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Games by Apollo

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Games by Apollo
IndustryVideo game industry
Founded1981
Defunct1983
FateBankruptcy
HeadquartersRichardson, Texas,
United States
Key people
Pat Roper (founder)
Ed Salvo (Director of Development)
ProductsSpacechase, Shark Attack
Number of employees
30

Games by Apollo (often shortened to Apollo) was a third-party developer for the Atari 2600 video game system, based in Richardson, Texas. Founded by Pat Roper in October 1981 by as a subsidiary of his National Career Consultants (NCC),[1] their first game was Skeet Shoot. Releasing eleven games in total for the Atari 2600, their titles never caught on, however, and when the North American video game crash of 1983 occurred, they were one of the first software companies to declare bankruptcy. Several former employees went on to form Atari 2600 game developer Video Software Specialists (VSS) and MicroGraphicImage.

History

Formation

Older logo used on some cartridges

In 1980, Pat Roper was president of Texas-based National Career Consultants (NCC), a company that produced educational films. Roper knew nothing about the games industry, but while playing NFL Football on the Intellivision in 1980, he realized that there was money to be made.[2] Roper decided to form a game company, which he called Games by Apollo because the name "Apollo" appealed to Roper because it was recognizable and a symbol of youth and activity.[3]

Instead of hiring away existing game designers from Mattel or Atari, however, Roper placed an advertisement in the Dallas Morning News and the San Francisco Chronicle.

PROGRAMMER-VIDEO-GAMES We nd you to join us in our exciting adventures. If you have exper & know-how in this area, pls. send is your resume and telephone. Send to this paper ad no 3397752. All replies strictly confidential

Patrick, Roper (1981-11-17). "Classifieds". San Francisco Chronicle. San Francisco, CA.

A young programmer by the name of Ed Salvo was living in Iowa and saw the advertisement after a friend sent him a copy of the Dallas Morning News advertisement. He proceeded to contact Roper and offer him a game he had developed in about four weeks, Skeet Shoot. Roper flew Salvo to Dallas, where he was offered a job to lead the development for the yet to be formed Games by Apollo. Salvo initially turned him down, thinking it was too risky.[3]

After Salvo returned to Iowa, Roper contacted Salvo and offered to buy Skeet Shoot for $5,000. Salvo accepted and agreed to a contract with him to develop a second game, Spacechase. After the completion of Spacechase, Roper offered Salvo a position with the now formed Games by Apollo as their Director of Development. Salvo accepted and was tasked with hiring 25 programmers to build a staff and develop games.[3]

Market presence

Spacechase went on to become Apollo's best selling title.[3] Apollo also marketed Spacechase with an offer to make customized or ‘monogrammed’ versions of Spacechase. Fewer than 10 were sold, and several were given to press including Electronic Games magazine co-founder Arnie Katz.[3]

PM Magazine came to Apollo's offices to film a segment on Apollo and Spacechase, with Leeza Gibbons doing the interview. The segment included Ed Salvo making a customized Spacechase for Leeza Gibbons. This involved changing the 3 shapes in the explosion graphic to her initials. When her ship was destroyed Leeza's initials appeared. Other programmers interviewed were Dan Oliver (Space Cavern), Steve Stringfellow (Lochjaw) and Ernie Runyon (Lost Luggage).[3]

Space Cavern was the first scrolling 2600 game[citation needed] and is considered today a minor classic. It was created after Roper flew Ed Salvo out to the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas to see Imagic's new game Demon Attack. Roper had been very impressed and wanted one just like it. He gave programmer Dan Oliver the game play and specifications for Space Cavern without identifying where he got the idea, and Space Cavern became Apollo's third game.[3]

Apollo in turn attended the June 1982 CES in Chicago with a booth of their own, which included the obligatory hiring of models to demonstrate its games.[3] Shortly after, they hired Cyndy Spence, formerly of Atari, as advertising director. She in turn brought in well known advertising agency Benton & Bowles as Apollo's advertising firm.[1]

Also of note was Lochjaw, a Pac-Man clone that involved sharks. The movie studio MCA threatened to sue Apollo because of what they felt was an infringement on their copyright for the movie Jaws. Because of limited funding, Pat decided not to fight it and changed the title of their game to Shark Attack. The Lochjaw version had a very short shelf life, and is extremely rare as a result.[2]

By the end of 1982, Apollo also moved into designing games for the Atari 5200, ColecoVision, and Intellivision. None of these games made it into production before Apollo closed its doors in late 1983.[3]

Decline

Early on, Roper spent much of the company's money on trying to emulate Activision. At one early staff meeting he was quoted as saying that "Activision had 26 million in sales its first year so Apollo would have 27. Activision had a campus with 7 buildings each 7 stories so Apollo would have 8 buildings of 8 stories."[3] According to Salvo, he built up production and inventory to sell 27 million but sales didn’t happen. Roper also bought a helicopter as an answer to Dallas’ Central Expressway, also hiring an engineer to put it together and maintain it.[3]

In late 1982, Ed Salvo, Terry Grantham, Mike Smith and one other fellow employee left Apollo when it appeared that Roper was not taking the right steps to stay in business.[3] Forming Video Software Specialists (VSS), they developed games for CBS Electronics, K-tel (Xonox), Sunrise, and Wizard Games. Salvo claims that two weeks after the four left, Apollo was forced into bankruptcy.[3]

Under pressure from the company's advertising agency, Apollo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 12, 1982. Apollo owed Benton & Bowles $2.5 million, a figure representing only half of the year-old firm's total debts.[4] Apollo president Patrick Roper's hoped to reorganize the company and return in smaller form, but that did not come to pass. Programmer Larry Martin stayed until the end, recalling that he had been working around-the-clock for several weeks, trying to finish the game Guardian. Immediately after he released it to manufacturing, the creditors moved in with court orders and shut the company down."[5]

Games developed

References

  1. ^ a b Dougherty, Philip H. (1982-07-23). "ADVERTISING; Video Game Client To Benton & Bowles". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-16.
  2. ^ a b Iida, Keita, Third Party Profile: Apollo, retrieved 2007-11-16
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Stilphen, Scott, DP Interviews....Ed Salvo, retrieved 2007-11-16 Cite error: The named reference "dpinterview" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  4. ^ VID GAME FIRM APOLLO FILES CHAPTER XI, retrieved 2015-07-15
  5. ^ Perry, Russ, 2600 Connection Interviews: Larry Martin, retrieved 2015-07-15
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