Game Designing The Atari Way + Crazy Arcade Flyers

This would have been great to share last month but as the saying goes, “better late than never”. While I’ve been on the Starcade site before, I have never seen this series of behind-the-scenes footage at Atari that gets into how they designed games. It’s always quite fascinating to see and I know that some things haven’t changed much – putting ideas down on something like a whiteboard is still a common practice.

Unfortunately the videos don’t give credit to everyone that they interview which was something Atari was infamous for around the time but a few people I recognize include Owen Rubin, Mark Cerny and Ed Logg. I think that the VP of Engineering they talk to is Ed Rothberg but I’m not 100% sure about that.

I can’t embed the videos here so you can use the links below. The first video shows a brainstorming session for Centipede and early work behind QWAK.The second video deals with the hardware design as well as cabinet art (I love that mini Gravitar cabinet they show). Video 3 deals with focus groups, marketing, and the mass manufacturing process of the cabinets; there is a fourth video but it doesn’t have anything to do with game design, mostly just footage of people playing games at the beach.

(also a warning for extreme 80s fashions 😛 )

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

[Via KLOV Forums post]

Also something picked up from another forum, Arcade Otaku is this new Tumblr site that focuses just on arcade flyers so cheesy, they’re crazy. Finding models on flyers these days pretty much never happen, which in some cases isn’t a bad thing…

Crazy Arcade Flyers

Last but not least is this article in the Chicago Tribune that covers the openings of the various new arcades around their area. They interview various operators of venues that we have reported on opening recently, such as the Underground Retrocade or No Limit Arcade. They also ask Eugene Jarvis about the trend and cover Raw Thrills’ current business model. It’s always welcome news to see positive media attention come our way.