New video posted at Atarigames.com

atariscott

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DOUG MACRAE FROM GCC AT CAX 2010

GCC was founded in 1981 during the onset of the video game craze. C.E.O. Kevin Curran and MIT classmates Doug Macrae, John Tylko, Chris Rode, Steve Golson and Mike Horowitz began by developing an enhancement for Atari's "Missile Command" and went on to create "Ms. Pac Man", still one of the top-selling coin-operated video games in history. Between 1982 and 1984, GCC developed a total of 58 consumer electronics products that generated over $800 million in revenue for Atari and Bally Manufacturing.

http://www.atarigames.com

or

http://vimeo.com/15532555
 
It's pretty sad that only 26 people watched the video after I posted. I thought more people would be interested in the history of some of the most classic games of all time, but sadly they are not. No monkeys or plumbers, no care.
 
To be fair, the Macrae video has been up since early October - so I watched it a good few weeks ago.

It's a very interesting story - I'm still amazed that a couple of guys can go from having a small number of pins / videos out on location, to designing and manufacturing add-on kits for games - it's quite a big leap to make.

One thing has always struck me as being a rather large coincidence - SMA sees the introduction of the Saucer - a fast moving object that shoots a lazer beam that is pretty much impossible to defend against once the shot has been fired.

The same Saucer is referred to in the design docs / field test reports for the never released Missile Command 2. That has always struck me as being very odd - and I wonder if somehow Doug Macrae and co ever caught sight of the MC2 code, or saw MC2 out on field test. Any views on that?
 
i watched it before you posted it, but i'll have to watch it again. it's really a good video. most of the books out there only to a quick run over the whole GCC thing, so it's really cool to hear it from the horse's mouth.
 
Thanks for posting
I really enjoyed watching it and feel I have a deeper understanding of our history for having watched it!
 
To be fair, the Macrae video has been up since early October - so I watched it a good few weeks ago.

It's a very interesting story - I'm still amazed that a couple of guys can go from having a small number of pins / videos out on location, to designing and manufacturing add-on kits for games - it's quite a big leap to make.

One thing has always struck me as being a rather large coincidence - SMA sees the introduction of the Saucer - a fast moving object that shoots a lazer beam that is pretty much impossible to defend against once the shot has been fired.

The same Saucer is referred to in the design docs / field test reports for the never released Missile Command 2. That has always struck me as being very odd - and I wonder if somehow Doug Macrae and co ever caught sight of the MC2 code, or saw MC2 out on field test. Any views on that?

I doubt that GCC had ever seen the game. I'm not sure that MC2 was shown outside of the Bay Area, since it did not get far enough along to even for Atari to choose a cabinet configuration. They were concerned that cocktail games were not going to sell well, and that was the best configuration for MC2.
 
It's pretty sad that only 26 people watched the video after I posted. I thought more people would be interested in the history of some of the most classic games of all time, but sadly they are not. No monkeys or plumbers, no care.

I have tried to watch it twice now but the sound is so bad i end up closing my browser.
 
I doubt that GCC had ever seen the game. I'm not sure that MC2 was shown outside of the Bay Area, since it did not get far enough along to even for Atari to choose a cabinet configuration. They were concerned that cocktail games were not going to sell well, and that was the best configuration for MC2.
Thanks for that. As far as I can tell they field tested it (MC2) in an Atari Football cab (which I'm told was one of the first games that Dave Theurer worked on, another coincidence) then made a late decision to switch to an Atari Basketball cab. I could never figure out how MC2 would ever play in an upright basketball cab. They seem to have lost their way with MC2 somehow.

For a while I did think that perhaps GCC and Atari were somehow in cahoots over SMA (given it was such a jump for GCC to make; and the appearance of the saucer; and their close relationship post litigation). I've been talked out of that theory though on account of just how rough a game SMA actually is. It just doesn't have the 'balance' or subtlety of an Atari game.
 
Can't watch on my iPhone (is it a Flash format video?) so will have to watch on a desktop sometime. Looks interesting.
 
Can't watch on my iPhone (is it a Flash format video?) so will have to watch on a desktop sometime. Looks interesting.

I watched the vimeo version on my iPad. You should be able to watch on the iPhone since they offer html5 player.
 
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The page loads and in the center of the video is the universal circle with a diagonal indicating 'not allowed'. I dunno.

Found this regarding iPhone and vimeo videos:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=747770

It looks like e person that posts the video must be a vimeo plus user for mobile users to view the video. If you go to vimeo.com you can watch some of the videos on the front page. Bummer...
 
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