GENERAL: activsion

[child of Thor]

I cashed in my 'investments' for a VW Camper That then broke down all the time - still it was fun for a year

ON topic:
Did you get the shares as part of being on the Activsion team? Just intrested if game companies do the same thing as other corprate buisness...... (just tell me to sod-off if its too nosy, or ignore me )

Im thinking of getting involved, so im curious about all the Industry gossip.
As a long time game player(kinda from the begining almost),and small time game designer(board games/rpgs/choose your own adventure books etc), It puzzles me about some of the directions the Industry has taken.....something just doesnt 'sit' right...in terms of customers getting the product that the medium could offer. Well alot of the time anyway. I have seen that as the technology has progressed - it doesnt or hasn't always translated into the same thing for the software.

To bring it to the CTP games, i would say that these could have been the best of the genre(for me and others here they are, but we're a minority), and for whatever reasons they just didn't make it. My gut feeling on this is that it was the production company that dropped the ball somewhere, as it does happen on many occasions with increasing regularity as the years go by.
Im not saying games in the 'old days' were all roses, in fact there were some real stinkers(loads in fact), but it was the pioneer stage. Its strange that the same mistakes are being made like 20 years later? I know your sort of out of the industry, and your situation to me seems kinda tied in with what i see are the consequences of the direction the industry took over the years.
Whats your thoughts on this? I dont know how long you've been intrested in video games, and im a gentleman of sorts so i wont ask But have you noticed a change through your time as a player and creator?

[Tamerlin]

OFF TOPIC:

Hi Child of Thor,

Have one of your games already been published?

[child of Thor]

ALSO OFF TOPIC:

Just by myself
I used to do stuff for friends to play and i was a young un then - more interested in girls than buisness

ON TOPIC:

I guess as ive been into computers and gaming from quite early on(late 70's), and followed most of the great games+platforms of our times, and the companies that made them, I'm interested at the current state of play with the industry.
Why is it like it is? Why is so much at stake for the development houses?
Activision are a good case study. From the early years when they made great games like 'Pitfall', 'River Raid' etc to the current situation when they have become a publisher only.
Why is it that great minds like Chris Crawford got so pissed that they left the industry to all extents and purposes?
Why is it that people like st_swithin get the rub and are in a position where the industry can say 'we OWN you and we decide you wont work again'?
Surely something isnt right here?
Let me put it another way. As a long time consumer of their product why do i now think twice before buying a game with Activisions name on it, when once it was a brand i looked for?
And they are by no means the only games company that has this effect on me!
Whats going on?

[st_swithin]

I remember the baby-out-the-window-onto-the-firemens-trampoline game - that game ROCKED!!!~~

My highest score was 99 - for some reason, I could never get to 100.

[child of Thor]

sounds like its ripe for a Nintendo remake, they want to do simple games i understand

For some reason it vaugely rings a bell, although im sure the game im thinking of had you driveing around a 2D city in a fire engine catching any people as they jumped from burning houses? And i've no idea what it was called.

[ahenobarb]

Sort of a strange occurance... I was in Heathrow airport on the 25th of Oct. and there was a guy standing with a sign that said "Activision" waiting to pick some people up. Wonder who they were?

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by st_swithin
I remember the baby-out-the-window-onto-the-firemens-trampoline game - that game ROCKED!!!~~

My highest score was 99 - for some reason, I could never get to 100.

In my first game clowns jumped on trampolines trying to pop balloons...

Obviously not the same game but you sparked a memory for me of my 1st computer: the good old TRS-80.

[ahenobarb]

Originally posted by centrifuge



In my first game clowns jumped on trampolines trying to pop balloons...

Obviously not the same game but you sparked a memory for me of my 1st computer: the good old TRS-80.

Was that a TRS-80 Model I or III? I remember the model I used floppy disks (back when they were actually floppy) the size of vinyl albums (I also remember vinyl record albums). Yikes!! Where's my cane?

[child of Thor]

Ahenobarb, well......

[paranoid mode]
maybe they(activision in london) were looking for me, after all the slagging i was giving them in various threads?
Or maybe they know i havent bought a single game from them since CTP2.....
[paranoid mode off]

I'm waiting for the 'proof' that the source code is coming and will be useable by our community

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by ahenobarb


Was that a TRS-80 Model I or III? I remember the model I used floppy disks (back when they were actually floppy) the size of vinyl albums (I also remember vinyl record albums). Yikes!! Where's my cane?

It was a TRS-80 Color Computer (the first model).

It didn't even have a floppy drive... It used cartridges to play the games, and if you wanted to do any programming (in BASIC), you had to save it to a cassette recorder (yes the same kind that were used to play music )

Oh the good old days of my youth... Now where's my cane

[Dale]

I can beat that. I used to play games on a D1ck Smith Wizard! You could only do 64 lines of BASIC before it ran out of memory. And that took 10 minutes to load off the casette tape. That was about 2 years before the TRS-80!

Gee, now I feel old.

EDIT: Changed the maker's first name so it shows up!

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by Dale
I can beat that. I used to play games on a D1ck Smith Wizard! You could only do 64 lines of BASIC before it ran out of memory. And that took 10 minutes to load off the casette tape. That was about 2 years before the TRS-80!

Gee, now I feel old.

EDIT: Changed the maker's first name so it shows up!

Okay, You win

[Maquiladora]

d1ck...... smith.... wizard

I always thought Activison sounded like a charity for the blind.

[Dale]

D1ck Smith is actually one of Australia's greatest businessmen. He's one of the richest. He owns chains of electronics stores, and at the moment he's on a "buy Aussie products" thing. He's buying heaps of little Aussie companies, and marketting their products for them. It's a good idea actually.

But he started in electronics, and hence his foray into computers with the Wizard.

[ahenobarb]

Originally posted by Dale
D1ck Smith is actually one of Australia's greatest businessmen. He's one of the richest. He owns chains of electronics stores, and at the moment he's on a "buy Aussie products" thing. He's buying heaps of little Aussie companies, and marketting their products for them. It's a good idea actually.

But he started in electronics, and hence his foray into computers with the Wizard.

So a D1ck Smith Wizard is the Australian Wang computer? Chinese-born American An Wang founded Wang computers and fathered a thousand jokes.