Context

Time, Place, and Purpose

Tempest was released in October 1981. This is 9 years after the release of the first arcade game, Pong. America was in early stages of video games and the corporation leading the charge was Atari, Inc. In the period that Tempest was released world headlines included the Cold War. The tension between the US and the Soviet Union was increasing and there was a call for nuclear weapons reductions. However, there were still secret soviet nuclear submarines that roamed. This global theme can be seen expressed in Tempest. In the game there are sneaky enemies (soviet submarines) trying to attack your ship and players have to fend off the enemies while they upgrade their weapons (arms race). Along with the arms race, there was also a race to see who could land man on the moon. This voyage into the unknown intrigued a lot of people in the country and therefore games that took place in space were very popular at the time.

Development

Tempest was developed by Atari and was meant to be a 3D remake of an older game, Space Invaders. However, the early versions of the game had too many problems which lead to a completely redisign of the game. The prototype for the game was originally called Aliens, which changed to Vortex, and finally Tempest.

Endangerment

In the years around the release of Tempest, the world was going through a lot of geopolitical problems. Although these issues gave creative ideas for the development of Tempest, it was also responsible for its downfall. Video game players, around the world, were looking for ways to escape the problems of the outside world. This cleared the path for the "home console" market. This emerging market was the reason why the game became endangered. The video game was unable to create a smooth transition into the home console. Atari was unable to replicate the arcade controls onto the emerging market. The standard controllers that were made for the market was a joystick, because most games at the time, and to this day, are played with a joystick. However, the Tempest game used a rotary control system, meaning that they had to create either a console that only uses rotary controls or a rotary controller that is compatible with the gaming consoles already in the market. Atari chose to do neither, and instead decided to redesign the game mechanics to fit the existing Atari consoles; the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200. The project was abandoned and was simply added as an unfinished,  “Bonus Game” on the systems. Other 3rd party companies attempted to take on the challenge of making a controller for Tempest, however none of them came assembled and they all required a high level of technical knowledge. The controllers required users to know how to do wiring, soldering, and programming to install. This, again, did not help Tempest’s attempts at remaining alive. As the world moved away from arcade games to home consoles, the widely popular Tempest game was unable to make the transition and as a result became endangered and died out.