Games by Apollo
Parent | National Career Consultants |
Games by Apollo Inc. (also known as Apollo) was a
Formation
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/7c/GamesByApollo_logo.png/170px-GamesByApollo_logo.png)
In 1980, Pat Roper was president of Texas-based National Career Consultants (NCC), a producer of educational films. He knew nothing about the games industry, but while playing NFL Football on the Intellivision, he realized that there was money to be made.[2] Roper formed a game company called Games by Apollo, citing the name "Apollo" as a recognizable symbol of youth and activity.[3]
Instead of hiring away existing game designers from
After Salvo returned to Iowa, Roper contacted him and offered to buy Skeet Shoot for $5,000. Salvo accepted and agreed to a contract to develop a second game, Spacechase. With Games by Apollo now a going concern, Roper gave Salvo the job of director of development; his first job was to hire 25 programmers to develop games.[3]
Market presence
Games by Apollo was, after
Space Cavern was the first scrolling 2600 game.[citation needed] It was created after Roper flew Salvo to the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas to see Imagic's new game Demon Attack. Roper had been very impressed and wanted one just like it. He gave programmer Dan Oliver the gameplay and specifications for Space Cavern without identifying where he got the idea, and Space Cavern became Apollo's third game.[3]
Apollo attended the June 1982 CES in Chicago with a booth of their own, which included the obligatory hiring of models to demonstrate its games.[3] Shortly after, they hired Cyndy Spence, formerly of Atari, as advertising director. She, in turn, brought in well-known advertising agency Benton & Bowles to represent Apollo.[1]
Games by Apollo is also known for having the first human female game character in a home video game. Billy Sue, a strong woman, has to defend her farm from pesky rabbits in the game Wabbit (Atari 2600 VCS 1982).
Also of note was Lochjaw, a
By the end of 1982, Apollo also moved into designing games for the Atari 5200, ColecoVision, and Intellivision. None of these games made it into production before Apollo closed its doors in late 1983.[3]
Decline
Early on, Roper spent much of the company's money on trying to emulate Activision. At one early staff meeting, he was quoted as saying that "Activision had $26 million in sales its first year so Apollo would have $27. Activision had a campus with seven buildings, every seven stories, so Apollo would have eight buildings of eight stories." According to Salvo, he built up production and inventory to sell $27 million but sales didn’t happen. Roper also bought a helicopter rather than deal with Dallas’ congested Central Expressway, and hired an engineer to put it together and maintain it.[3]
In late 1982, Ed Salvo, Terry Grantham, Mike Smith and one other employee left Apollo when it appeared that Roper was not taking the right steps to stay in business.[3] Forming Video Software Specialists (VSS), they developed games for CBS Electronics, K-tel (Xonox), Sunrise, and Wizard Games. Salvo claims that two weeks after the four left, Apollo was forced into bankruptcy.[5]
Under pressure from Benton & Bowles, the company's advertising agency, Apollo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on November 12, 1982. Apollo owed Benton & Bowles $2.5 million, which represented only half of the year-old firm's total debts.[6] Apollo president Patrick Roper's hoped to reorganize the company and return in smaller form, but that did not come to pass. Programmer Larry Martin stayed until the end, recalling that he had been working around-the-clock for several weeks, trying to finish the game Guardian. Immediately after he released it to manufacturing, the creditors moved in with court orders and shut the company down."[7]
Games developed
- Final Approach
- Guardian
- Infiltrate
- Lost Luggage
- Pompeii (unreleased)
- Racquetball
- Shark Attack (aka Lochjaw)
- Skeet Shoot
- Space Cavern
- Spacechase
- Squoosh (unreleased)
- Wabbit
References
- ^ a b Dougherty, Philip H. (July 23, 1982). "ADVERTISING; Video Game Client To Benton & Bowles". The New York Times. Retrieved November 16, 2007.
- ^ a b Iida, Keita, Third Party Profile: Apollo, retrieved November 16, 2007
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Stilphen, Scott, DP Interviews....Ed Salvo, retrieved November 16, 2007
- ^ Goodman, Danny (Spring 1983). "Home Video Games: Video Games Update". Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games. p. 32.
- ^ Seitz, Lee K., CVG Nexus: Timeline - 1980s, archived from the original on October 13, 2007, retrieved November 16, 2007
- ^ VID GAME FIRM APOLLO FILES CHAPTER XI, December 4, 1982, retrieved July 15, 2015
- ^ Perry, Russ, 2600 Connection Interviews: Larry Martin, archived from the original on July 15, 2015
External links
- Database listing of all Games by Apollo releases Archived November 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine - includes screen shots, box images, manual scans, catalogs and company history.