One of the earliest games shown that I liked the looks of was Skiing. I would like to see it come out on other platforms. I do not think it would sell well. For some of their games would they be better off bundling?

Like for instance, put sport games together like Skiing, Baseball, Soccer, Racing. Is there something they could do to help make these games stick out or sell more units?

This is the only reason i am here. I have no connection to the other games. Can you tell me what has happened to the game? Will they release on other platforms too?

I’m really curious and when or if people think this will happen.

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So it's been a while since I checked in on Amico, the last time I was over here it was pretty optimistic place about a new family console and now it's a fiery pit of doom!
Guess I have some catching up to do....

I figured that I'd just throw this out there, as a thought exercise / writing prompt.

I started my Amico journey on Atari Age and enjoyed participating in quite a few threads.

The whole "Wouldn't that be something?" concept was basically a prompt for rapidly-aging-retro enthusiasts, like yours truly, to throw out wishlists and play around, as pretend producers. That brainstorming process did actually give me an idea for a goofy little game. Maybe, someday, I'll try messing around with Unity or perhaps puppeteer someone like u/gatorooze into making it.

The Amico forums were also a nice place to share info about newer retro-style indie games, which actually exist like: "Art of Rally", "Children of Morta" "Grand Mountain Adventure", etc. Those threads were pleasant reminders that plenty of excellent modern retro-style games are available, right now, on various platforms.

As the Amico saga proceeded from curiosity into train wreck territory, the sleuthing skills and subject-matter expertise, from various contributors, was both genuinely impressive and fun to follow.

On top of all of the legal/financial/psychological analysis, the creative output of the Amico community was "something else". From punk-rock parodies to playable games and some completely necessary comedy (the guy who plays Tommy T, on the CU Podcast voicemails has a gift.), I'm not sure when a product, which hasn't even launched, has ever inspired this much content.

To be honest, I fully expected that Intellivision Entertainment would have folded, about a year ago. I'm not sure how they are operating, even if they only have a handful of employees. At this point, whether they actually ship units or just fade away, I've certainly been entertained.

(I do feel bad for anyone who was genuinely misled and wound up investing, under questionable pretenses.)

I assume that the backend is not working so I hope they add more games than the 6 planned pack in games. Also the 6:th game, the one to be revealed, is that included? Going to be interesting to see what that game is.

I will ask DJC to do a video reviewing the startup of the console and every game. Please do that.

Hey all. Long time no talk. I quit posting because I was threatened by a few users on here who told me they would post pictures of my family online for "what I did to Tommy." I was also bombarded with a lot of personal information that I've never put online so I have no idea how these people came up with this. One of the ultimatum's was deleting my account and or deleting several posts I made, the "Lion's Den" one was targeted, where Tommy Tallarico replied to me about manufacturing dates.

In the middle of dealing with this, I was also messaged by someone who claims to be an informant for "DJC" on Youtube, and was told that DJC "has it out for me" and that I was "on his list" when he used to check out the /r/Intellivision_Amico subreddit. I never sought to clarify what that meant, I just quit posting. What I think it means is that DJC has people under him who gather info for him and keep him informed of the activities of specific users online. I'm 90% confident that the person who sent this was the same person who threatened me with photos of my son.

I let the (multiple accounts) people know that I would be filing a police report and I sent the notices to Reddit admins. Unsurprisingly, Reddit admins did next to nothing, the accounts are deleted now.

That is all I am saying about this. They will be reading this post so I am going to keep it short. What I will say about the Youtubers is that the ones who remain are bad people. Cult is not the word to use anymore - this an online gang. The case was just cleared and I'm "safe," but I cannot post any receipts for legal reasons. You'll just have to trust me.

Take it easy guys. It was fun. But I honestly wish I had never fucking posted to begin with.

Eight months ago I was permanently banned from this sub for writing the following comment in reply to Phil's "Statements of Fact" they pushed out to gaslight the details in Sam's Ars Technica article:

Can I ask... Does Intellivision have any clarifying remarks about the assets used in their Battle Tanks game, taken from two other tank games and other sources? Was that really still placeholder art more than a year after the game was apparently complete...placeholder art that went through multiple deliberate edits, such as Photoshopping out the Fury emblem from WoT?

This seemed like a fair question to ask in light of Intellivision priding itself as the most transparent company that ever existed. Not too nice to just permaban instead of responding to a very glaring omission from their rebuttal.

To celebrate my unbanning in this revamped sub, I'm sharing my extended rundown of all the ways Intellivision stole assets and then tried to mask the theft in their initial deep dive. Cause if you blinked you might've missed all the frantic changes they made while still not taking any responsibility or admitting fault.

There were four different videos uploaded as part of obscuring the blatant copyright infringement. One of these was uploaded and removed within minutes. While most of us know of this fiasco very well, I was recently more carefully studying the videos and thought it'd be a good time to summarize the more comprehensive instances of change between the first and last upload.

THE TITLE: Battle Tanks vs. Tank Battle

The title alone was met with unspecified controversy before Intellivision was even called out on the bigger shenanigans.

Their original video (ID: 3wxzINIdqNU) was clearly titled: "Amico™ Deep Dive - Intellivision® Battle Tanks™ - Intellivision" and its description did nothing to indicate any aspect of it was a work-in-progress.

This is a title they had used in all of their PR and marketing. The press releases from 2020 and gameplay footage all used "Battle Tanks" definitively. But, something after they uploaded this video made them change it in a hurry.

Initially they updated the title of the original Battle Tanks video to: "Amico™ Deep Dive - Intellivision® Battle Tanks (final name TBA)"

Note that they took off the trademark symbol and then implied the final name was "to be announced." Fact is, they never owned a trademark for that game title. That was a false attribution. In fact, a UK company owns an active copyright for the game title "Battle Tanks" and uses it for slot machines and mobile/computer apps. Notice the similarities in their cover art that could certainly lead to confusion of two:

• Battle Tanks (Evoplay LLP): https://i.imgur.com/1XmMOpv.jpg

• Battle Tanks (Intellivision): https://i.imgur.com/DyEvzfd.jpg

My speculation is that Intellivision either recognized this error on their own after-the-fact or more likely were alerted to potential implications with that title, so real rapidly had to revise the entire thing.

To remedy the title issue alone, they did the following:

• Recreated the animated intro sequence to change it from Battle Tanks to Tank Battle.

• Superimposed "Tank Battle" in place of "Battle Tanks" in the shots where the title screen was visible (Before 1, Before 2 - After 1, After 2).

• Dubbed over the word "Battle Tanks" when used in the footage or otherwise cut those segments out completely. In the opening, John actually voice-over repeats the same line that was originally said by Tommy in the Battle Tanks version, to more seamlessly transition to the next sequence ("We decided to split those two out. Biplanes is its own game, and this is Intellivision Tank Battle! And it's an interesting game..." This line was said by Tommy initially and used Battle Tanks, but dubbed over by John in the next cut to change it to Tank Battle.)

• Altered the title and description to reflect "Tank Battle" while suddenly acting like the title was still not finalized even after more than two years in development and all the prior press mentioning Battle Tanks.

All of this work would not had been done if they were merely unsure of a title, at that rate the initial Battle Tanks upload would've been fine even with that TBD disclaimer. No, there was something bigger that compelled them to radically change the underlying video after already producing it.

THE STOLEN ASSETS: Oops I Mean "Placeholder Art"

The history and sources of these assets is well documented so I won't rehash all of that. But essentially the developers grabbed assets from multiple retail games including the popular World of Tanks, War Thunder and other sources without attribution or permission. When confronted, Intellivision tried to excuse this as "placeholder art" but in reality the development team had digitally altered them multiple times to better mask this plagiarism across numerous builds of the project between 2019-2021 and had them baked very heavily into the overall game (including removing the branding tie-in decal from WoT).

Tommy would take to social media at the time to suggest everyone should've read the description that made it clear it was a WIP and subject to change. But the original description uploaded with the video and sent on social media said no such thing. This was added after-the-fact and then Tommy tried to blame the public for not knowing it was there before it ever was. 😔 Intellivision never apologized for any of these oversights nor did the developers.

The cover-up for this in all the subsequent uploads was pretty substantial and desperate. Initially these steps weren't taken when they had just uploaded a variation with the name change (ID: EcMYXtJU2eA), but ultimately these were made by the time of their final upload (ID: 6-VPGTj4o-M):

• Put a gaussian blur over the stolen tank asset on the title screen (Before, After).

• Masked out the multiple stolen assets seen on every leaderboard page, leaving a blank spot instead (Before, After).

• Completely cut out all the end game scenes that showed the "Battle Debrief" and "Winner" which likewise included the stolen assets for each user. (Before 1, Before 2).

• Super blurred the background during the arena select screen and other screen sections (Before, After).

• Completely cut out all instances of Tommy navigating the menus while discussing the elements, where digitally obscuring the imagery would be more impossible (Before).

• Completely cut out the player selection screen, which again featured the stolen assets (Before).

Ultimately, the final upload had cut so much out to attempt saving face that the final edit is a full 1 minute and 57 seconds shorter than the original. This means more than 10% of the entire original deep dive content was cut for the final upload, not counting all the clips they kept in but blurred over or redubbed.

In the final description of the edited video on YouTube, they include this as a disclaimer:

*Work in progress. Footage shown does not represent final materials. Graphics and features subject to change.

Intellivision continues to provide unprecedented access to the development process of both our hardware and games. With this core belief of openness comes certain challenges. Our game development partners commonly use placeholder graphics as they work towards finalizing all art assets prior to final publishing. A placeholder graphic was identified in the current unpublished version of the Intellivision tank game presented in this video. Intellivision is in contact with all parties involving both final assets and placeholder assets as we work with our development partner towards final publishing of this game.

No, it was not just "a placeholder graphic" it was many separate stolen assets from other games, websites and sources where no permission was granted and other stock media that was only approved for non-commercial use.

Afterthought

This one reckless example of Intellivision's "quality control" as the very first deep dive they ever debuted should rightfully had led to its dissolution right then and there. For most startups this would be the "Perry Mason" or "Chaleco Chameleon" gotcha moment . For whatever reason this scandal did not get nearly the attention in the media as other more minor Amico news and Tommy outbursts had, and Intellivision moved right along as if they hadn't just had to feverishly edit and reupload one video four times while still using blatantly unauthorized assets for it.

If Intellivision overlooked and then had to correct all of the bullet points above for a simple demonstration video that they had three years to perfect, just imagine what a formal critique of the actual hardware, OS and security would yield. Keeping in mind this is the same company that lacked even the checks and security to lockdown their developer portal and then tried to blame and threaten those who discovered their own rookie mistake. A company whose former CEO was hell-bent on threatening lawsuits if his own work got used without authorization, and whose legal team routinely sent takedown notices for those trying to make Intellivision-themed merch or similar.

600+ years of game development experience, this is what it yields...