I was recently lookup up stuff on atari because they removed my Pong clone which was dumb and I saw that they are having a contest to beef up Pong. My version, of course, was probably better than the orginal like most remakes are but wtf are they hoping to make money off of Pong. Pong is a simple game that people write when they're learning how to program a game. I wrote a Pong clone one time to test out a new game programming language that I wrote. How many clones of Pong are they? 100s? Anyways, the prize is $100000 for the winner but I'm not entering because they had my Pong clone taken down (which was not that great) and the winner only gets half of the winnings initially with the rest coming in as royalties from sales. How can a single Pong clone sell? Futhermore, Atari wishes to take full ownership of the IP from the winner. Many say it is a bad contest because Atari is after new ideas from people. What do you think?

I think I'll refuse to participate in protest against their policy of taking full ownership of my IP (not that I was really interested anyways).

Make a First Person Shooter / RPG Hybrid Pong Clone. I've actually toyed with this idea in the past; there's potential for some interesting projects here....

Make an MMO Pong clone. Don't ask me how it would work, just do it.

Make an MMO Pong clone. Don't ask me how it would work, just do it.

Those have existed for years. I remember back in like 1999 playing one online where you would hit up and down along with like 1K other people hoping that people would work together.

The company who owns the trademark of the former company that actually made Pong has a contest to ask people to make a better Pong for them so the company can then claim the better Pong for themselves. Does this really sound like a contest that is worth your effort to enter? Or put another way, how incompetent do you have to be as a multibillion dollar company to ask n00bs to make Pong for you?

I created a Pong where you have to hit a ball and dodge bad guys. You could also grab pieces of a paddle to extend the length of your paddle. The paddle could also be moved forward or back.

I've got my entry!

I've got my entry!

Yeah, but they'll take your idea.

[quote name='tstrimple' timestamp='1330846285' post='4919116']
I've got my entry!

Yeah, but they'll take your idea.
[/quote]

... I'm okay with that! At my current ad revenue rate, it will be 830 years before I make $100k. As it stands now, I am able to subsidize my coffee consumption by two cups a month thanks to Metroball