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| Football | |
|---|---|
 Arcade flyer | |
| Developer(s) | Atari, Inc. |
| Publisher(s) | |
| Designer(s) | Steve Bristow |
| Programmer(s) | Michael Albaugh[3] |
| Platform(s) | Arcade,Atari 2600 |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Sports |
| Mode(s) | Single-player,multiplayer |
Football (also known asAtari Football) is a 1978American football video game developed and released byAtari, Inc. forarcades. Players are represented by X's and O's. While predated bySega'sWorld Cup,Football is credited with popularizing thetrackball controller and is also the first non-racingvertically scrolling video game.[4] It was distributed in Japan byNamco in 1979.
Football was the second highest-earning arcade video game of 1979 in the United States. That year Atari released a more challenging four-player version of the arcade game programmed byDave Theurer, who later createdMissile Command andTempest.
AnAtari VCS home version ofFootball was published in 1978.[5] It uses blocky representations of players instead of Xs and Os. In 1982, Atari replaced it withRealSports Football.
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The game was designed by Steve Bristow and programmed by Michael Albaugh, with the hardware engineered by Dave Stubben. The game's use of a trackball was inspired by an earlier Japaneseassociation football (soccer) game that had used trackball controls.[6][7] When the team saw the game, they brought a cabinet to their lab and imitated the trackball controls.[7]
An earlier association football game that used trackball controls wasSega'sWorld Cup, released seven months earlier in March 1978,[8][9] but in 2001Steven L. Kent reported that Stubben attributed the earlier trackball soccer game toTaito.[7] In a later 2017 interview, Albaugh said he was uncertain which company it was from, but remembers it was from a Japanese company.[6]
Atari'sFootball was released in October 1978.[2]
On the Atari VCS, two teams of green and white players, each of four men, playing against each other. In a first game-option, before each play the player can select a formation, and then during each play the player controls their movement as a unit using the joystick controller. In a second game option, the player only chooses the formation with the play being carried out automatically according to a pre-selected plan. A third game-option is similar to the second except that the user may kick or punt at any time.[10]
Football was the second highest-earning 1979 in the United States, below onlySpace Invaders (1978).[11]
In his October 1979 review of the Atari VCS version of the game inCreative Computing,David H. Ahl gave the game a positive review. He praised particularly the gameplay which he described as "boast[ing] lively action".[10]
Although not the firsttrackball game, predated bySega'sWorld Cup in March 1978,[8][9]Atari Football is credited with popularizing the trackball.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)I saw a soccer game with one (I remember only that it was Japanese, and a soccer game. Taito is plausible).
Contrary to a popular notion,Football was not the first game to use a trak-ball controller. According to Dave Stubben, who created the hardware for AtariFootball, Taito beat Atari to market with a soccer game that used one. According to Steve Bristow, when his engineers saw the game, they brought a copy into their lab and imitated it.