Atari is offering up to $100,000 in a contest for a new version of Pong for the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, the classic game that launched video games 40 years ago.

If you are interested in this challenge, which is for an app that can be marketed under the Atari brand in the App Store, you need to send in your idea as a design document, with a playable if you have one available by April 15th.

Semi finalists will be asked to create a short playable/demo and promotional video for review in the period April 24th to May 29th. Ten finalists will be required to complete development on their games and deliver submission candidates for review in the period June 19th to July 6th.

Atari is looking for:

Fun - Originality - Visual Appeal - Marketability

and the top prizes are part cash ($50,000, $37,500 and $15,000 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd respectively) and part a revenue-share publishing agreement. The seven other finalists will be awarded cash prizes of $5,000 each.

The judges for the contest include Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, who came up with the original idea for Pong - a game with two bats and a square ball. It was build into a dedicated Pong-only machine by Al Alcorn and was then implemented on the early Atari micro, contributing to its popularity in the early years of home computing.

If you want to appreciate how primitive the original Pong was, try out IProgrammer's JavaScript Pong version, written to demonstrate that JavaScript is capable of animation even without any HTML - the article documenting the project is here if you want to see how to code it.

As with many other contests, entry is restricted to developers in the US. Teams involving non-US residents are allowed to enter, in which case the lead contact has to meet this restriction.

More Information

Pong Indie Developer Challenge

Related Articles

Pong - the craze of '72

JavaScript Pong

Nolan Bushnell and Atari

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