Space Race (video game)
Development of "Space Race" began soon after the founding of Atari in Summer 1972 under the name "Asteroid". Co-founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney had the initial idea for the game while developing the 1971 "Computer Space", the first arcade video game, but felt the more complicated "Computer Space" was a better first game. After leaving Nutting Associates and founding Atari in May 1972, Bushnell spent a few days designing "Asteroid", but soon had to drop the project to focus on running the company. After the release of "Pong", Atari's first game, development resumed on the title in Spring 1973. Dabney has claimed credit for the game's final design, though "Pong" designer Allan Alcorn has stated that he and Bushnell may have been involved as well. "Asteroid", codenamed VP-2, was designed to be a racing game that would be simple to create to fulfill an earlier contract with Bally Midway; Atari had initially offered "Pong" during its development to fulfill the contract, but had been rejected. The company was also interested in producing a very different game from their previous success, as they felt that innovative design was what would separate them from their competitors, which they saw as flooding the market with "Pong" clones rather than making new video games.
Gran Trak 10
Atari reported a loss of $500,000 for the 1974 fiscal year, roughly as much as the previous year's profits, with "Gran Trak" as one of the major causes. This led Atari into deep financial problems, leaving part of "Gran Trak"s legacy being "the game that nearly put Atari out of business". In September 1974, Atari announced plans to merge with its subsidiary Kee Games; Kee's final game "Tank", released in November 1974, was a commercial success, however, and is credited with buoying the finances of the newly merged Atari at a critical time for the company. The "Gran Trak 10" game itself, after its problems were resolved, was considered a success, and Atari released multiple versions of it: a clone version titled "Formula K" was released through Kee Games for different distributors around July 1974, and Atari produced a small cabinet version in late in the year titled "Trak 10". According to Ralph H. Baer, "Formula K" sold "6,000" units. A two-player version titled "Gran Trak 20" was released in August, along with its own clone version from Kee Games titled "Twin Racer" and its own small cabinet version, "Trak 20". Baer estimates that "Gran Trak 20" sold 4,500 units. Atari produced numerous other racing arcade games in the same style as "Gran Trak", including "Le Mans" (1976), "Sprint 2" (1976), "Super Sprint" (1986), and "Badlands" (1989). "Gran Trak 10" was the first arcade car racing video game and the first game to use a steering wheel, and is known as the "grandfather of car-based racing games", though a simple racing game, "Wipeout", had been released in 1972 for the Magnavox Odyssey home video game console and a spaceship drag racing arcade game, "Space Race", had been released by Atari in 1973.