List of Atari, Inc. games
Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and video game console and home computer development company which operated between 1972 and 1984. During its years of operation, it developed and produced over 350 arcade, console, and computer games for its own systems, and almost 100 ports of games for home computers such as the Commodore 64. Atari began its operations by developing and producing some of the first arcade video games; the first commercial arcade video game, "Computer Space", was released in November 1971 by Atari founders Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering. The game in part marked the end of the early history of video games and the start of the rise of the commercial video game industry. After its founding in 1972, Atari released "Pong", believed to be the third arcade video game after "Computer Space" and a clone game and the first commercially successful arcade video game machine, and thereafter produced numerous arcade games, including video games and pinball machines.
History of video games
In the early days of the programmable market, all of the games for a given system were developed by the firm that released the console. That changed in 1979 when four Atari programmers, seeking greater recognition and financial reward for their contributions, struck out on their own to form Activision, the first third-party developer. The company went on to develop a string of hits including "Kaboom!" (1981), "River Raid" (1982), and "Pitfall!" (1982), recognized as one of the foundational games of the scrolling platformer genre. In 1981, another group of Atari employees joined with ex-Mattel staff to form Imagic and experienced success with games like "Demon Attack" (1982) and "Atlantis" (1982).