Activision brings you exciting new games!

[TL]

[align=center:2mtkzqhu]Activision - Atari 2600 VCS - Corporate Commercial - 1981[/align:2mtkzqhu]

[Greyfox]

They were great in them days

[sloan]

Just some random observations:

Oh, to have the innocence from those days back again. Also, it really is sad that government regulations and the threat of Chinese knockoffs has made it next to impossible to start similar companies these days. Opportunities to start your own video game company are long gone with huge budgets and Hollywood-grade production teams.

Also, it is a shame what Activision would become. I know business is business, but cut throat tactics and abundance of franchise titles has tarnished the image over the years.

Finally, why can't someone digitally remaster those old film clips to get some visual crispness back into them?

[TrekMD]

Nice video!  I've wondered the same thing as sloan.  It would be nice if these were remastered to at least look crisp.  I'm guessing a lot of these are transfers from video tapes.

[sloan]

I have wondered what became of guys like Garry Kitchen, Bob Whitehead, Alan Miller, David Crane, etc. When they parted ways with Activision, did they maybe get jobs as programmers with other software companies? I know Garry Kitchen and David Crane did a few games on NES and SNES, but those gigs only paid the bills for so long.

A sidenote: I recently found out that David Crane grew up 20 miles from my house, in northern Indiana Amish country. Seemed a bit odd though because Amish frown upon technology in general. Guess he came from an "English" family and not Amish.

[TrekMD]

We've interview some of those folks here, sloan.  Check out the Interviews tab on top of the page.

[sloan]

Good stuff. I had not looked into this site and all it offered before. I read the interviews with Kitchen and Crane, and they were interesting for sure. They did not go into details of where their careers went post-Activision though.

I noticed in reading the interviews that numerous people from RVG asked questions to Garry and David. Did you guys meet them in person or were these submitted via email or similar means?

[TrekMD]

We request questions right here on the site.  We start a thread looking for questions from members for anyone we are interviewing and once we have a certain number of questions, we send them to be answered.  As an example, here is the most recent thread where we requested questions:  http://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/http://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7

[TL]

I have thought about making a Jaguar CD cinepak demo of all these old adverts 

[TrekMD]

I have thought about making a Jaguar CD cinepak demo of all these old adverts 

That would be cool.

[onthinice]

I have wondered what became of guys like Garry Kitchen, Bob Whitehead, Alan Miller, David Crane, etc. When they parted ways with Activision, did they maybe get jobs as programmers with other software companies? I know Garry Kitchen and David Crane did a few games on NES and SNES, but those gigs only paid the bills for so long.

A sidenote: I recently found out that David Crane grew up 20 miles from my house, in northern Indiana Amish country. Seemed a bit odd though because Amish frown upon technology in general. Guess he came from an "English" family and not Amish.

Indiana is great is not? Garfield the cat is from Muncie, Indiana. I did have to laugh. Northern Indiana to me is mostly lakes and Amish country.

On my own sidenote: I found an old vhs of Happy's Place recently. It is from about 1995. Has Batman and Power Rangers.

Happy's Place was a variety type kids show based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It started in the mid 1980's and starred Happy the Hobo. It consisted of old Warner Brothers cartoons, Heathcliff, Saber Rider and lots of jokes. 

Another reason to love Indiana.

[sloan]

Indiana is great is not? Garfield the cat is from Muncie, Indiana. I did have to laugh. Northern Indiana to me is mostly lakes and Amish country.

On my own sidenote: I found an old vhs of Happy's Place recently. It is from about 1995. Has Batman and Power Rangers.

Happy's Place was a variety type kids show based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It started in the mid 1980's and starred Happy the Hobo. It consisted of old Warner Brothers cartoons, Heathcliff, Saber Rider and lots of jokes. 

Another reason to love Indiana.

At the risk of derailing further, I will respond 

It sounds like you lived close to the Fort Wayne television market. I grew up in South Bend, so do not have remembrance of that program. The town where David Crane is from is Nappanee, home of Amish Acres tourist attraction. I said "in general" regarding Amish and technology, because it varies by local parish and head bishop as to what they allow. Some in my area have cell phones, some do not. So long as they are physically separated with no land lines, some modern amenities are permitted.

[onthinice]

That is a cool video about Activision. Thanks Laird for sharing it!

Sloan, you made some good points and it is nice to have a little back story to some of the game developers. As these systems age so do the folks who created them. May their stories live on forever.

I have been on a nostalgic kick lately and remember 1985 very well. Game consoles were frowned upon and computers were the in thing. Well kids got bored easily to say the least and somehow it became cool for 12th grade kids to go on a kids show. For several years it was the cool thing.

Thank God that the NES arrived when it did and developers like Activision and Accolade were still making games.

[TL]

[align=center:3la6kmkc]This video makes me think of this classic David Crane picture:



This is a classic print advert from Activision too:

[/align:3la6kmkc]

[TrekMD]

That's the picture from the Retro Gamer article.    Love the ad and the use of "tapes" to refer to the carts!