We finally did it – we got the new Intellivision web site posted. It's at intellivisiongames.com. It's not 100% yet; we still have the old site posted, but we removed the passwords from the new site over the weekend so that we could start having real people check it out.
This is exciting for me, since the web site is how this whole Intellivision revival started. From the moment I was introduced to the World Wide Web in the summer of 1994 by a couple of friends at Quicksilver Software, I was hooked. The idea of instantly publishing to the world was intoxicating.
I went live with my first site in November 1994 – posting cartoons from my weekly comic strip Making It. I didn't use any web designing tools then – just HTML tags in a word processor. It was fun – I kept looking for more features to add to my site.
Then I got the idea of posting about Intellivision. I had worked at Mattel Electronics from 1981 to 1984 on Intellivision games and had planned on writing a book about the experience. Thanks to my comic strip, I got a literary agent in 1987. I pitched her the Intellivision book, but she was cool to the idea – the video games craze was long over; who would want to read a book about them? So the notes and photos got stuck in a file cabinet – until 1995. I started the Blue Sky Rangers web site and began writing about the games and the programmers who created them.
The results were overwhelming. What started as a side project quickly overtook the number of daily hits for the Making It site. And I started getting dozens of e-mails asking about re-releasing the Intellivision games.
I checked with David Warhol, another Mattel Electronics alum, who had last worked on Intellivision games for INTV corporation in 1990. Turns out he had made a couple of proposals to publishers to create an Intellivision collection for the PC. He had run into a roadblock, though: INTV Corp. had gone bankrupt in 1991 and the ownership of the rights to the Intellivision brand and games was in question. He had a lawyer working on it, but wasn't making much progress.
Finally, about a year later, Dave gave up. He told me if I wanted to pursue the Intellivision rights, I had his blessing. I started investigating, including a trip in person to the Federal Court in downtown Los Angeles to see the records of the INTV Corp. bankruptcy. I was told the disposition of the bankruptcy was missing. As they locked the doors at 5 o'clock, I refused to leave. After another hour of searching, an annoyed clerk discovered the misfiled paperwork.
Ultimately, I was able to track down and purchase the rights. With former Blue Sky Ranger Stephen Roney, I founded Intellivision Productions, incorporated on April 30, 1997. Yes, this month is our 10th anniversary!
Our first collection for the PC came out in 1998. This was followed by a Play Station collection, a sequel collection for the PC, cell phone games, plug-and-play collections, a Play Station 2 version, then Xbox, then GameCube. About 4 million units sold. Now we have a Nintendo DS collection looking for a publisher.
Over the years, the web site grew. New pages and links were cobbled together like rooms on the Winchester Mystery House. The look changed and I started using a web authoring tool, but essentially the site was the one I started in 1995. We had a wish list of features we wanted to add to the site, but the way the site had grown it looked impossible to add them.
The solution was a totally new site, built from scratch. The content is all in databases now, making it easier to maintain and update. The site builds pages from uniform templates, giving a more consistent look and flow. There are news stories and blogs on the front page. You can rate the Intellivision games. The store features a true shopping-cart system and online order tracking. Yes, the Intellivision web site is joining the 21st century! Just seven years late.
Like I said, it's not 100% ready, so the current intellivisionlives.com will still be our official site for the next month or so, but I invite all my and Intellivision's MySpace friends to check out the new site and let me know what you think!
Again, the NEW site is at intellivisiongames.com. See you there!
Keith Robinson
Blue Sky Ranger
President, Intellivision Productions, Inc.