Atari Squashes Pong Clock

[Kamalot]

I've gotten reports from people that they are receiving messages from Buro Vormkrijgers, makers of the Pong Clock, that they will only be making an additional 400 units. Apparently, they've been contacted by Atari who bullied them into stopping since Atari owns the rights to the 'pong' name.

http://kamalot.blogspot.com/2006/02/pong-clock-limited-run.html

Once the 400 units are produced, that's it, no more.

[Scaryboy]

Miserable bastards. What are they planning? Extreme Pong? Virtua Pong? Pong in the City? It's not like it's a money making franchise any more.

[Nite_Moogle]

Whaaaaaaaaaat. Why can't these big names just license these names? Clearly this is something that is a neat idea, why not just let them run with it and take a cut?

[fitbabits]

How much are you willing to bet that an Atari-branded Pong clock will ship in time for the Holidays?

[ldi222]

Funny, a small operation without an ability to really mass produce. 200 was probably a major chore to manufacture so they double it, say they will never make another one, blame it on Atari and quadroople their profits on ebay bidding wars. Makes sense to me. Ill pass until I can buy one @ target for 12.99 thanks. Cool idea though.

[UnderHero5]

Funny, a small operation without an ability to really mass produce. 200 was probably a major chore to manufacture so they double it, say they will never make another one, blame it on Atari and quadroople their profits on ebay bidding wars. Makes sense to me. Ill pass until I can buy one @ target for 12.99 thanks. Cool idea though.
There's always a conspiracy theorist.

[gzsfrk]

As another poster implied, the only way this would be a reasonable move by Atari would be if they had planned on releasing their own Pong clock PRIOR to seeing the one these guys came up with (which is highly doubtful). I know a lot of companies put a lot of emphasis on "protecting their IP", but who in their right mind would object to letting people contribute to building mindshare for their brands AT NO CHARGE?? Who knows? Perhaps someone, after seeing or purchasing the Pong clock, might go Pong crazy and even purchase that crappy Pong re-release that came out a few years back.

Atari's actions strongly remind me of Paramount cracking down on all the Star Trek fansites several years ago--made absolutely no sense to piss off the very people who were central to making Star Trek a continued success. (And we all see where ST is today.)

Cheers...

[Suicidal ShiZuru]

I put in an order a while back. No emails yet though.

[GunJ]

"Atari" ... 'nuff said

[jacktion]

You can't really fault Atari for this. They own the Pong name. Unless these clockmakers license the name from them they shouldn't be making money off of it. Atari paid for the rights to the name.

Granted, Atari is probably being dicks about it. They could just offer up a cheap license and make some money. Or they can take the idea and make their own clocks. But if you don't own a product you can't really expect to make money off of it.

Let me try to illustrate with an analogy; A random company can't just make a Super Mario game and expect to get all the money for it. Nintendo owns the Super Mario property. It is the same here. If someone invests time or money in making a brand or a movie or a character, then it is not really fair if another person comes along and starts just printing up coffee mugs with their character on it and making money hand over fist.

I agree that a lot of companies get a little overzealous about it. Cracking down on fansites seems ridiculous. But this company was selling a "Pong Clock". There is not much room for argument.

With that said, this company could just change the name and keep making them. Nothing wrong with that, right?

[Sl1pstream]

A limited amount means that it will be even more expensive than it was going to be in the first place.

[KarmaGhost]

I don't doubt that this story is true and I'm not questioning your credibility, but the link goes to your blog, where you link to the artists' site and also to a broken Engadget link. Was there something I missed? Was there a press release in the "press" section of their site (which requires a user name and password)?

[Ravana]

Aargh, can anyone else confirm this? I've had one pre-ordered for a while now and I haven't received any email about this

[AntB]

They should just rename it to Tennis Clock. OOOOO.

[genocidalrobot]

does this really surprise anyone, at all?

[Harlan Hoyt]

Let me try to illustrate with an analogy; A random company can't just make a Super Mario game and expect to get all the money for it. Nintendo owns the Super Mario property. It is the same here. If someone invests time or money in making a brand or a movie or a character, then it is not really fair if another person comes along and starts just printing up coffee mugs with their character on it and making money hand over fist.
Allow me to tear apart your useless and misleading analogy. While Atari (or the entity that now calls itself Atari) owns the copyright to Pong, it is hardly similar to someone manufacturing a Mario clock. First off, Mario is an ongoing concern -- Nintendo is still making profitable games off of it. In fact, there's a new one coming out in the near future. Pong is, for all intents and purposes, dead IP. What can Atari do from here with the idea? The Square From Pong: Underground Xtrm Tbl 10is? There's just no place to take such a basic idea. A far better analogy is if I made a clock out of a 2600 football game -- squares running around, scoring goals. I'm not sure how protected a white square bouncing off a white line is by copyright law, but it certainly seems like it should be quite a bit less than a portly Italian plumber who has a name, backstory, thousands of games and, heck, a face. It's not like Atari is free and clear on the origin of Pong, anyways -- they pretty much ripped the idea off of Ralph Baer.

What Atari should have done was either A) pay these guys a fortune for the idea and start mass producing Pong clocks to sell at Target next to the rest of the stupid bullshit they sell, or B) hired these guys and done the exact same thing. It's a clever idea, it ties into both boomer nostalgia and younger people's sense of ironic nostalgia. There's money to be made here. Companies like Atari and Disney won't be happy until you have to pay them a nickle everytime you look at their trademarked and copyrighted products.

[Kamalot]

I don't doubt that this story is true and I'm not questioning your credibility, but the link goes to your blog, where you link to the artists' site and also to a broken Engadget link. Was there something I missed?
Well, the email that was sent to me also included the following...
This email can obtain confidential information. If you are not the recipient or if you received this email due to an error, please inform the sender immediately and delete this email. Illegal copying as well as the unauthorized passing on of this email or parts of this email is not permitted.So naturally, I've updated the original article with a quote from the message.

http://kamalot.blogspot.com/2006/02/pong-clock-limited-run.html

I'm not the only one that got the message though. Several people forwarded me the message to alert me to the change in status. You can also see the same report on Kotaku (http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/pong-clock/atari-threatens-pong-clock-makers-157394.php).

Edit: It looks like the Engadget link was broken due to Apple's press announcements today. I don't understand why so many people would be excited about a speaker you can plug your ipod into or a new ipod leather case. Whoppieeeeee.

[UnderHero5]

I'm not sure how protected a white square bouncing off a white line is by copyright law, but it certainly seems like it should be quite a bit less than a portly Italian plumber who has a name, backstory, thousands of games and, heck, a face.
How popular something is has nothing to do with the copyright. A copyright is a copyright. If they own the IP then they own it, regardless of whether they plan on using it. Regardless of how many games were/are being made, and regardless of whether people like the IP in question.

What Atari should have done was either A) pay these guys a fortune for the idea and start mass producing Pong clocks to sell at Target next to the rest of the stupid bullshit they sell, or B) hired these guys and done the exact same thing. It's a clever idea, it ties into both boomer nostalgia and younger people's sense of ironic nostalgia. There's money to be made here. Companies like Atari and Disney won't be happy until you have to pay them a nickle everytime you look at their trademarked and copyrighted products.
I whole-heartedly agree with you here though. They should have done one of those two things.
But they didn't... so oh well.
The clocks were already damned overpriced anyway, and to be honest, I forgot about them completely until I saw this story. It's a clock... who really cares (except the guys making it and the few hundred people who were likely to pay that much for a... clock.)
What I don't understand is this. If it's under copyright and they were ordered to stop... how are they being allowed to sell ANY of them at all? Wouldn't selling 400 be just as illegal as selling 400,000?

[DoubleUranium]

Edit: It looks like the Engadget link was broken due to Apple's press announcements today. I don't understand why so many people would be excited about a speaker you can plug your ipod into or a new ipod leather case. Whoppieeeeee.

I would hope the page hits are more for the new Mini than for the lame speaker box.

[Axiom]

One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that failing to defend a trademark can ultimately cause a company to lose it. Atari couldn't just ignore it, although they should have probably offered an inexpensive licensing deal. Now, they'll probably make their own clock.

[jacktion]

Allow me to tear apart your useless and misleading analogy. While Atari (or the entity that now calls itself Atari) owns the copyright to Pong, it is hardly similar to someone manufacturing a Mario clock. First off, Mario is an ongoing concern -- Nintendo is still making profitable games off of it. In fact, there's a new one coming out in the near future. Pong is, for all intents and purposes, dead IP. What can Atari do from here with the idea? The Square From Pong: Underground Xtrm Tbl 10is? There's just no place to take such a basic idea. A far better analogy is if I made a clock out of a 2600 football game -- squares running around, scoring goals. I'm not sure how protected a white square bouncing off a white line is by copyright law, but it certainly seems like it should be quite a bit less than a portly Italian plumber who has a name, backstory, thousands of games and, heck, a face.


Well, I hear your pain. But the fact that we are talking about this right now means that Pong must be a viable product. It is instantly recognizable and quite popular. If Atari had a brain in its head it would have a linen of Pong t-shirts, pong clocks, pong novelty cakes and Pong inflatable paddles. Pong is a classic icon and therefore people can make money off of it. Betty Boop is copyrighted, Charlie Chaplin, etc. These are all old but still they have IP rights. It is true Pong looks simplistic and kind of silly but there is gold in them there hills.

[Parsifal]

So, who has the copyright to Charlie Chaplin now that he's dead? Seems kind of weird if you didn't mean the movies themselves...

Maybe I should, shortly before I die, sell the copyright to myself and give the money to my kids. Or create a copyright to myself and let my kids inherent it.

[Odwalla]

One thing that a lot of people don't realize is that failing to defend a trademark can ultimately cause a company to lose it. Atari couldn't just ignore it, although they should have probably offered an inexpensive licensing deal. Now, they'll probably make their own clock.

Say this a few times, slowly, "Trademark does not equal copyright. Trademark does not equal copyright. Trademark does not equal copyright."

This isn't a trademark infringement. It's copyright infringement. Trademarks have to be registered and dutifully defended. Copyright is defacto granted at the time of creation, exists for the life of the author +50 years (might be longer now, Congress keeps extending it), and does not need to be defended.

[ElectricMonk]

this could have been a clever marketing email sent to kamalot and other news sites just to ensure the next batch of pong clocks sells out

as has been stated there are many ways around this 'threat'. naming it 'virtual tennis' clock would be the easiest thing to do. licensing it from atari is another obvious way.

[Kamalot]

this could have been a clever marketing email sent to kamalot and other news sites just to ensure the next batch of pong clocks sells out
It could be, but the company's email didn't have that shrill marketing-sound to it that big-company emails have. It was written in a very matter-of-fact way. I really believe that this small art-house in the Netherlands was threatened by Atari, not that they are trying to drum up sales for a product that already sold out.

In fact, the reason for the email is because it has been several weeks since they offered the preorder, with no availability date in sight they were filling in people with the details and offering them the opportunity to cancel their preorder.

We sincerely apologize for this; we understand your disappointments and hope you can somehow beside your feelings, understand the reasons for this situation and our disappointments. We could never have expected this bizarre chain of events.

We still are going to produce these Pong Clocks, and we can wait these weeks, but we feel you, our pre-order customer, might want to cancel for this huge delay. Please be advised that when you intend to wait you will receive your pong clock, but we can’t state a date right now.

to say, we hope you want to support us, and realize the difficulties that caused all this delay were out of our hands. We always handled with the best intentions, and we’re ourselves are very disappointed by the fact that we have invested a lot of time and money in prototyping and development of production models and are now stuck with everything but the screens [except the three screens we have used in our prototypes].

You draw your own conclusions.

[Heretic Machine]

If I needed another reason not to buy Atari games, this would be it.

[Mason]

They'll definitely be hearing from Boing Boing.

These clocks are based on the premise of having the right player totally wail on the left one, right? Seems strange, in that respect.

[Sensei-X]

People keep saying Pong is dead but Atari is actively using Pong, both in their recently released compilation for PC as well as licensed to be used in Jakk's Pacific Paddle Controller and on their Flashback 2.0. Sure it's old and crappy, but people are paying to license it and consumers are buying it.

[Axiom]

Say this a few times, slowly, "Trademark does not equal copyright. Trademark does not equal copyright. Trademark does not equal copyright."

This isn't a trademark infringement. It's copyright infringement. Trademarks have to be registered and dutifully defended. Copyright is defacto granted at the time of creation, exists for the life of the author +50 years (might be longer now, Congress keeps extending it), and does not need to be defended.

Actually, Atari never did have a copyright for Pong, they were forced by a lawsuit to get a license from Magnavox. Say that slowly.

[Dr Quincy]

Standard. Business. Practice.

[emjoi]

Can't they just wait a month or two until Atari goes out of business? Again?

[TyphoidMarty]

Allow me to tear apart your useless and misleading analogy. While Atari (or the entity that now calls itself Atari) owns the copyright to Pong, it is hardly similar to someone manufacturing a Mario clock. First off, Mario is an ongoing concern -- Nintendo is still making profitable games off of it. In fact, there's a new one coming out in the near future. Pong is, for all intents and purposes, dead IP. What can Atari do from here with the idea? The Square From Pong: Underground Xtrm Tbl 10is? There's just no place to take such a basic idea. A far better analogy is if I made a clock out of a 2600 football game -- squares running around, scoring goals. I'm not sure how protected a white square bouncing off a white line is by copyright law, but it certainly seems like it should be quite a bit less than a portly Italian plumber who has a name, backstory, thousands of games and, heck, a face. It's not like Atari is free and clear on the origin of Pong, anyways -- they pretty much ripped the idea off of Ralph Baer.

What Atari should have done was either A) pay these guys a fortune for the idea and start mass producing Pong clocks to sell at Target next to the rest of the stupid bullshit they sell, or B) hired these guys and done the exact same thing. It's a clever idea, it ties into both boomer nostalgia and younger people's sense of ironic nostalgia. There's money to be made here. Companies like Atari and Disney won't be happy until you have to pay them a nickle everytime you look at their trademarked and copyrighted products.
I agree completely. There was a time before copyright when everything was in the public domain. That is the place where Disney etc rip all their "new" stories from.

Nothing from right now will survive into the public domain because every jealously guarded copyright will slowly rot into obscurity with no new work adding to it.

We are living in the new dark ages.

[Heretic Machine]

Standard. Business. Practice.

Doesn't. Make. It. Right.