Asteroids - The Movie!!!

[JB0]

Uh... Really? If you were going to make a documentary to pay homage to a classic game... Wouldn't you start with BETTER and more CLASSIC games like Tetris or Pong or something? Asteroids is a good game and all, but I'm not in the slightest interested in how it was made.

Better? Pong?

Seriously?

As far as classic goes... Asteroids, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders is the holy trinity of 1st-era gaming.

You'd be hard-pressed to FIND a more classic game.

And Pac-Man already HAS his documentary.

So does Donkey Kong, so no worried about the Nintendo crowd.

Certainly Defender, Robotron, Joust, and Sinistar were all more influential than Asteroids*, but they weren't as popular then, and aren't as well-known now.

As far as "making of..." NO game can justify a movie just covering it's development.

Except Duke Nukem Forever. There's a trilogy's worth of material there, I'm sure.

*Defender was the first scrolling shooter. Enough said. Many people improperly credit Scramble, the first of the Defender knockoffs. Which was by a little company called Konami, that would later whore the ever-living QBert out of the genre with Gradius.

Sinistar was built from the ground up to push a massive, awe-inspiring boss character onto the screen and move it around. Impressive bosses have been a staple of video games ever since.

Robotron, single-screen though it was, was the first "bullet-hell" shooter. And the original twin-stick shooter.

As for Joust... That one's a bit more complex. Miyamoto's publicly stated that Joust was his inspiration for Mario Bros. And if it wasn't for Mario Bros., we wouldn't have Super Mario Bros.

[Wes]

My guess is it'll be about the asteroids being sentient and how man it curely invading space and breaking them down for minerals so they have to attack and some rich white d00d's the badguy and they save the rainforest and some polar bears. So yes Steven Segal stars in it. Though it would be cool if Will Saso playing Steven Segal was lead. That would be worth a DVD rental

[MilSpex]

Better? Pong?

Seriously?

As far as classic goes... Asteroids, Pac-Man, and Space Invaders is the holy trinity of 1st-era gaming.

You'd be hard-pressed to FIND a more classic game.

And Pac-Man already HAS his documentary.

So does Donkey Kong, so no worried about the Nintendo crowd.

Certainly Defender, Robotron, Joust, and Sinistar were all more influential than Asteroids*, but they weren't as popular then, and aren't as well-known now.

As far as "making of..." NO game can justify a movie just covering it's development.

Except Duke Nukem Forever. There's a trilogy's worth of material there, I'm sure.

*Defender was the first scrolling shooter. Enough said. Many people improperly credit Scramble, the first of the Defender knockoffs. Which was by a little company called Konami, that would later whore the ever-living QBert out of the genre with Gradius.

Sinistar was built from the ground up to push a massive, awe-inspiring boss character onto the screen and move it around. Impressive bosses have been a staple of video games ever since.

Robotron, single-screen though it was, was the first "bullet-hell" shooter. And the original twin-stick shooter.

As for Joust... That one's a bit more complex. Miyamoto's publicly stated that Joust was his inspiration for Mario Bros. And if it wasn't for Mario Bros., we wouldn't have Super Mario Bros.

Interesting. Think of ANYTHING and the West invented it but the Japanese perfected it.

[JB0]

Aww, c'mon... all the good twin-stick shooters are western games.

[taksraven]

Warners Buys Midway Games Rights

For a cool $33 million, the studio now own the rights to various popular video game franchises such as "Mortal Kombat," "Spy Hunter," "Space Invaders," "Pac-Man," "Rampage" and "Joust." The Chicago-based developer was amongst the first firms to manufacture video games over three decades ago and declared bankruptcy earlier this year.

Rest of the Dark Horizons article here..... http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/14553/war...ay-games-rights

Seems like Asteroids is only the tip of the iceberg......

Taksraven

[JB0]

Warners Buys Midway Games Rights

For a cool $33 million, the studio now own the rights to various popular video game franchises such as "Mortal Kombat," "Spy Hunter," "Space Invaders," "Pac-Man," "Rampage" and "Joust." The Chicago-based developer was amongst the first firms to manufacture video games over three decades ago and declared bankruptcy earlier this year.

Rest of the Dark Horizons article here..... http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/14553/war...ay-games-rights

Seems like Asteroids is only the tip of the iceberg......

Taksraven

First stop: Road Blasters, as a cheap Death Race knockoff.

Midway hasn't had the rights to Pac-Man or Space Invaders for years, though. Just as an observation.

They had a falling-out with Namco over Ms. Pac-Man. They appeased Namco by giving them the rights to Ms. Pac-Man.

And then they made Pac-Man Jr., and Namco severed ties with them(Pac-Man Jr. now exists in limbo, as Midway has no rights to the Pac-Man name, but Namco has no rights to the specific game in question)

I believe they had a similar, albeit less spectacular, falling-out with Taito over Space Invaders.

I know the rights have long since reverted back to Taito.

Further correction:

"... they did not purchase the company's two development studios which would indicate they've little interest in continuing on the company's game franchises" is in error.

Midway had FOUR development studios.

Warner did not buy Midway Studios - San Diego or Midway Studios - Newcastle.

But they DID purchase Midway Studios -Chicago as well as Surreal Studios. So they DID buy development studios, and ARE continuing game development.

Interestingly, this is probably VERY closely related to why Warner's doing an Asteroids movie.

To make a long story short... in buying Midway's assets, they've ALSO bought (back{again}) the rights to all the Atari arcade games.

To make a short story long, and go off on a TOTAL game nerd babblefest...

Rights to Asteroids(and many other Atari games) were split when Atari was divided into two separate entities.

There was a home company(Atari Corp.) that was sold off to the Tramiels(founders of Commdore) and an arcade company(Atari Games), which remained under the control of Warner for some time afterwards.

Both companies retained rights to all the arcade games created pre-split(if the rights to home games split in a similiar fashion, there's never been any evidence of it).

Midway eventually bought Atari Games(after Warner sold it to Namco, who sold it to the employees, who sold it to Time-Warner{hooray mergers}).

Midway later renamed it Midway Games West to avoid confusion after Hasbro bought Atari Corp. and resurrected THAT Atari brand.

(It was actually big news in the classic gaming community when Midway Games West was closed down back in '03, as it was one of the very few developers that still had any connection to the original era, and still had several employees from the beginnings of Atari, and thus the birth of the game industry. By beginnings, I mean from before Bushnell sold to Warner, before the VCS/2600... from almost the VERY beginning)

Midway, Atari(a subdivision of Hasbro Interactive), and Atari(a subdivision of Infogrames) have all exploited the license in the home market, so both companies from the initial split seem to have gotten full rights, and not rights limited to portions of the market(though Atari Games WAS banned from releasing home games under the Atari brand, hence the creation of Tengen back in the NES days).

Activision got in on the act as well, but they bought their licenses from the home division of Atari.

Who knew just saying Atari could get so complicated? You can mean one of a half-dozen companies with one word.

...

Or so circular.

Warner has just bought the rights to Atari's arcade library for the THIRD time.

Games originally developed UNDER THEIR BANNER.

Edited July 7, 2009 by JB0

[chrisk]

Will these movies based on video/boardgames be like Jumanji or Zathura? Or will it be like that Nintendo Power movie??

[taksraven]

Thanks for the in-depth analysis of the story, JBO. So, my question is are you just a diligent observer, or do you do journalism on the topic, or are you a total industry insider?

Taksraven

Edited July 7, 2009 by taksraven

[Wes]

First stop: Road Blasters, as a cheap Death Race knockoff.

Midway hasn't had the rights to Pac-Man or Space Invaders for years, though. Just as an observation.

They had a falling-out with Namco over Ms. Pac-Man. They appeased Namco by giving them the rights to Ms. Pac-Man.

And then they made Pac-Man Jr., and Namco severed ties with them(Pac-Man Jr. now exists in limbo, as Midway has no rights to the Pac-Man name, but Namco has no rights to the specific game in question)

I believe they had a similar, albeit less spectacular, falling-out with Taito over Space Invaders.

I know the rights have long since reverted back to Taito.

Further correction:

"... they did not purchase the company's two development studios which would indicate they've little interest in continuing on the company's game franchises" is in error.

Midway had FOUR development studios.

Warner did not buy Midway Studios - San Diego or Midway Studios - Newcastle.

But they DID purchase Midway Studios -Chicago as well as Surreal Studios. So they DID buy development studios, and ARE continuing game development.

Interestingly, this is probably VERY closely related to why Warner's doing an Asteroids movie.

To make a long story short... in buying Midway's assets, they've ALSO bought (back{again}) the rights to all the Atari arcade games.

To make a short story long, and go off on a TOTAL game nerd babblefest...

Rights to Asteroids(and many other Atari games) were split when Atari was divided into two separate entities.

There was a home company(Atari Corp.) that was sold off to the Tramiels(founders of Commdore) and an arcade company(Atari Games), which remained under the control of Warner for some time afterwards.

Both companies retained rights to all the arcade games created pre-split(if the rights to home games split in a similiar fashion, there's never been any evidence of it).

Midway eventually bought Atari Games(after Warner sold it to Namco, who sold it to the employees, who sold it to Time-Warner{hooray mergers}).

Midway later renamed it Midway Games West to avoid confusion after Hasbro bought Atari Corp. and resurrected THAT Atari brand.

(It was actually big news in the classic gaming community when Midway Games West was closed down back in '03, as it was one of the very few developers that still had any connection to the original era, and still had several employees from the beginnings of Atari, and thus the birth of the game industry. By beginnings, I mean from before Bushnell sold to Warner, before the VCS/2600... from almost the VERY beginning)

Midway, Atari(a subdivision of Hasbro Interactive), and Atari(a subdivision of Infogrames) have all exploited the license in the home market, so both companies from the initial split seem to have gotten full rights, and not rights limited to portions of the market(though Atari Games WAS banned from releasing home games under the Atari brand, hence the creation of Tengen back in the NES days).

Activision got in on the act as well, but they bought their licenses from the home division of Atari.

Who knew just saying Atari could get so complicated? You can mean one of a half-dozen companies with one word.

...

Or so circular.

Warner has just bought the rights to Atari's arcade library for the THIRD time.

Games originally developed UNDER THEIR BANNER.

I'm gonna need a flowchart.

[Cent]

Death Race knockoff? Why not Road Rash? That was awesome!

[eugimon]

Aww, c'mon... all the good twin-stick shooters are western games.

add RTS and MMOs and sims to that list.

[Vepariga]

asteroids the movie,all they need is a ship and an asteroid field and they have captured the game lol

[JB0]

Thanks for the in-depth analysis of the story, JB0. So, my question is are you just a diligent observer, or do you do journalism on the topic, or are you a total industry insider?

Taksraven

Diligent observer is closest.

I'm a horrible game nerd(I own more systems than most people even know exist), and I've done a LOT of reading about the history of the industry.

And I tell ya, finding some of the bits and pieces is work.

Straightening out the Williams/Bally/Midway mess is a headache all on it's own.

(Short version. Bally bought Midway. Their arcade division became Bally/Midway. Then Williams bought Bally/Midway from Bally. Then they bought Time-Warner Interactive, including Atari Games. Then Williams spun Midway off into it's own company, with all the video game stuff. Williams still exists, and still makes gambling machines. )

(Long version: No. Just... no. )

Death Race knockoff? Why not Road Rash? That was awesome!

Because Road Rash is EA, not Midway. And Road Blasters had cars with guns, not motorcycles with chain whips.

I <3 Road Blasters. Just to be totally up-front here.

Sadly, Spy Hunter is the more-recognized name, and with both games being owned by the same company and covering largely the same subject(drive car fast, blow poo up), Road Blasters is never gonna see a revival.