One thing to keep in mind is that arcade collecting can be very difficult and very expensive when it comes to preserving 30/40/50 year old arcade cabinets. I am seeing a bit of vitriol aimed at the collectors over this, which I would say is unfair. Although as an unreleased game, I don’t know if anyone really does as there may be a statute of limitations on that sort of thing. I’m no lawyer, so I don’t know if there is any legal recourse that can or will be taken, since the collectors don’t own the Akka Arrh IP.
With that story, the lines have been drawn in the sand, although most reactions do seem to be uniform – many are happy that the game will be more available, but the way the technician went about it violated the trust one puts into someone when you allow them into your home to work on your collection (and for a different purpose).
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Given that Atari was pioneers of the industry and there are physical examples of the game cabinets, there is intrinsic value in the cabinet alone, regardless the software found inside.Īs the story of the controversy goes on the MAMEWorld Forums, one of those collectors had a technician come to his home to repair some other game (it is not specified which), and in the process that person allegedly went into Akka Arrh cabinet, got the ROMs to copy them and then anonymously posted them online so they could be used in emulators like MAME. I have no idea how much one of these cabinets would sell for, but given that some titles like Major Havoc can fetch a few thousand dollars, I’m sure it wouldn’t be cheap. One of those made an appearance at CAX 2012 I don’t recall seeing it there last year. Only three cabinets of Akka Arrh exist, having been found in high-end, high-value collections. Ok, so what’s the “controversy” all about? The control panel and some of the art reminds me of Atari’s Quantum, while I really like the side art and the unique tube marquee: The game got pretty far along in development, to the point that it had it’s own unique cabinet instead of being thrown into an existing blank piece as most test pieces do. It’s one of those games that is easier to see how it works than to explain it, so here you go: You play as a central turret that must fend off hordes of invading enemies. The game itself is as odd as it’s name sounds, playing off of the Missile Command and Liberator game designs with it’s own twist. While I’ve never met either of them, I’ve heard many ex-Atari staff members talk about Mike, as he was with the company for a very long time. Mike Hally would be known for his work on games like Gravitar, Star Wars, Firefox, Area 51, and others Ralston for work on Crystal Castles, Paperboy, 720, Vapor TRX and others.
Those programmers were Dave Ralston and Mike Hally Funny enough, Akka Arrh would have been their first game at Atari by what I can find. Also known as Target Outpost and The Sentinel during it’s development, the final version was called Akka Arrh, which was a clever way for the programmers to refer to themselves (“Also Known As Another Ralston Hally” production) since Atari wasn’t keen on giving their talent any credit at the time. If the name Akka Arrh doesn’t sound familiar, that’s because it was one of those many titles that never made it out of the play test phase. What is Akka Arrh?īefore we get to that story, a background on the game at the center of the debate today. Well today we have something new that will certainly be a source for discussion. You may also recall a story from several years ago when a collector found a super rare Sundance arcade game left to rot in a cabin, where some controversy was generated from that. It’s been a little while since we had some controversy to discuss in the arcade history/collector community, the last time being challenges to Billy Mitchell’s high scores. As I figured, this is something that people will be talking about in arcade circles for some time to come. NOTE: This article has been updated to reflect some new thoughts about the event.