That’s just the background to the big players in the industry at that period and to cement that success, Sega had to come produce dome pretty special games.  Fantasia is an odd game; I loved it and many other people did as well, however many others did not and critical acclaim for the title was patchy, at best.

The game was obviously based on the Walt Disney film, Fantasia.  Released in 1940 it featured eight animated sections all accompanied by classical scores.  Viewed as suspiciously intellectual when it first released in the United States, it eventually turned into a huge hit.

Fantasia the game was designed by Infogrames (now Atari) and sticks to the format of the film fairly loyally although it’s shortened somewhat out of necessity.  The player’s character is Mickey Mouse and his task in the game is to navigate four different zones, collecting musical notes as he goes.

Each zone is based on an element and is accompanied by classical music.  These are as follows:

Water – The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by Paul Dukas, Dance of the Reed Flutes and Arabian Dance from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite.

Earth – The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky

Air – Russian Dance  from the Nutcracker Suite, Pastoral Symphony by Beethoven and Dance of the Hours by Amilcare Ponchielli.

Fire – Night on Bald Mountain by Modest Mussorgsky and Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Johan Sebastian Bach.

Mickey is essentially picking up notes with the ultimate aim of completing the Fantasia musical and if you ever made it right to the end , well done.  It was certainly a hard game and some aspects of the control system were not universally popular.  If you’d played Castle of Illusion or World of Illusion, Fantasia was a another step up in terms of difficulty.

Manic Miner was the result of a supposed six weeks development and it was the second game Smith wrote (after Styx) for Bug-Byte.  He would later develop the even more popular sequel Jet Set Willy but let’s stick to Manic Miner for the moment.  An Atari 800 game called Miner 2049er is said to have been the inspiration behind Manic Miner.  Although sound effects were not unusual in games at that point, it was the first ZX Spectrum game to feature in-game music and whether you liked it or not, it was an impressive technical feat.  Classical music fans who played Manic Miner will know that the title music is Johann Strauss’ The Blue Danube while the in-game music is the Edvard Grieg’s Hall of the Mountain King.

So how far did you get playing Manic Miner?  I can honestly say that I didn’t make much progress, but I was limited to odd sessions at a friend’s house; at my house we made do with the aforementioned TRS-80.  Players had to guide Willy the protagonist through twenty different platforming rooms, avoiding a variety of roaming enemies (which of course stuck to pre-determined paths).  Jumps had to be times correctly and from memory it was one of the first games I played which featured collapsing platforms.  What made it even more difficult was a time limit based on the amount of oxygen in the room.

I’m sure there are those out there who can truthfully claim to have beaten the game but I’m not one of those; I reckon level 7 or 8 was my maximum.  It probably goes without saying that Manic Miner was ported to numerous other platforms and also spawned several other games based on the adventures of Miner Willy.  You can still find playable versions online now; give it a go.

Chuckie Egg is certainly one of the original platform games and one which used its playability to popularise the genre.  It was originally developed for the BBC Micro, the ZX Spectrum and the Dragon home computer although it’s success on those platforms led to ports for the Acorn Electron, the Commodore 64, Tatung Einstein, Amstrad CPC, early Ataris and the MSX.  Supposedly the inclusion of the BBC Micro in many schools at the time helped Chuckie Egg’s popularity with children.

So for those not old enough, what’s the appeal of this game then?  Well it’s a basic platformer in which the protagonist, Hen House Harry, must complete each level by collecting all the eggs on each level.  There’s a pretty generous countdown timer which can be paused by picking up the hen seed distributed around the level but don’t let the hens touch you or you’re dead. There is also a giant duck in a cage at the top of the screen.

There are eight levels in total but if you complete them all you get to start again – but this time with the duck flying after you (but no hens).  Complete another eight levels and you are pursued by hens and the duck and so forth.

Chuckie Egg sold more than a million copies and for me its biggest draw was its playability.  The character could leap insanely around the screen without harm (unless you fell through a gap in the bottom level) ad it also featured a turn-based multiplayer game so you could play with your friends without arguments.  Check it out below:

Back to Electronic Arts though and by the early 1990s, the company’s success allowed it to acquire several smaller software developers. Throughout the 1990s it built upon this expertise to become one of the world’s largest, third-party publishers.  Particularly popular in this period were the sports simulations FIFA, NHL, Need for Speed and Nascar and these games series became the basis for much of EA’s success.  The former three are still going strong today.  Part of EA’s strategy in later years was to seal a deal with ESPN which gave them a 15 year exclusive deal to ESPN sports content.

Pogo.com was acquired in 1991 as a way for EA to get a grip on the emerging business of online content distribution and it has remained a major contributor to this market ever since.  In 2006 EA began to work with Nokia to deliver mobile versions of some of EA’s classic games to Nokia phones.  These included titles such as Doom, FIFA 06 and Tetris.

2007 Reorganisation

Electronic Arts underwent something of a reorganisation in 2007 under the leadership of new CEO John Riccitiello.  The company seemed to suggest that it’s previous strategy of acquisitions and assimilation had led to a dearth of creativity; the new plan was to form four labels which would each produce and publish their own material.  Maxis and Bioware operate successfully under this arrangement.  2007 was also the year in which many of EA’s biggest titles were exported to the Macintosh.

John Riccitiello

2008 Downturn

The global economic crisis brought as much disappointment to EA as it did to other western businesses in 2008 onwards.  There was a significant financial loss resulting in the loss of more than 1000 jobs and the closure of several of its facilities.  Riccitiello was forthright enough to admit that the lack of any blockbuster releases that year had been partly to blame for the fall in revenue.

This didn’t stop them buying social games developer Playfish for $275 million in 2009, announcing another 1500 job losses on the same day.  One might argue that EA’s strategy was to concentrate on online content distribution and rid itself of those parts of the company which did not add value to that plan.  Pandemic Studios, developer of the impressive Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction was one of the victims of this cull.

Moving into the second decade of the 21st century, Electronic Arts appears to be mostly back on its feet.  Persistence with the online distribution channel has recently led to the launch of EA Origins, a dedicated online download service to enable consumers to buy and download directly from the company.

It has also taken a fairly sizeable chunk of the Facebook gaming market by acquiring PopCap Games, the developer behind Bejeweled and Plants vs Zombies.  On a final note, anyone playing the multiplayer smash hit game Battlefield 3 will know Electronic Arts has still got what it takes to succeed.

Electronic Arts is one of the world’s biggest and most recognisable brands in the computer games industry.  It has relatively long and largely successful history and, unlike Atari for example, it has remained stable throughout all those years.  No changes of ownership, buyouts or bankruptcies – just a forward looking innovative company which still leads the pack today.

The company was started by Trip Hawkins who, in 1982, was in the early stages of developing his software company which was named Amazin’ Software. At the time Hawkins was a relatively senior Apple employee who was able to use $200,000 of his own money to kick-start the venture.  An extra $2 million was invested from a group of investors which included Sequoia Capital.

This was no tiny operation and right from the off, Hawkins had assembled a team of employees which included a couple pilfered from Apple, one from Atari and a former Stanford classmate.  Their first office was located in San Mateo in California and it was here that a substantial business plan was formed.  By 1983, Amazin’ Software had begun to produce games software and early releases such as Pinball Construction Set and Archon were successful releases which are recognised today as quality pieces of work.

Pinball Construction Set Cover

The idea for the name changed came about in October 1982 at an employees retreat. Hawkins has been aware for some time that his employees were not altogether satisfied with the Amazin’ Software moniker and this retreat was an opportunity to brainstorm on the subject of a new name.  Various themes were floated in an all-night session and ultimately the name Electronic Arts won the day.  Other suggestions along the same lines had been Electronic Artists and Blue Light, a contemporary reference to the Tron movie.

An early obstacle for Trip Hawkins and Electronic Arts was the retailers reluctance to buy products from a relatively new and unknown publishing house.  It took some work and coercion for Hawkins and his marketing employees to convince retailers to stock their products – it was Hawkins wish that Electronic Arts would sell direct to retailers without using the distributors as a middle man.  Despite these hurdles, revenue was a healthy $5 million in 1983 and $11 million in the following year.  1984 saw revenue of $18 million – clearly Electronic Arts was doing something right.

Using Electronic Arts as a name, one of the innovations Hawkins et al were able to introduce was the use of album-style covers for their software.  The company wanted to be thought of as an artistic production company rather than a nuts and bolts programming venue and this helped EA attract some of the most talented software developers  Pinball Construction Set was a notable example of this clever business practice but whether it contributed to the huge success of that game is unclear.

At this stage, Electronic Arts was purely a producer of games for the home computer market but towards the end of the 1980s it became clear that developing for consoles was going to be a major part of the future.  1991 also brought the departure of Trip Hawkins from the day to day running of EA, although he remained on the board.  His new venture was 3DO, begun in cooperation with EA among others.

Part Two follows…..

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

It introduced some elements to video gaming which we’ll discuss later but lets first take a look at the game’s development.  The platform was the Nintendo 64 and the effort expended on development had rarely been seen before.  The man behind the project was Shigeru Miyamoto, a director who was also involved with the concurrent development of Super Mario 64.

The game had actually been in development since 1995 when a short demo was shown at Nintendo’s Space World trade show.  Even at that stage the concept of a free-roaming game was giving the development team concerns that the memory demands would be to great for the limits of the N64′s cartridge system.  There was a possibility that the game would be released to use the forthcoming N64 disk drive expansion pack but ultimately the decision was made to stick with the cartridge.

Miyamoto wanted to design a game in which the landscape, and the ability to view it, were a major part of the game.  Why put the effort into designing a free roaming game if the camera is always focused on the character?

Hyrule Screenshot

The game play of Zelda is the story of Link; the complex and detailed story line is far to intricate to describe accurately here but briefly it involves Link’s attempts to travel around the assorted lands which surround the Kingdom of Hyrule.  Hyrule was also the setting for previous Zelda releases.  Link must thwart Ganondorf by obtaining the three Spiritual Stones and the Ocarina of Time which will provide him with access to the Master Sword.  There is much more to it than that, plenty of time travelling and associated narrative but you get the general picture.

Zelda was one of the first games, possibly the first, to feature a soundtrack designed to complement the gameplay.  As Link approached different locations, music associated with that area began to play; a departure from the usual practice of tying the music to the character.  Pony Canyon, the Japanese media publishing company were behind the creation of the soundtrack.

Zelda introduced features such as contextual button pressing – assigning a different control to a particular button depending on the situation, automatic targeting and a great stealth aspect to the game.  For fans of the RPG genre, many of the features introduced here are still in use today.

From the day it was released, The Legand of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, was critically acclaimed.  Almost twelve years later it is still the recipient of the highest ever ratings from reviewers across the board.  Take a step backwards God of War and Grand Theft Auto - Zelda’s ratings were even higher, many 10 out of 10s and 100% reviews.  Check it out:

The following years saw a number of mergers and acquisitions beginning with a hook up with JTS Inc., a producer of hard disk drives, and then in 1998 Hasbro bought the Atari name from JTS for $5 million.  By this stage all Hasbro was buying was the intellectual property associated with Atari, it had nothing else.  Hasbro, in turn, was bought by French software developer Infogrammes in 2000.  Infogrammes seems to have been the first genuine software developer to realise that the name ‘Atari’ alone had value for games purchasers.

In 2001 Infogrammes effectively rebranded itself as Atari –  Atari Inc. in the United States (only partially owned by Infogrammes) and Atari Europe in Europe; The bit which was acquired from Hasbro became Atari Interactive.  Infogrammes remained the umbrella company.  It’s first two games released which featured Atari branding were Splashdown and MX Rider.  In 2008 Infogrammes finally gained total ownership of Atari Inc.

Later that year Atari bought Cryptic Studios, a small but reputable U.S. developer of MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games).  In 2009, a piece of Atari headed East when Japanese developer, Namco Bandai, acquired 34% of Atari Europe.

Demonstrating the circular nature of some things, in 2009 Infogrammes  finally changed it’s name to Atari, SA (the SA stands for Societe Anonyme and is the equivalent of a U.K. PLC) and in 2010 Nolan Bushnell finally returned as the CEO, replacing incumbent David Gardner.  The company will be hoping the return of Bushnell will have some impact on the company’s fortunes; it has not been making money (and has in fact been losing much of it) for some years now.

To celebrate this most famous of game and hardware developers, let’s have a quick look at some of the best games Atari has produced in it’s long and distinguished history.

Let’s start with the Atari 2600 and Centipede, a basic but addictive game released in 1980 with fantastic/annoying sounds depending on your preferences:

How about Yar’s Revenge; transport yourself back to 1981 for Atari’s biggest selling original game:

Here’s 1994′s Alien vs Predator for the Jaguar, one of the biggest selling titles for that console.

Lastly, Test Drive Unlimited 2 is one of the newest titles available and proves that Atari still have what it takes to compete in this industry.

Following the departure of Nolan Bushnell from Atari, now under the control of Warner, the development of the successor to the Atari 2600 became a priority.  This project had in fact been underway since the release of the 2600.  As enthusiasts will also recall, this was the period when the home computer was beginning to take hold in the consumer market.  The dominant computers at the time were the TRS-80, the Commodore Pet and the Apple II.

Atari grasped the opportunities offered by this new market and added peripherals and input sockets to the new machine; the keyboard was a prime example.  The results were the Atari 400 and 800 which were released in 1980.  In 1982 the Atari 5200 was released but for whatever reason Warner’s decision to keep separate it’s computer, games console and arcade divisions led to a situation in which the company failed to to capitalise on their expertise in all three fields.  This is not to say that Atari was not successful for Warner and indeed, for a time it was the fastest growing company in the United States. The 2600 was a massive seller but the subsequent releases did not sell the same quantities, especially when other manufacturers entered the market.  Following the 1983 video game crash Warner’s stock price crashed and they decided to sell Atari.

Jack Tramiel and Atari Corporation

After some stop-start negotiations with various companies, the hone computer and console parts of Atari were sold in 1984 to Jack Tramiel (of Tramel Technology) who had developed the Commodore computers.  Warner retained a stake in this company and took the opportunity to create Atari Games from the arcade division which they retained and which was subsequently sold to Namco in 1985.

Atari ST

Under Tramiel’s direction, Atari Corporation was formed and set about developing the Atari ST, a considerably more powerful machine.  Released in September 1985, it was quickly compared to the Apple Macintosh, one of the frontrunners of the period.  The favourable reception of the ST effectively saved Atari’s fortunes and the machine was noted particularly for it’s desktop publishing software, it’s music editing software and of course Dungeon Master, the first real-time 3D role playing game.  Dungeon Master sold more than 40,000 copies in the first year of release (1987) and was owned by almost 50% of Atari ST users anywhere.  Check it out:

Atari Lynx and Jaguar

So Atari Corporation was (back) in business and over the next few years released several machines (Atari 2600jr, Atari 7800), pushing the company into respectable profitability. It was not until 1989 when Atari’s fortunes began to take a turn for the worse once more. The home computer division was suffering against Bill Gates and Microsoft and the console division was about to release the Atari Lynx, a handheld console which featured the first colour screen.  The Lynx’s downfall was the Nintendo Gameboy, a cheaper, black and white option which had the advantage of actually being available in the shops in time for Christmas 1989.  The Lynx was not and suffered as a result.

Atari Lynx

Atari Jaguar with CD peripheral

Atari’s next big development was the Jaguar in 1993, an impressively powerful games console which nevertheless failed, leaving Atari with money in the bank (from various lawsuits) but no products to sell.

Part Three follows……

Atari Logo

game consoles and home computers is Atari – familiar to anyone who has played any type of electronic game sometime during the last forty years.

Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney were the pioneers behind the original version of Atari but in 1971 they had founded Syzygy Engineering, a company credited with developing the first arcade video game.  The game was called Computer Space and Bushnell and Dabney were asked by Bill Nutting of Nutting Associates to produce it as a clone of Spacewar! - a previous game developed only for the PDP-1 computer.

The success of this early licensing arrangement prompted Bushnell to set up a video games company and in June 1972, Atari. Inc was founded.  The name Atari is derived from the Japanese term which means ‘to hit the target’ or ‘ to receive some good luck’ – it is also included in the board game ‘Go‘ which is where Bushnell is said to have first seen it.

After developing and licensing various games in the first years of their existence, including Pong, Rebound, Gotcha and Space Race, Atari began co-operating with a California company called Cyan Engineering to develop a video games console capable of playing the four games which Atari had created up to that point.  This console was the Atari Video Computer System (VCS), which would later be known as the Atari 2600.

Atari Video Computer System

Bushnell then effectively handed over control of Atari to Warner Communication when he sold the company for around $30 million realising the need to raise capital for marketing of the new console.  Sold for $199 in 1977, the VCS was not an instant success; it was like nothing the public had seen before and it took some time before they realised it could play more than one game through the cartridge system.  Warner bankrolled it until it the market picked up in 1979 when more than million unites were sold.

In 1978, following continual disagreements between Bushnell and Warner, he was fired and his connection with Atari ended and he was able to concentrate on other leisure activities such as the internet casino.

Part Two follows….

Magnavox Odyssey

original Atari’s often get the credit for kicking off the home console boom, it was the lesser known Magnavox Odyssey which was the genuine early front runner.

Incredibly Ralph Baer, the developer of the system, began working on the console way back in 1966.  It was a combination of analogue and digital technology and was actually powered by batteries.  It featured a slot in which circuit boards containing different games could be inserted and due to the lack of colour television in the late 1960s, Baer wanted to include translucent coloured sheets to place over the screen to add atmosphere to the games.

By 1968 he had a working prototype which featured additions that predated those of other consoles by many years; these included a basic light gun and a golf game which could be played by attaching a purpose made golf ball to the joystick – the player was then able to hit the ball with a real putter.

The console and it’s innovations impressed Magnavox, a long-standing manufacturer of television sets, who asked for a prototype.  Magnavox demonstrated the console to the general public on May 24th, 1972 and released it onto the market in August of the same year.

Although it had the makings of a success and was some way ahead of its time, the Odyssey suffered from a poor marketing strategy.  Whether it was accidental on behalf of other companies or not, many consumers were under the impression that the odyssey only worked with Magnavox television sets.  In fact some commentators have blamed the Magnavox advertising for the confusion.  Later versions of Pong contained a note on the box which said that the game would work “…..on any television set, black and white or color“.

Note the ‘works on any TV’ message in this 1973 ad.

Still, the Odyssey sold 330,000 consoles and 80,000 light gun packs before a new Odyssey model (Odyssey 100) was released in 1975.  It was a technological marvel which made it’s mark on video game console history.