Rebound (video game)
Development of "Rebound" began in late 1973, as one of several variations they produced in 1974 on the gameplay of the successful "Pong" (1972), Atari's first game and the fourth-ever arcade game. Around the same time, Atari launched Kee Games, a subsidiary meant to produce clone games of Atari's products and act as a competitor in order to expand into more distribution channels in the same region than the industry typically supported. Kee's first game, released in March 1974, was "Spike", a clone of "Rebound", which added a "spike" button to the game that made the paddle jump up and attempt to bounce the ball downwards instead of up. In addition to the base game, Atari sold a conversion kit to convert any Atari two-player "Pong" variant into "Rebound", and in 1977 "Rebound" was included in "Video Olympics" for the Atari 2600, a collection of "Pong" variants.
Astro Chase
In 1981, Atari, Inc. introduced the Atari Star Award for the best new program distributed though their Atari Program Exchange. Winner of the first $25,000 grand prize was Fernando Herrera for "My First Alphabet", a children's game. Fernando was working at a computer retail store owned by Billy Blake who was also partners with Richard Spitalny at the time. Billy and Richard, then feature film producers, decided to start and fund an interactive software company to showcase Fernado's talents. Richard and Billy funded the company, naming it First Star Software.