The Man Who Made the Worst Video Game in History - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Homer J Simpson
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2016, 03:36:46 am
content: The man who made 'the worst video game in history'http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35560458

author: Tomorokoshi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2016, 05:06:55 am
content: I think one of the main lessons here is not about software design, or programmers, but about project management. Only one software engineer was put on a large, high-profile project. Were other programmers available to help with the design and programming? What was the test process? Many of us have likely encountered situations like this on our own scale. Invariably the questions from management come down to, "When can it be done", not "How well can it be done."

author: Skimask
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2016, 05:31:40 am
content: Thing is...I remember playing E.T. for hours on end. One of these days I'm going to dig mine out......of storage, not the ground

author: zapta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2016, 05:43:41 am
content: The documentary Game Over about that era at Atari and the dumpster digging later is available for streaming on Netflix.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3715406/

author: dreamwatcher
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 22, 2016, 05:44:28 am
content: There is a really good documentary about Atari and Warshaw is in most of it. While they are telling the story about Atari, they are also documenting the archaeological dig of the landfill where it turns out Atari did dump many cartridges, not just ET.Atari Game Over (2014)The ET fiasco was really just one symptom of the disease that caused the video game crash of 83 and subsequent failure of Atari.If this subject is of interest to you, I highly recommend watching the documentary.EDIT: It looks like somebody beat me to it

author: HAL-42b
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2016, 05:57:11 am
content: I remember something Nathan Myhrvold said about Charles Babbage. He was a Microsoft man but I forgive him for that.Quote

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 22, 2016, 10:50:46 am
content: Although a bunch got buried, I wouldn't be surprised if it has quite a large cult following. No doubt someone has ROM / file dumps of it? He'll be (more) famous one day.Quote from: Skimask on February 22, 2016, 05:31:40 amPlease do and record it to WAV before the noise floor and signal dropout becomes an issue.

author: dreamwatcher
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: February 22, 2016, 11:26:53 am
content: Quote from: Halcyon on February 22, 2016, 10:50:46 amJust about every cartridge ROM from the 2600 has been dumped and is available from multiple places. In fact the entire library is just a little over 3 MB (~540 titles).In fact, the vast majority of roms have been dumped from all the cartridge based game consoles and there are projects dedicated to the preservation of this data.Emulation of these historical systems has really improved over the years allowing anybody the experience of playing these classic games.

author: rsjsouza
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2016, 12:20:16 pm
content: As the article said, the videogame crysis needed a face, and that was ET. However Atari was screwing up long before that. I still remember my disappointment with the horrid implementations of Zaxxon, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr (to name a few) when compared to other titles such as Defender, Raiders of the lost ark...At least it is refreshing to see him in a better place after how much he endured over the years due to public scrutiny - something a lot harder to do nowadays due to the amount of individual exposure brought by internet.