinett to convert his game-in-progress Adventure from
10920-495: The rapid growth of the company. As an industry, the video game market reached about $ 1.7 billion in 1982 and was expected to reach $ 3 billion in 1984, rivalling revenues of the film industry, and making the video game industry an overall lucrative prospect. To try to remain competitive against Mattel's Intellivision, Atari requested all of its distributors to commit to orders for home console games in 1982 in October 1981, as to allow Atari to anticipate production numbers and meet
11040-529: The rights for Raiders of the Lost Ark in late 1981 shortly after the release of the blockbuster film that was released earlier that year. Similarly, after the film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial was released in June 1982, Warner chairman Steve Ross negotiated directly with Steven Spielberg to secure video game rights estimated to have cost Atari $ 20−25 million , to make a video game based on
11160-413: The same quarter in 1982. Atari was still struggling with excess inventory of its Atari 2600 games, and the Atari 5200 had not been as successful as the 2600. The golden age of the arcade was waning, and the arcade division was failing to turn a profit. Further, Atari's venture into home computers was not as successful, as they were losing a price war with Commodore International . Atari had gained
11280-546: The six top-grossing games. It was popular during the golden age of arcade video games . The 2004 Famicom Mini release had 58,572 copies sold, and the Xbox Live Arcade version had 222,240 copies by 2011. American publication Blip Magazine favorably compared it to games such as Pac-Man for its simple controls and fun gameplay. Allgame called it "an arcade and NES classic", praising its characters, gameplay, and unique premise, and for its easy home platform conversion. In 1998, Japanese magazine Gamest called it one of
11400-571: The sprites. The team hoped to allow player-designed mazes which could prompt unique gameplay mechanics, contrasting with the pre-set maze exploration in Pac-Man (1980). Namco's marketing materials heavily call it a "strategic digging game". Dig Dug was released in 1982, in Japan on February 20, in North America in April by Atari (as part of the licensing deal with Namco), and in Europe on April 19 by Namco. The first home conversion of Dig Dug
11520-499: The success of the Cinematronics game Space Wars in 1977–78. Their first vector graphics game, Lunar Lander , was a modest success, but their second arcade title, Asteroids , was highly popular, displacing Space Invaders as the most popular game in the United States. Atari produced over 70,000 Asteroids cabinets, and made an estimated $ 150 million from sales. Asteroids along with Space Invaders helped to usher in
11640-428: The technology principles they had learned from arcade and home console games, using solid-state electronics over electro-mechanical components to make them easier to design and repair. The division released about ten different pinball units between 1977 and 1979. Many of the machines were considered to be innovative for their time but were difficult to produce and meet distributors' demand. The second new venture in 1977
11760-487: The venture had several roadblocks. In a 2018 interview Alcorn described the situation as "an utter disaster beyond recognition". Bushnell said "We didn't realize that Japan was a closed market, and so we were in violation of all kinds of rules and regulations of the Japanese, and they were starting to give us a real bad time." Gordon "fixed all that for us for a huge commission" according to Bushnell. Atari sold Atari Japan to Namco for $ 500,000 , through which Namco would be
11880-407: Was a critical and commercial success upon release, and was praised for its gameplay and layered strategy. In Japan, it was the second highest-grossing arcade game of 1982 , just below Namco's Pole Position . In North America, Atari sold 22,228 Dig Dug arcade cabinets by the end of 1982, earning $ 46,300,000 (equivalent to $ 146,000,000 in 2023) in cabinet sales. Around July 1983, it was one of
12000-501: Was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney . Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry . The company was founded in Sunnyvale, California , in the center of Silicon Valley , to develop arcade games , starting with Pong in 1972. As computer technology matured with low-cost integrated circuits , Atari ventured into
12120-400: Was brought on from Warner initially to help with marketing but eventually took on a larger role in the company, displacing Bushnell and Keenan, and instituting more formal employee policies for the company. Ahead of entering the home console market, Atari recognized they needed additional capital to support this market, and though they had acquired smaller investments through 1975, they needed
12240-475: Was critically panned and later became known as one of the worst games ever made , though it sold 2.6 million copies in 1982, in 1983 suffered massive returns making it a financial failure. In December 1982, Warner Communications announced that it was expecting significant decline in investor earnings of about 40% for the fourth quarter of the year mostly as a result of slower game cartridge sales from Atari. Warner still remained confident that overall it would see
12360-420: Was echoed by GameSpot for its colorful artwork and faithful arcade gameplay, and by Eurogamer for addictiveness and longevity. Eurogamer , IGN , and GameSpot all criticized its lack of online multiplayer and for achievements being too easy to unlock, with Eurogamer in particular criticizing the game's controls for sometimes being unresponsive. Dig Dug prompted a fad of "digging games". Clones include
12480-431: Was high-demand product that season, and established Atari with a viable home console division in addition to their arcade division. By 1976, Atari began releasing home Pong consoles, including Pong variants, under their own brand name. The success of home Pong drew a similar range of competitors to this market, including Coleco with their Telstar series of consoles. In 1975, Bushnell started an effort to produce
12600-473: Was hired in February 1978 as president of the Atari consumer division. Kassar helped to develop a commercialization strategy for these games through 1978, and oversaw the creation of a new marketing campaign featuring multiple celebrities unified under the slogan "Don't Watch TV Tonight, Play It", and bringing in celebrities to help advertise these games. Kassar also instituted programs to increase production of
12720-403: Was incorporated in the state of California on June 27, 1972. Bushnell and Dabney offered to license Pong to both Bally and its Midway subsidiary, but both companies rejected it because it required two players. Instead, Bushnell and Dabney opted to create a test unit themselves and see how it was received at a local establishment. By August 1972, the first Pong was completed. It consisted of
12840-414: Was incredible belittling and humiliation of people. We'll never do business with them again." Stating that "Atari has never made a dime in microcomputers", John J. Anderson wrote in early 1984, "Many of the people I spoke to at Atari between 1980 and 1983 had little or no idea what the products they were selling were all about, or who if anyone would care. In one case, we were fed mis- and disinformation on
12960-444: Was kept on as president of Atari while Bushnell stayed at CEO. Having avoided bankruptcy, Atari continued to expand on its arcade game offerings in 1975. The additional financial stability also allowed Atari to pursue new product ideas. One of these was the idea of a home version of Pong , a concept they had first considered as early as 1973. The cost of integrated circuits to support a home version had fallen enough to be suitable for
13080-422: Was not involved. The two quit Nutting and established offices for Syzygy in Santa Clara ; at that point not taking a salary yet since they had no products. Bally then offered them a US$ 4,000 a month for six months to design a new video game and a new pinball machine. With those funds, they hired Al Alcorn , a former co-worker at Ampex, as their first design engineer. Initially wanting to start Syzygy off with
13200-471: Was one of Atari's last games based on transistor–transistor logic (TTL) discrete logic design before the company transitioned to microprocessors . It was engineered by Steve Wozniak based on Bushnell's concept of a single-player Pong , and using as few TTL chips as possible from an informal challenge given to Wozniak by Atari employee Steve Jobs . Breakout was successful, selling around 11,000 units, and Atari still struggled to meet demand. Atari exported
13320-488: Was ported to the Atari 2600 as Thunderground in 1983, was mistaken as a "semi-clone" of Dig Dug and Mr. Do! Boulder Dash (1984) also drew comparisons to Dig Dug . Numerous mobile games are clones or variations of Dig Dug , such as Diggerman , Dig Deep , Digby Forever , Dig Out , Puzzle to the Center of Earth , Mine Blitz , I Dig It , Doug Dug , Minesweeper , Dig a Way , and Dig Dog . Dig Dug prompted
13440-584: Was re-released in Japan for the Game Boy Advance in 2004 as part of the Famicom Mini series. Dig Dug is a mainstay in Namco video game compilations , including Namco Museum Vol. 3 (1996), Namco History Vol. 3 (1998), Namco Museum 64 (1999), Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (2005), Namco Museum Remix (2007), Namco Museum Essentials (2009), and Namco Museum Switch (2017). The game
13560-406: Was rebranding the Atari VCS as the Atari 2600 to create a more consist product naming system. The Atari 5200 did not do well on the market as it lacked backward compatibility with Atari VCS/2600 cartridges, a feature offered by the Colecovision . The Atari 5200 only sold about one million units before it was discontinued in 1984. By the end of 1982, Atari had hired 4,000 additional employees for
13680-614: Was released for the Atari 2600 in 1983, developed and published by Atari, which was followed by versions for the Atari 5200 , Atari 8-bit computers , Commodore 64 , and Apple II . In Japan, it was ported to the Casio PV-1000 in 1983, the MSX in 1984, and the Famicom in 1985. Gakken produced a handheld LCD tabletop game in 1983, which replaced Dig Dug's air pump with a flamethrower to accommodate hardware limitations. Namco released
13800-459: Was released in September 1977. Most of the launch titles for the console were games based on Atari's successful arcade games, such as Combat that incorporated elements of both Tank and Jet Fighter . The company made around 400,000 Atari VCS units for the 1977 holiday season, most which were sold but the company had lost around $ 25 million due to production problems that caused some units to be delivered late to retailers. In addition to
13920-607: Was released online on Xbox Live Arcade in 2006, supporting online leaderboards and achievements. It is part of Namco Museum Virtual Arcade , and was added to the Xbox One 's backward compatibility lineup in 2016. A version for the Japanese Wii Virtual Console was released in 2009. Dig Dug is a bonus game in Pac-Man Party , alongside the arcade versions of Pac-Man and Galaga . Dig Dug
14040-529: Was retained as president. For Warner, the deal represented an opportunity to buoy their underperforming film and music business divisions. Along with Warner's purchase, Atari had established its new headquarters in the Moffett Park area in Sunnyvale, California . During Atari's negotiations with Warner, Fairchild Camera and Instrument announced the Fairchild Channel F . The Channel F was
14160-569: Was subsequently renamed Atari Games Corporation. Atari Games, Inc. was then renamed Atari Holdings, Inc. and remained a non-operating subsidiary of Warner Communications and its successor, Time Warner, before being merged back into the parent company in 1992. While studying at the University of Utah , electrical engineering student Nolan Bushnell had a part-time job at an amusement arcade , where he became familiar with arcade electro-mechanical games . He watched customers play and helped maintain
14280-551: Was the best-selling VCS game, bringing in over $ 200 million . However, because of the poor technical implementation, Pac-Man caused consumers to become more cautious on rushing to purchase new games in the future, and tarnished Atari's image given that the company was trying to compete against low-quality third-party titles that were starting to flood the market. Atari discovered in 1981 that General Computer Corporation (GCC) had developed hardware that could be installed onto arcade games to give operators additional options to modify
14400-657: Was the first of the Pizza Time Theatre (later known as Chuck E. Cheese), based on the pizza arcade concept that Bushnell had from the start. At this stage, the concept also allowed Atari to bypass problems with getting their arcade games placed into arcades by effectively controlling the arcade itself, while also creating a family-friendly environment. The first restaurant/arcade launched in San Jose, California , in May 1977. Atari hired in more programmers after releasing
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