Atari asks for help finding developer of 2600 game Aquaventure

> Aquaventure has never been spotted on internal Atari memos or status reports from the early 80s, so it has been a challenge to determine who was responsible for programming the game. For many years it was assumed that programmer Gary Shannon wrote Aquaventure during his short tenure at Atari. I first credited Gary, along with developer Tod Frye, with the development in my article about Aquaventure on atariprotos.com in 2008.

From Gary themself:

> “I had just come to Atari from Sega (coin op "Gremlin-branded" games) and was very new to the 2600, so I was definitely not the lead programmer and did mostly grunt work behind the scenes. After that I worked for a few weeks on another failed 2600 game, Miss Piggy's Wedding, which never got off the launching pad at all.”

Conclusion:

> while Tod Frye may have programmed the kernel for the Aquaventure, and Gary Shannon did minor updates to an already existing code base, the identity of the original programmer who was responsible for the majority of the code remains unknown.

Here's a really good video exploring very early Easter Eggs in video games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z97TfAhDKGk It's not Adventure!

(I say this not to "well actually" you, but hopefully give you some fun new info!)

I have one of those. Picked it up for six bucks at Goodwill about 5 years ago, specifically because you can add a cartridge slot and run actual 2600 games.

Atari is now just a trademark that gets sold left and right. I don't know why this is happening but no one from the 80s is making this call. Those people went from cradle to grave engaging in anti-worker action and giving into the worst and most perverse incentives capitalism has to offer. They retired wealthy and all of this awfulness paid off. This is why modern video companies are run similarly. As a dev or artist, you're not getting ownership either. You're work for hire and will be treated as such.

The division asking for this author is Atari XP, which sells rare and unreleased games, which is most likely looking for this author because this might have a copyright claim. The profit incentive drives this question, not any sort of altruism. Atari XP doesn't know the contract signed by this person and Atari and if they try to release this game commercially they could be sued if they infringe on his rights. If there's no contract at all, then this author would probably have the full life of copyright on their side.

If this person is found and also found to not have a claim, then this game will be released with the creator getting nothing that isn't specified in the contract. This is not done for the love of old video games, but to create and maximize profit. Doing things like this is how the leadership of Atari XP got there and maintain their position there and how they will advance their careers past it.

The author remaining anonymous stops Atari XP from monetizing this old work and might be intentional to keep this game from being published. If published it will enrich some company they havent had a relationship with in decades and most likely don't care for (Atari ex employees seem very bitter about their time there).

Or considering this person has never spoken up all this time all this time, perhaps they passed away long ago, well before most of HN was even born. The hypothesized copyright would move to their heirs, who may be entirely unaware they own this game.

When and where and by whom was the cartridge discovered? The screenshots have an almost too pitch-perfect 19A0 vibe. I guess that isn't impossible for 1983, which is later than most of the best known Atari games.