Kee Games
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Parent Atari, Inc. | |
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Kee Games was an American arcade game manufacturer that released arcade and video games from 1973 to 1978.
History
Kee was formed by Joe Keenan, a friend and neighbor of Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, in September 1973. In reality, Bushnell had worked with Keenan to create Kee Games in response to the pinball and arcade distributors of the time who demanded exclusivity deals; Bushnell believed that Kee Games could offer similar but renamed arcade games, or "clones", to distributors, which would greatly expand Atari's distribution beyond the limits of these deals.[1] Bushnell assigned several of Atari's staff to work at Kee Games, including Steve Bristow, Bill White, and Gil Williams, and discreetly supplied them the parts for which they could make their games.[2] To the public, Kee Games advertized itself as a competitor to Atari and that it was hiring defectors from Atari.[3]
Through 1973 and 1974, Kee's games were slight modifications of Atari games already released or games that had been left in development at Atari. These included Elimination which was based on Bristow's
Games
- Elimination (October 1973) — cloned by Atari's Quadrapong
- Spike (March 1974) — a clone of Atari's Rebound, with an extra button labeled "spike"
- Formula K (April 1974) — a clone of Atari's Gran Trak 10
- Twin Racer (July 1974) — a clone of Atari's Gran Trak 20
- Tank (November 1974) — an original game that became very popular
- Pursuit (January 1975)
- Indy 800 (April 1975)
- Tank II (May 1975) — the first game sold under the "Kee" label with the Atari disclosure
- Quiz Show (April 1976)
- Tank 8(April 1976)
- Indy 4 (May 1976)
- Sprint 2 (November 1976)
- Drag Race (June 1977)
- Super Bug (September 1977)
- Sprint 1(January 1978)
- Ultra Tank(February 1978)
References
- S2CID 37352766.
- ^ ISBN 978-0985597405.
- ^ "Video Game Timeline". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 102. Ziff Davis. January 1998. p. 116.
Sources
External links
- Entry at Killer List of Videogames
- Entry Archived 2011-06-07 at the Wayback Machine at Arcade Flyers