In 2023, Atari Age pulled products from their store in a clean-up of IP-risk, removing “homage” games from talented homebrew developers who technically did not own the trademarks for the original works their games were based on. Improved versions of Pac Man, and other classic games, were removed from the store, an apparent precursor to Atari Age’s Albert Yarusso announcing that Atari Age had been acquired by Atari.
A final “Last Chance Sale” offered these games one last time to Atari fans so they could avoid missing out on some very well done ports of classic favorite video games. These games had always gotten by on the graces of the legal indifference of IP owners who had better things to do than to go after a tiny market centered around a game system that had been obsolete for decades. The sale proved much more successful than anticipated, resulting in a massive backlog for Atari Age, resulting in many orders taking over a year to fulfill. Customers were understandably less than happy about the situation, but due to production capacity bottlenecks there was little that anyone could do other than wait or cancel their orders and miss out on these games forever. I’ve been seeing games that were discontinued after the Last Chance Sale on ebay or grossly inflated prices, $150 and up.
Atari’s acquisition of Atari Age was supposed to provide a boost in manufacturing capacity, but it wouldn’t arrive until after the IP risk was removed from the store. It seems that the time has come now. Atari Age has a new crop of games for the 2600 and 7800 systems. These are all-new, all-original games; it’s good to see the homebrew community doing something more than simply copying old arcade games that either never made it to home consoles, or were ported back in the day, but leaving something to be desired.
While classic titles have a lot of built-in interest due to their fa miliarity with gamers, doing green field game development frees homebrew developers to come up with fresh ideas and embrace modern game design principles. There have always been new “original” games coming from the homebrew community, but now, with the classic arcade ports no longer commanding the lion’s share of the attention, it’s time for these original games to take center stage and shine.
The new games will be shipping in November, after Atari Age returns from the 2025 Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Also announced, but not yet available for order: the excellent Strike Zone Bowling is getting a physical release, and the Adventure-like, 256kb Realm of Riesig.
The games I’m most interested in are Paddlefield, Mattress Monkeys, Spies in the Night 2 (2600); and Knight Guy in Another Castle (7800).
Suddenly, it seems like the nearly 50 year old console is more vibrant than ever.