“99 cents on the iPhone is the new quarter,” Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley told VentureBeat in an interview about his new startup, Innovative Leisure. The company is comprised of some of the best game designers from Atari’s heyday, with a focus on creating a excellent mobile experiences for Apple’s iOS.
“People are playing on all these new devices and are finding the joy of the arcade games,” said Blackley. “This is the dream team from Atari.”
Blackley’s team is comprised of Battlezone creator Ed Rotberg; Black Widow creator Bruce Merrit; Gravitar creator Rich Adam; Owen Rubin, creator of Major Havoc and Space Duel; Ed Logg, co-creator of Asteroids and Centipede; Dennis Koble, creator of Touch Me and Shooting Gallery; and Tim Skelly, creator of Rip-Off.
The creators are joined by young interns to help design the new titles. Blackley has self-funded the project as well as enlisting funding from THQ. He said the idea came from the Supercade, a project Blackley worked on with Innovative Leisure co-founder and CEO Van Burnham. Blackley and Burnham collected and refurbished classic arcade machines in a Los Angeles warehouse, naming the site after Burnham’s 2003 book.
“We had that big collection of games, and we love the history of game design,” Blackley said. “I’m lucky because I love games and following that love has always done me well. Once we figured out the iPhone is the new arcade, that games from the old days fit this new audience and their on-the-go lifestyle, we knew what to do. There is already a group of people who know how to operate and innovate in this space. They had the longest string of hit games in history. And they wanted to get back together again.”
Gathering the classic creators was Burnham’s idea, with Blackley providing the drive and know-how from his time at the Creative Artist Agency to bring everyone together.
“We are carrying on where Atari left off, focusing on innovation in gameplay,” Blackley said.
Many of the classic creators liken mobile development to creating new games for Atari.
“Games are in my blood,” said Innovative Leisure CTO Rotberg “What’s interesting to me now is that the smaller-scale games work for mobile devices. This isn’t something that takes hundreds of people and tens of millions of dollars. Instead, it is remarkably similar to what we did in an earlier age.”
“It is funny how the market has come all the way around to return to the arcade experience,” Adam said. “People are playing in a more casual manner again.”
Can old blood, new talent, and a new platform come together to create success? We’ll see when the first of Innovative Leisure’s titles are released by THQ.
