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Astounding, the fervor for an Asteroids button layout
Donkbaca:
Thanks for the tip. I will make sure not to mount a joystick on any spyhunter controls as they are supposed to be slammed.
Gray_Area:
--- Quote from: Donkbaca on February 08, 2011, 07:01:18 pm ---After much testing, it was purposely put in a stupid place to make the game harder by the game devs...duh
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That's because they could play for free, and were spending most of the time doing it.
--- Quote from: Donkbaca on February 08, 2011, 05:23:26 pm ---I totally disagree, you people just don't understand mean people, and if you disagree with me, then obviously you don't understand that this isn't the place for disagreement. I couldn't disagree with all of you more than I already do. Excuse the typos, bUt my Handz is shaking from much anger coarsing through them over my disagreement.
If you disagree with me that you don't understand mean people then obviously you don't understand, that I understand that you don't understand what is going on. Please don't post your disagreements here, we aren't here to disagree. Any of your disagreements about us not agreeing that we don't agree is just more proof that you don't know what is going on.
the end
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God, this is art. LOVE the rant post later on.
Xiaou2:
--- Quote ---That's because they could play for free, and were spending most of the time doing it.
--- End quote ---
Actually, it was just as Ive said. The game was put to the test by selected groups of teens/adults in the premises (company), and on-location (actual Arcade). If peoples play times were too long, the programmers were told to make it harder... because the arcade Ops wanted to make as much money as possible in the shortest period of time.
However, if the game was reported by the testers & surveyed players as being too difficult to ever want to play it again, that would also have played a factor in the games design. Generally though, kids caught on pretty quick, and would rise to the challenges. (Unlike todays baby generation, which cant seem to handle any difficulty at all)
In the Arcade business back then... they were Packed on a consistent basis. Many people deep waiting to play almost every machine. The Ops didnt want people playing the game for 1 hr, let alone more than 6 minutes at a time. However, they knew that at very least, a person would have to invest a certain amount of money to get good enough to last longer.
If an Op bought an $8,000 game, and players found a game glitch, or just that it was too easy and the players pretty much all played for extended periods of time on it... word of mouth would spread fast, and no other ops would buy the game. Also, the ops would raise holy hell with the company who designed it... possibly legal action if no changes were made to the roms, and no further thousand dollar purchases from that game company in the future.
In most cases, the balance of difficulty wasnt too over the top. But in one example, "Sinistar", the games balance is off the charts. The programmers made what they felt was the perfect balance, but then were Forced to change it to make it much harder. Supposedly the easier rom set might still exist somewhere out there... but to my knowledge, it has never been found / dumped to this date.
While programmers Did have the advantage of playing non-stop for free... Most of their time was dedicated to actually Programming, creating, and tweaking the games... rather than playing them for hours on end. Furthermore, theres no telling if some of those programmers were even any good at their own creations. Meaning... if they had their say, they may have made them a lot easier... which ultimately would have ruined the industry a lot sooner than what eventually happened.
If you doubt the above, search out interviews with the 80s developers, as well as visiting 'safestuff's" atari site which has tons of Atari coin op documents from games start point to finished product. Meetings, inside tests, outside tests, changes, more meetings, projection of costs, actual costs, controller design, controller revisions, tweaks, and redesigns...and much more.
CheffoJeffo:
Or they could go to Atarigames.com, since SafeStuff went defunct quite a while ago.
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