15 replies to this topic

[Curt Vendel]

Ever wonder just how much Atari dished out to Developers for the games that were developed for the Atari Jaguar64 game console? Have a look - you'll never call the Tramiels cheapskates again....

Click on the link at the bottom of the page.

http://www.atarimuse...nu/jagfiles.htm

Also on that page is information on the Vent-Atari agreement, Vent was a company owned by Nolan Bushnell and his Catalyst Company, he and Sam Tramiel were inking a deal for him to sell Set Top boxes based on Jaguar 64 technology...


Curt

Edited by Curt Vendel, Thu Mar 18, 2010 5:50 PM.

[jsmith73]

DAAAAMN....

That's a lot of numbers....

[Tom-Lynx]

Wow....$450K for Alien vs. Predator.

I'm not a programmer, but I'm taking a wild guess that it beats the homebrew scene.

[kskunk]

Thank you Curt for yet more insight into Atari's final days!

Tom-Lynx, on Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:13 PM, said:

Wow....$450K for Alien vs. Predator.

I'm not a programmer, but I'm taking a wild guess that it beats the homebrew scene.

But AvP required a big team. They had 3 programmers, 3 level designers, 4 artists, and 7 people contributing music and sound effects.

The numbers seem to show that only $225K was paid out "through 8/26/95", or half of the "contractual commitment". I wonder how that commitment worked. Given that AvP had been out for almost a year by then, it seems like Rebellion was getting ripped off.

Assuming 5-6 of them were full-time on the project, and the rest were come-and-go contractors, $225K is not even worth showing up to work. They must have had some other investors (even internal investment) to afford to publish that game. They probably made $1 million or more in sales, but even $1 million is peanuts when you're talking about salaries for 17 people on a multi-year project.

- KS

[busterm]

kskunk, on Thu Mar 18, 2010 9:34 PM, said:

Thank you Curt for yet more insight into Atari's final days!

Tom-Lynx, on Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:13 PM, said:

Wow....$450K for Alien vs. Predator.

I'm not a programmer, but I'm taking a wild guess that it beats the homebrew scene.

But AvP required a big team. They had 3 programmers, 3 level designers, 4 artists, and 7 people contributing music and sound effects.

The numbers seem to show that only $225K was paid out "through 8/26/95", or half of the "contractual commitment". I wonder how that commitment worked. Given that AvP had been out for almost a year by then, it seems like Rebellion was getting ripped off.

Assuming 5-6 of them were full-time on the project, and the rest were come-and-go contractors, $225K is not even worth showing up to work. They must have had some other investors (even internal investment) to afford to publish that game. They probably made $1 million or more in sales, but even $1 million is peanuts when you're talking about salaries for 17 people on a multi-year project.

- KS

The papers show it listed as a CD so Im assuming this had nothing to do with the Cart release in 94.
What gets me is how much money they dumped in to Highlander esp what had already been paid out. I also noticed that Iron Man, Big Hurt and TRF were all very large amounts of Cashed already pumped into them and then canceled. I wonder if they ever broke even on NBA Jam.

Poor Yak only got 50K for his work on Defender what a shame when you look at what some of the other games were invested in.

[kskunk]

busterm, on Thu Mar 18, 2010 10:12 PM, said:

Poor Yak only got 50K for his work on Defender what a shame when you look at what some of the other games were invested in.

I have to assume Yak negotiated a smaller sum in exchange for larger per-unit profits... right? I wonder if he'd remember...

-KS

[rdemming]

Tom-Lynx, on Thu Mar 18, 2010 7:13 PM, said:

Wow....$450K for Alien vs. Predator.

I'm not a programmer, but I'm taking a wild guess that it beats the homebrew scene.

The payment was done to "20th Century Fox" so it might only be the cost of the license and not development.
And according to the sheet, it was for a CD version and it was canceled (The 'N" in the status field).

Robert

[Curt Vendel]

The shame lies in the fact that for many games, the quality and effort were subpar, we've seen from many of today's homebrewers on the Jaguar, that the system is quite capable of doing great games.

[sh3-rg]

Thanks for posting, interesting stuff

[Retro Rogue]

What's interesting as well are all the ones that are listed with "PC rights" that would have fallen in to their Atari Interactive project.

[justclaws]

Hi Curt,

Curt Vendel, on Thu Mar 18, 2010 5:47 PM, said:

Ever wonder just how much Atari dished out to Developers for the games that were developed...

Another amazing find, thanks for publishing that insight.
This kind of digital archaeology of the commercial world is just fascinating.
Cheers! JustClaws.

[CD-i]

so atari have paid 170000$ for supercross 3D, a game they got nothing but laughs at...

[Zerosquare]

Interesting info, as always with Curt. Thanks for making it available !

[remowilliams]

Very cool, as always thanks for sharing Curt!

[STGuy1040]

Did anyone notice a certain title on page 4? It shows Mortal Kombat 3 planned for Jaguar CD. It also shows that Atari had already spent money on development and was still in the process of paying off Williams / Probe. Could this mean that an unfinished proto could be floating around somewhere?

Thank you for sharing this with the community!

Edited by STGuy1040, Sun Mar 21, 2010 2:04 AM.

[CD-i]

there is no doubt that a proto exist or has, since someone here has played a early version on jag back in the days...