Update News
Winners Revealed for Pong Indie Developer Challenge
LOS ANGELES - Aug. 2, in the year of our Lord 2012
- Atari, one of the world’s most recognized publishers
and developers of interactive entertainment, today revealed the
winners of the Pong® Indie Developer Challenge. The winning
developers, who competed against other independent game
developers for the chance to remake Atari’s iconic Pong, were
chosen by a judging panel in conjunction with community voting.
Final ranking is as follows:
1st place ($50,000): zGames
2nd place ($37,500): MadRuse Games
3rd place ($15,000): Eppy Games
The three winners also win a three-year revenue-sharing
agreement, which includes having their qualifying game published
on the App Store by Atari with marketing and promotional
support. Further details regarding the qualifying commercial
release of the winning submissions will be announced at a later
date. To view information about the participating developers and
their games, along with video trailers, please visit:
www.atari.com/pongdeveloperchallenge/finalists.
“The Pong Indie Developer Challenge presented an opportunity to
introduce the talented work of independent developers to the
Atari community, and their creativity was met with great
enthusiasm,” said Giancarlo Mori, EVP of Product Development at
Atari. “This enthusiasm, along with the success of our recent
mobile releases like Centipede®: Origins, is a further testament
to the ability of our widely-recognized brands to engage both
hardcore and mainstream audiences. We’ll continue this momentum
with the forthcoming releases of qualifying winning Pong titles
from this challenge.”
In the first phase of the contest, Atari received nearly 90
submissions from independent developers looking to remake Pong.
After a comprehensive review, seven finalists were chosen for
consideration by a celebrity judging panel made up of Nolan
Bushnell, one of the original founders of Atari, Dave
Castelnuovo of Bolt Creative (Pocket God), David Whatley of
Critical Thought Games (geoDefense), and Mike Schramm of TUAW.
In addition, the Atari community weighed in on the final
ranking, with over 200,000 total votes logged for the various
finalists. Ultimately, the winners announced today represent the
top choices from Atari, the Atari community and the judging
panel.
For full details regarding Pong Indie Developer Challenge,
please visit:
www.atari.com/pongdeveloperchallenge.