Page 32 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #43 FREE Edition

The Atari VCS came out in early 2021 for most of its crowd-sourced backers; no... I’m not talking about the OG, The Darth Vader, The Heavy 6’er, the 2600, or
whatever you call it. I’m talking about the Atari VCS 800 that was originally called AtariBoX. It was first announced in 2017. Initially, with a goal of $30,000, excitement kicked up at Atari after it pulled in 3.2 million dollars. This box hit the streets in early 2021 and definitely had its fans and its detractors.
A Linux box at its core, it has the style of an Atari product; it comes with a modern interpretation of
the CX-style joystick and a universal controller that matches XBox controllers. The VCS has an ecosystem of games that started with emulators running classic titles from Atari’s early days, continued in running the Recharged Series and other higher-end games, and is currently attracting indy developers that want to make a strong impact with its smaller-than-par audience (when compared with the big boys in consoles, Steam, and other dedicated platforms).
The core crowd of Atari VCS owners already probably know the name davpa (aka David Paige), but he originally came from the crowd of Discord members, joined the Atari Company, and now curates and oversees development on the VCS. After meeting David at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo in September, we set
up a time to talk VCS (I’m interested in it for my reader’s sake, and I’m a VCS owner myself) as I wanted to know some history about him and what plans there were for this cool retro console.
OSG: Tell us about you coming on with Atari.
David Paige: I just started getting more involved in being more vocal about some of my opinions on the VCS and, you know, some of its faults, too. I received my VCS during the thick of the pandemic in 2020, and I just dived into the VCS. I have to say, the VCS became my favorite console to use.
So the leader of the Discord, who was working as a contractor for Atari , was trying to reach out to third- party developers to bring their games to the VCS. He asked me:” Could you take over Discord and be the head guy?” I figured “Why not? I’m on it all the time, might as well.”
Over time, with new people joining Wade Rosen’s team when he took over as CEO, there was more interaction with the VCS fan community. The problem was there were small gaffs they kept making: Asking what your highest score in Pong?; Miscrediting developers on games; things like that. I was approached to help them proofread material before they posted on Socials. That was my first foot in the door at Atari.
David went on the team, got promoted quickly and is now the point person within Atari for the VCS. David went on to tell me about some of the cool games happening.
OSG: BPM Boy - Reminds me of Marble
THE ATARI VCS
A THIRD YEAR UPDATE
By Ryan Burger
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OLD SCHOOL GAMER MAGAZINE • ISSUE #43