Talk:Space Race (video game)

GA Review

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Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 19:22, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Onward to the mid 1970s and the early commercial industry it seems. I will come along for the ride. Indrian (talk) 19:22, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

@Indrian: - yep, I'm poking around with the idea of this project I posted at WT:VG, about cleaning up the 1972-76 games articles. Somehow, "I'll get these stubs to be starts" turned into getting one stub up to GAN before starting on the next. --PresN 01:24, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

The article looks really good. I only have two comments, though one will actually necessitate a little work:

 Done1. Steve Chiramonte was not a coin-op VP at Atari, he was actually president of the International Consumer Division after the departure of Anton Bruehl in 1984. His statement on Space Race may be correct, certainly its universally regarded as a failure, but I would not really call an employee of a different division ten years after the fact to be a great source. I think there is enough evidence of the game's failure in the article already without dragging this dubious recollection into it.

Yeah, I didn't have the Bushnell quote when I wrote that, but it is a crummy source. Though, [1] has him as "Atari (Coin-Op) VP/CFO" from Spring 1984 to July 1 1984, when he moved to "VP finance Atari International" (head of the division), before leaving altogether in Feb/Mar 1985 to turn up at Wicat Systems Inc. in March. Though it also says that Bruehl left June 1, and was replaced by Dennis Groth, who was then replaced by Chiaramonte. In any case, dropped. --PresN 19:35, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Fair enough, I did not realize he was at coin-op before replacing Bruehl at international. Either way, I am glad we are in agreement that the article is fine without it. Indrian (talk) 16:47, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

 Done2. My other comment will require a bit of a rewrite, as it entails a completely different understanding as to the development of the game. According to a deposition by Nolan that has been excerpted at the wonderful All in Color for a Quarter blog, Asteroid (always the game's working title) was the first game conceived at Atari, even before Pong, and has origins even in the deeper past as Bushnell and Dabney contemplated simpler alternatives to Computer Space at Nutting. Dabney has claimed credit for coming up with the idea, but Alcorn, while not entirely certain himself, believes in his oral history with the Computer History Museum that he and Bushnell must have hammered out the basic design between them. Either way, when Asteroid was finished, it was offered to Bally to fulfill the original development contract that helped fund the establishment of Atari (Bushnell's later claims that Bally's rejection of Pong brought that contract to an end are simply not true). Bally accepted the game and released it through the Midway subsidiary. Atari, meanwhile, decided to create their own version, designated Space Race, which Bally felt was a direct violation of their contract. To resolve the dispute, Atari agreed not to collect a royalty on the Asteroid machine.

Ooh, I regret missing that source! Definitely going to rewrite, then. --PresN 19:35, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

Other than that, everything seems pretty solid. I'll go ahead and place this  On hold pending a bit of rewriting. Indrian (talk) 18:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

@Indrian: Okay, rewrote the bits that needed it, I think. --PresN 20:29, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

@Masem: Everything looks good. I'll go ahead and promote. I should have the Gotcha review done in short order as well. Indrian (talk) 16:47, 18 October 2016 (UTC)