Talk:Rebound (video game)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: TarkusAB (talk · contribs) 13:09, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Gameplay

• Are the switches the operator uses to adjust the settings DIP switches as is with most arcade games? If so, wikilink that in the article.

• Linked.

Development

• Is it necessary to write "Inc." after Atari's name here and in the lead? sounds too formal.

• I call it out the first time it used/when it's linked because there have been numerous companies by the name- Atari, Inc. is the one that existed until 1984, which is not the same as the one in the late 80s/early 90s, nor the one that exists today. If you think it's better to link the right article and just call it just 'Atari', then I can change it.

• Not necessary, I think that rationale makes sense.

• In the early 1970s, distributors bought games on an exclusive basis, meaning that only one distributor in each distribution region would carry products from a given arcade game manufacturer, restricting the manufacturer to only the operators that distributor sold to. -- Is there a reason they did this? Was it laws?

• Nope, just the way the jukebox/arcade industry ran itself- if you tried to sell to more than one distributor in a "region", then you'd get dropped/blacklisted, because they wanted exclusive arrangements within their "territory". There weren't that many manufacturers, but none of them were powerful enough on their own to force distributors to carry them anyways. But on the flip side, collectively the system made it really hard for a new company to break in to a market, as each distributor could really only carry so many products and was tied to existing manufacturers already. It had been a while since arcade games/pinball machines were associated with the mafia, but some of the attitudes/business practices clearly hung on in regards to how competition was viewed.

Legacy

• Sales numbers are not available for Rebound or Spike, though a table made in 1976 by Ralph H. Baer in his book Videogames: In the Beginning containing sales numbers for most games of the time period does not contain any numbers for the two games, indicating that they did not sell notably well. -- hmmmm not sure about that last bit, verging on OR. Maybe they did sell well, but he just lost the figures. I think the only thing you can definitely say is that we don't have the sales figures and Baer didn't include them in that book. Whether he has them or not, we don't know.

• Yeah, it's a little sketch; given that the point of the table was to list the sales of ball-and-paddle games like Rebound it's notable that they're not included, but the wording might be a bit strong here. Adjusted.

Other

• Optional: I always recommend archiving sources: https://tools.wmflabs.org/iabot/index.php?page=runbotsingle

• Yep, I'm all about that. Done.

Great article. Putting on hold. TarkusAB^talk 13:37, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

@TarkusAB: Thanks for reviewing; responded. --PresN 21:10, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

@PresN: OK, this looks good now so I will pass it! In the off-chance you have a source for it, it may be worth a brief mention that distributors bought games on an exclusive basis because of the industry culture and self-regulation. Since I was confused by it, other readers may be too. TarkusAB^talk 22:02, 23 October 2017 (UTC)