What was up with Froggo?

[Justin]

1 hour ago, Video 61 said:

hi justin,

 

 true, they were. but, a small operation did them. so what was jacks excuse? also, i completely sold out of the froggo 7800 games repeatedly. they sold as well as double dragon and rampage for me.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

That's interesting. All the more proof there was pent up demand for new Atari 7800 games during the Lynx era. Super Asteroids & Missile Command would've made a cool 7800 cartridge. Chip's Challenge, Road Blasters, so many others. At least they gave us Scrapyard Dog. Thanks for the history Lance!

[Video 61]

1 hour ago, Justin said:

That's interesting. All the more proof there was pent up demand for new Atari 7800 games during the Lynx era. Super Asteroids & Missile Command would've made a cool 7800 cartridge. Chip's Challenge, Road Blasters, so many others. At least they gave us Scrapyard Dog. Thanks for the history Lance!

hi justin,

 

BINGO!

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

[Video 61]

21 hours ago, Justin said:

Dave Needle, co-creator of the Atari Lynx:

 

 

hi everyone,

 

i can attest 100% to this. you wanna know why all of a sudden there were no new lynx games for over 6 months, then you got some schlock game like robo sqaush which was quickly thrown together to plug that 6 month hole, because jack screwed epyx big time, and epyx instead of handing the games over to atari who had them at their mercy for a few thousand dollars, tossed them, according to legend, 25 lynx games almost finished. i had been told that repeatedly by atari employees. i even had a letter for john scruch saying to jack, he knew they could make money on those games.

 

he also never said anything about gary.

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

 

[nosweargamer]

14 minutes ago, Video 61 said:

hi everyone,

 

i can attest 100% to this. you wanna know why all of a sudden there were no new lynx games for over 6 months, then you got some schlock game like robo sqaush which was quickly thrown together to plug that 6 month hole, because jack screwed epyx big time, and epyx instead of handing the games over to atari who had them at their mercy for a few thousand dollars, tossed them, according to legend, 25 lynx games almost finished. i had been told that repeatedly by atari employees. i even had a letter for john scruch saying to jack, he knew they could make money on those games.

 

he also never said anything about gary.

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

 

😞

[nosweargamer]

,

3 hours ago, Video 61 said:

hi justin,

 

 true, they were. but, a small operation did them. so what was jacks excuse? also, i completely sold out of the froggo 7800 games repeatedly. they sold as well as double dragon and rampage for me.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

I'm curious now. What are some 7800 games that did not sell well?

Also, outside of California Games, can you think of any other 7800 titles announced, but never came out and never had a prototype that surfaced?

Thanks!

[Justin]

12 hours ago, nosweargamer said:

Also, outside of California Games, can you think of any other 7800 titles announced, but never came out and never had a prototype that surfaced?

Thanks!

 

On 8/18/2020 at 3:15 PM, Video 61 said:

the Froggo guy called me one time to let me know that my orders for Pyromania and Night of the Ninja for the Atari 7800 were about to be filled. two weeks later i called when they did not arrive, the phone was disconnected.

 

From what @Video 61 says, it sounds like Froggo had announced Pyromania and Night of the Ninja for the Atari 7800 and were taking orders for them from vendors. I'm willing to bet development began on these games and progressed enough for them to start taking orders.

[Video 61]

On 8/24/2020 at 10:28 PM, nosweargamer said:

,

I'm curious now. What are some 7800 games that did not sell well?

Also, outside of California Games, can you think of any other 7800 titles announced, but never came out and never had a prototype that surfaced?

Thanks!

hi noswear,

 cracked did not sell well at all, same with jinx. cracked should have used a light gun, and jinx paddles, but paddles are not very usable in 7800 mode. i have pitfighter, and gato that never were released, to bad on gato, what was there looked great!

 but there were many announced, and nothing has ever surfaced, like the tank game on the box. i think it all boiled down to jacks business practices.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

 

[Video 61]

On 8/25/2020 at 10:58 AM, Justin said:

 

 

From what @Video 61 says, it sounds like Froggo had announced Pyromania and Night of the Ninja for the Atari 7800 and were taking orders for them from vendors. I'm willing to bet development began on these games and progressed enough for them to start taking orders.

hi justin,

 

 yes they had four games announced. but relying on the atari market, to shaky.

 

activision told me all of their 7800 stuff sold well, and that included absolutes stuff. they even had a few titles where they had to reorder, i think one was title match pro wrestling.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

[Scott Stilphen]

Jack Tramiel was a ruthless business person, no doubt about it.  As someone mentioned, he would absolutely go after any developers and suppliers who were on precarious financial ground,  and if they weren't already, they soon would be because he leveraged them to the point they had no choice but to either bow to his whims or go under.  With Commodore, he had 'vertical integration'; he owned and fully controlled the chain of suppliers (such as chipmaker MOS), but without that, he strong-armed companies to get get the same advantage.  Epyx learned that the hard way, which ultimately contributed to the Lynx's demise (lack of software).  The same scenario played out with the Jaguar, and all the 3rd-party developers that signed up to support it.  I have a stack of company memos that detailed how that played out. 

Video games, and software in general, was low on his list of priorities.  He always felt the hardware would drive the sales of software, which is the exact opposite of how the market worked.  How else do you explain how inferior systems like the VCS and GameBoy overwhelmingly outsold superior hardware offered by the competition?  He "bought"  a video game company because it allowed him the quickest path back into the market to compete with Commodore.  The Atari name had some value as far as recognition, but for the first 2 years under Tramiel, his only focus was on selling computers.  The 2600JR (and later the XEGS) were released in order to help sell off the warehouses full of software he had.  The NES revitalized the home video game market in the US to the point it was worth it for him to release the 7800

I suspect he tried the same tactics with GCC over the 7800, which is why it wasn't released nationwide until nearly 2 years after the initial limited release in California in 1984.  Revisionists like Goldberg and Vendel would have you believe its release took 2 years because of all the paperwork and contract wrangling involved.  Ask yourself - how was it Tramiel was able to buy a company like Atari within days, but couldn't secure a deal with GCC regarding the 7800 sooner?

[Video 61]

8 hours ago, Scott Stilphen said:

Jack Tramiel was a ruthless business person, no doubt about it.  As someone mentioned, he would absolutely go after any developers and suppliers who were on precarious financial ground,  and if they weren't already, they soon would be because he leveraged them to the point they had no choice but to either bow to his whims or go under.  With Commodore, he had 'vertical integration'; he owned and fully controlled the chain of suppliers (such as chipmaker MOS), but without that, he strong-armed companies to get get the same advantage.  Epyx learned that the hard way, which ultimately contributed to the Lynx's demise (lack of software).  The same scenario played out with the Jaguar, and all the 3rd-party developers that signed up to support it.  I have a stack of company memos that detailed how that played out. 

Video games, and software in general, was low on his list of priorities.  He always felt the hardware would drive the sales of software, which is the exact opposite of how the market worked.  How else do you explain how inferior systems like the VCS and GameBoy overwhelmingly outsold superior hardware offered by the competition?  He "bought"  a video game company because it allowed him the quickest path back into the market to compete with Commodore.  The Atari name had some value as far as recognition, but for the first 2 years under Tramiel, his only focus was on selling computers.  The 2600JR (and later the XEGS) were released in order to help sell off the warehouses full of software he had.  The NES revitalized the home video game market in the US to the point it was worth it for him to release the 7800

I suspect he tried the same tactics with GCC over the 7800, which is why it wasn't released nationwide until nearly 2 years after the initial limited release in California in 1984.  Revisionists like Goldberg and Vendel would have you believe its release took 2 years because of all the paperwork and contract wrangling involved.  Ask yourself - how was it Tramiel was able to buy a company like Atari within days, but couldn't secure a deal with GCC regarding the 7800 sooner?

hi Scott,

 

all true, and its why i too observed relying on hardware to generate massive profits worked in the 1970s when there was little competition, but by 1980 that scenerio evaporated. jack never figured it out.

 he was obessed with cutting costs on hardware to generate profits to the point where there was no profit period anymore. when you sell 7800 joysticks with copper domes on the fire buttons, when you sell cartridges where the shell can crumble, when you sell cartridges that no longer work in your machines because you cheapened the electronics up to the point where either the circuit boards are so thin on the carts, that they make contact with the port pins difficult, or the motherboards so thin they crack when a cart is installed or pulled out of the machine, and if you hold the shell to help pull out the cart and the shells shatters, or the games no longer work because of cheapened electronics, you should take notice that profit from hardware is a fools game.

 

space invaders showed the computer world that its the games stupid!

i was told that there were plenty of games being developed for the jaguar, but most developers did not trust jack, so the games were tossed.

jack wanted 100% profit from games, but lusted after a few percent from hardware. if the games were not all big sellers, he was enraged. if he sold millions of a unit and made little or no money, he was happy.

 

i have a fax from atari right before they dumped the 8-bit lines showing what was left in stock for games. can't read it today, too degraded, but it showed even the XEGS tiny library, most games either sold out, or almost sold out, they were a success.

the overstock that was left came out of the warner days when atari was king. otherwise jack's releases almost all of the them sold way over 50% of the stock except a few. many flat sold out totally.

 you would think that that would light a bulb, it did not.

 

lance

www.atarisales.com

 

[Atari 5200 Guy]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I always thought the idea of starting or investing in/buying a company was to help it grow, be the best that it could be, do things that no one else has done before that might benefit society.  Not do everything you can to destroy it or erase it from existence.  Knowing what I know now I bet someone like me could have made an agreement with WB to where someone like myself could have owned Atari.  

What would have been the difference?  Simple...I love video games!  Atari has always been since it's beginnings a video game company.  Yes, they made computers, too, before Jack got his grubby little hands on Atari but video games were the sole reason for those computers being made.  Evidence points to those computers being made to replace the 2600 as a game console but instead became the 400/800 computers.  Atari was a video game company.  It was not what Jack thought it was.