I live in the Dallas area, and in this area (about 50 mins from my house) is the “National Videogame Museum” (it’s in Frisco TX).  I’ve been out there several times.  I’ve taken my daughter there, taken some family from out of town there, and talk the place up all the time.  I’ve also donated quite lot of old videogame gear to the place as they’re always looking for parts if nothing else.  The place is a hands on museum, and as such things break down.  Glad to help.  I even have an item of my own on display there!  So I’m well versed with them. The proprietor (John) is a great guy to talk to – he knows absolutely everyone.  That goes from local game developers (such as Randy Pitchford of Gearbox, and the guys I used to work for at Apogee and whatnot).  He’s well connected – even to legends from the past.

To that last point, about a week ago, John sent out an email blast from the museum saying that there was going to be an event (last night) where I could “Meet Activision Legends at NVM”.  It said that three Activision employees (David Crane, Dan Kitchen & Garry Kitchen) would be there to talk about their past at Activision, their current company (which still makes NEW Atari 2600 games), and basically just hold court.  It wasn’t free, you had to pay the museum entry, but I didn’t give a crap about that, I would have paid more for that.

It’s not a huge shock, but I was a massive Atari 2600 fan.  My brother and I got one new WAY back in 1977 when it was brand new – somewhere we still have that OG unit.  Anyway, my parents divorced around that time, money was tight, so the Atari was a major part of our entertainment life.  It holds a powerfully strong draw.  It’s still an active thing too.  Few years back the current owner of Atari put out a new version of the old hardware that works (easily) with modern TV’s and all the old cartridges from back in the day.  My brother and I *STILL* do this nearly 50 years later.  So an event with three of the guys who programmed a good percentage of the games we played?  Oh yes, I wanted to go to that.  Rearranged a few shifts at work so I could do this and off I went.

It was a limited crowd event.  It was maxed out at 40 attendees, so it wasn’t chaos, which was probably good.  I got there, and like most events of these kinds, people were just milling about before the main event got started.  From talking to others in the crowd there were a lot of game developers there as well, so we all had similar kind of stories.  I make no bones about it, I worked *AT* a game company, but I wasn’t a true game dev (except for one game), but I can speak the language.  :) It was cool talking to people about industry stories there.  I mean at one point the 15 year old that is still in my brain was going “I’m standing here next to the Pitfall guy just shooting the shit!!! – AAAAAAAAA!”  It was a super surreal scene for Young Joe – no doubt.

The event eventually started, and I went and did my usual thing by sitting in the front row.  That serves two purposes – it makes me feel “closer to the action”, plus it’s clear for pictures – you don’t have to shoot through people’s heads.  The first part was an intro of the three guests by John from the museum.  They all did far more in the industry than just Atari 2600 games, but most people know them FOR that.  My brain tells me they did an ton of things, but again..   The 15 year old in me was thinking..  Pitfall! Keystone Kapers! Crackpots! I played all these in the past.. look – RIGHT THERE!  RIGHT THERE!

So anyway, more realistically, they told a few stories, and then got into some tech things.  David Crane broke down one of his older games for Activision – Grand Prix.  He broke down how he had to create the car, going up against the wildly difficult limitations of the 2600 console itself.  He showed some of the tricks he used.  One I enjoyed was to get a car to scroll off the side of the screen and not reappear on the other side (which was a tech limitation) he had to break the car down and have it be technically a dozen different pieces.  Was some really out of the box thinking.  He also told some funny stories about the game itself, and things he had to do to make certain parts look the way they did, and how he had to cheat with some things.  Was a really great story to hear.

Second was Garry Kitchen who spoke about proprietary tech from their new company (Audacity).  It was at this point they asked everyone to turn off their cameras, so no pictures of that.  What he did was show us some of the modern tools they created to do things they used to do back in the day on graph paper. While most of it was over my head, it was cool to see them be that excited about what they were doing to make games for this (nearly) 50 year old game console.  By no means is making Atari 2600 games EASY, but these tools definitely seemed to make things look (relatively) easier.

Third was Dan Kitchen who spoke about how he created a single object in one of their newer games (Casey’s Gold).   He has this giant train in there which given the 2600 limitations is technically several different objects moving in unison to create the effect of it being one train, which shouldn’t be possible with 2600 limitations.  It was a cool explanation.   Again a lot of it was over my head, but it was still cool to hear them explain it as I got just enough that I grasped what was going on and wasn’t totally lost.

After the three of them were done with their various parts of the presentation, it came down to just stories and Q&A.   Crane talked a bunch about leaving Atari, founding Activision and the lawsuits from Atari.  I’d heard most of that story before, but it was super cool to hear the story coming from his mouth directly.  They all talked at length about bits from their games, and I could have gone for another 3 or 4 hours of just shooting the shit.  It wasn’t just all one way too.  I myself got in a few questions that were quite relevant and probably not ones they’re usually asked.  One was about how they handled packaging with their games as they’re bound by serial number on each individual copy.  The other was about a fourth developer that works remotely from the three here.  And one other one about the cartridge size of the Casey’s Gold game.  They answered all three.  There was one other guy who in the story about Crane founding Activision told a story of how an Atari support person told him that using Activision games would void his warranty.  Crane said he hadn’t heard that one before, and I imagine he’s heard a LOT.

Once we got done with Q&A, they were selling copies of their games to those who wanted them.  I didn’t need that, as I already had all three of their released ones. Which brings up one other thing.  After the three of them spoke earlier, they showed a 2.5 minute trailer of their to be released later this year fourth game (called Poseidon’s Gate)..  It looked pretty good – and Crane said that the diver in the game (it’s mostly an underwater game) was the largest object ever created in a 2600 game, so that will be cool to play for sure.  That these guys are still doing active – and QUALITY work for a 50 year old game console should be supported – I’ll absolutely buy the game from them as soon as I can.

The last part of the night was them signing autographs for those who wanted them.  I had brought two of the three games they have out already (the third was by the aforementioned other developer).  I also brought four of my old Activision carts for them to sign – plus Donkey Kong.  Garry Kitchen was the one who did the 2600 port of that game.  They happily signed everything.  When one asked if I had anything else, I said “No, I just picked a few – I didn’t want to bring the entire collection, that would seem greedy”.  They laughed at that – and then later I spotted someone who did appear to being every Activision game ever, but I was cool with bringing just a handful of my favorites.

When I got home, I was debriefing to my wife and daughter, and apparently I was a chatterbox, as both of them said it’s been awhile since I was that happy about attending something (which given my cancer issues in 2023 & 2024 is probably an accurate observation).  I was raving about parts, and basically relaying to them what I wrote above.  My daughter even commented that it was obvious via my text message to her I was having fun – apparently I don’t type in ALL CAPS unless I’m angry at something, but this time I texted her this as I was leaving…

When I got home, I thought to myself I really did have fun.  I reached out to John at the museum, and thanked him for organizing it, because I really did have so much fun.  I couldn’t stop talking about it.  I think I eventually got my wife and daughter to tune me out. I’m also not a person that gets too excited about autographs, but standing there in line waiting for them to autograph my old 2600 carts that 15 year old I mentioned before was screaming again – “THE PITFALL GUY IS RIGHT THERE!”.   I did end the autograph session by thanking all three of them – shook their hands and thanked them for the hours of fun when I was younger.  I did wrap it up with something that got a laugh.  “…. and of course I cussed all of y’all out many times in the 80’s playing the games”.   I even got to talk a bit to Becky Heinemann – famed game developer who I knew back in the 90’s when she was briefly at id Software.  That was also cool.

Was a hell of a night – I’m super glad I took the time to go.

One cool thing – right at the end of me publishing this I found a video on Youtube from the event last night.  There was a fellow sitting RIGHT NEXT to me in the front row and videoed the guys talking except for the parts where they asked us not to record anything (their proprietary tech and the preview of the new game).  But all the rest of it is here, and you can view that here, probably can figure out which questions are mine as I was about one foot from his microphone when I asked.  haha.