«River Raid on Mars» disqualified from ABBUC 2021
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«River Raid on Mars», the umpteenth hack of Activision's arcade (1983), was withdrawn from the Atari Bit Byter User Club (ABBUC) 2021 retro contest.
The culpritrepeats the same old formula: changing colours - like the terrain, which now has a fecal hue; and replacing some graphics: the ships became UFOs, the plane is a yellow ship and the tank... remains practically identical.
Apparently, the idea was that by adding opening music, a couple of animated screens and a title screen, it would qualify for the contest's rule that allows "the presentation of an existing program that has been expanded or modified."
However, the promoters of the German club didrespect a rule that has been in force for years: "Authors must confirm that they are the owners of all rights related to the submission. If the submission contains material of which the authors are not (solely) the owners, proof must be provided that the original author permits the use of these materials." Something that, evidently, could never be fulfilled - despite the insistence of the programmer to place his name next to the submission.by the legendary Carol Shaw
To make matters worse, the person responsible for the hack had no better idea than to add the Atari logo -yes, to an Activision game- thus breaking another rule: "By submitting an entry for the contest, the authors declare that they will do their best to prevent ABBUC from being held liable for any legal infringement resulting from the individual submission. Should any financial or other damage be caused to ABBUC due to the submission, the authors declare that they will compensate ABBUC in full and bear the legal and economic consequences resulting from the submitted program." So, Holger "Rockford" Bommer (organizer of the contest) confirmed that the game was rejected for not complying with the contest rules by means of apost on the ABBUC forum, dated August 24.
Unlike «River Raid Bold», «River Raid Cold Winter», «River Raid Tiny», «River Raid Medal of Honor», «River Raid Blue Max», «River Raid 2600» and all the other substitutes, this «new» version is still in development. An email is left for those unwary who might be interested in (enjoying?) the finished game.
Finally, our followers informed us that the author of the hack also failed in his attempt to discredit our blog through the AtariAge forum, where he attempted to distort this article; he expressed xenophobic insults against the editors of Atariteca; he denied his Chilean nationality; and he alleged that his account on AtariAge was shared by several people, among other nonsense. For these reasons, the moderators decided to delete his post and ban him from the forum.
Moral: posting endless hacks of other people's work doesn't make you a co-author. For another (predictable version of River Raid) it will be...River Raid on Mars for Atari 8-bit computers
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