Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

3 hours ago, Relicgamer said:

So I keep hearing names being tossed around.  I look them up and they dont seem to be a good match.   Clues

1 this person has a fiancee 

Many mentioned are married. 

2 its a person the trolls will recognize. 

Trolls are often younger not always but many are and probably wont know noland bushnell.  Of which is married.  

3 Hes been retired for around 10 years. 

This can be very difficult to think about.  10 years doesn't mean much because a successful person in this industry can retire at a young age.  

Take John Vechey coowner of Popcap they sold it for $650 million with a 100 million in EA stock. Hes in his 30s. So when you bring up names keep that in mind. Tommy did say hes still young. 

Yeah, from at least the 16-bit era, likely more recent, and under 60. More Brett Favre, less Fran Tarkenton. Could be one of the Activision founders. 

How about Sid Meier?  I don't know his marital status, but I could see Utopia inspiring Civilization (that's a fairly big game/franchise).  I know he might not be considered young, and I don't know his marital status, but I think he's been somewhat retired/away from the business for some time, hasn't he?

12 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Check out the haters lying and trying to convince consumers not to buy Amico.  This is how unhinged these folks have become. 

 

Funny that they said they owned and played the console for a few days before returning it (yes... they really are that DUMB).

 

 

 

Do me a favor... leave a comment about what you all think of Amico. 

Thanks!

 

 

https://www.gamestop.com/video-games/arcade/products/intellivision-amico-galaxy-purple-limited-edition-only-at-gamestop/11102038.html

 

Here’s mine. 
 

To counter the idiot who claims to have bought and returned the system 6 months before release (and 4ish months before production even starts) and thinks everyone else is as stupid as himself, I’ve been following Amico closely for months and am fully behind the concepts, the team and the system. Funny how the hater spewing how much he hates the system and that it will never come out is now on record as claiming to be the first purchaser. I cant believe these guys, and neither should you. Trust me, this system is going to be huge, and the haters should just come to accept that. 
 

11 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah... they just turned it off for Amico.

 

Now you tell me, thought my review stuck...

My guess is Ed Logg 

Um, you sure comments are disabled?

John Tobias or Ed Boon

I was gonna say Yuji Naka, but he's not retired and most likely didn't have an Intellivision as a teenager. I don't think Bandai sold that many Intellivisions in Japan.

6 minutes ago, Starpaddler said:

Um, you sure comments are disabled?

 

It's being trolled. I just saw one down vote on your less than 10 min old review. The one earlier that I responded to was removed, as was my response. The first 5 star review has 18 down votes. 

Just to repeat what I wrote earlier yesterday. My response is listed as "you"

Could it be somebody from Insomniac? Like the designer for Ratchet & Clank or Spyro the Dragon?

Insomniac was based in LA if I recall.

And those guys were working very closely to Naughty Dog in the 90s, according to interviews. Both teams were inspiring each other.

This is why I said that the mysterious man could be Andy Gavin, one of the Crash Bandicoot co-creators.

Also, he did an Ars Technica video earlier this year and Tommy said he had "many friends" among the video game creators appearing in the series.

Sadly, he's married (this sounds suspicious, but remember: our guy has a fiance, not a wife).

By the way, i just found a Wikipedia page that shouldn't really exist but can be very helpful for our quest: List of video game industry people. Many of the names we've said are there.

removed

3 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

By the way, i just found a Wikipedia page that shouldn't really exist but can be very helpful for our quest: List of video game industry people. Many of the names we've said are there.

So Tommy, for a hint, can you confirm his name is actually on this Wikipedia page ? 🤔

If yes, maybe at a later date you could tell us in which category ! 🙄😉

Have a nice day every one !

10 hours ago, Relicgamer said:

So I keep hearing names being tossed around.  I look them up and they dont seem to be a good match.   Clues

1 this person has a fiancee 

Many mentioned are married. 

2 its a person the trolls will recognize. 

Trolls are often younger not always but many are and probably wont know noland bushnell.  Of which is married.  

3 Hes been retired for around 10 years. 

This can be very difficult to think about.  10 years doesn't mean much because a successful person in this industry can retire at a young age.  

Take John Vechey coowner of Popcap they sold it for $650 million with a 100 million in EA stock. Hes in his 30s. So when you bring up names keep that in mind. Tommy did say hes still young. 

To expand on the guessing game hints we have...

Personal:

- Male (likely biological)

- A friend of Tommy

- Retired for more than ten years (minimum)

- Still a "young" guy

- Has a brother (sounds our mystery man has one sibling only, unknown if older or younger)

- Had an Intellivision and was inspired because of it

- Works out of passion and not for money (but then again, he did retire already...)

Game industry:

- Started working in the 90s

- Game industry legend (mic drop moment ~ Tommy)

- Likely "created" a game industry product (successful if true)

- Widely recognized for his work by hardcore gamers (quite possibly the non-hardcores too)

Possibilities:

By the next morning after speaking with his finance, he was all in and ready for the adventure!

- Either highly successful and talks to a bank or something or

- Does have a partner and but is not yet married

...and how he's been banging the same drum since the 90's! (i.e. bringing people together and reaching a wider audience)

- Started a company or

- Is/was a composer (music has been said to bring people together after all!)

...he was all in and ready for the adventure!

Seeing as we are getting some Atari content and workers, maybe it

- has to do with Adventure or

- Tommy was just way too excited in letting us know and chose words at random

Keep searching guys!!

I think one key aspect that many of the persons proposed lack (including the ones I've brought up) is "how passionate he was about the entire concept behind Amico and how he's been banging the same drum since the 90's! (i.e. bringing people together and reaching a wider audience)".

Many of the designers mentioned over the last pages have created mostly solitary gaming experiences and/or games for hardcores.

Nathan Fernald from Jackbox games maybe?

3 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

I think one key aspect that many of the persons proposed lack (including the ones I've brought up) is "how passionate he was about the entire concept behind Amico and how he's been banging the same drum since the 90's! (i.e. bringing people together and reaching a wider audience)".

 

Many of the designers mentioned over the last pages have created mostly solitary gaming experiences and/or games for hardcores.

I wouldn't worry too much about that because the fact they retired early probably means they got pigeon holed and frustrated over being the "XBox guy" or the "Halo guy" and any & all job offers are just clones of what they are known for. Creative people often have a lot more in them than one style of game and even business guys have to work in a "hive mind" and often can't do what they want too. Plus people change and progress, I mean Tommy's path from game music composing to Video Games Live is kind of related, but his turn to the Amico was probably driven more out of his other passions such as retro game collecting.

3 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

I think one key aspect that many of the persons proposed lack (including the ones I've brought up) is "how passionate he was about the entire concept behind Amico and how he's been banging the same drum since the 90's! (i.e. bringing people together and reaching a wider audience)".

 

Many of the designers mentioned over the last pages have created mostly solitary gaming experiences and/or games for hardcores.

As GrudgeQ has also mentioned, what one does professionally to make a living and what one actually wants to do can often be very different things.

So just going by resume alone might present something of a red herring.

I have to say, I am intensely curious now as to who it actually is!

8 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

And those guys were working very closely to Naughty Dog in the 90s, according to interviews. Both teams were inspiring each other.

 

This is why I said that the mysterious man could be Andy Gavin, one of the Crash Bandicoot co-creators.

 

Also, he did an Ars Technica video earlier this year and Tommy said he had "many friends" among the video game creators appearing in the series.

 

Sadly, he's married (this sounds suspicious, but remember: our guy has a fiance, not a wife).

 

By the way, i just found a Wikipedia page that shouldn't really exist but can be very helpful for our quest: List of video game industry people. Many of the names we've said are there.

Our man is on that list.  And you're all gonna laugh your ass off when you find out who it is (because of where he is on the list). 

I like the fact that video game composers have their own damn page too!   Couldn't fit us all!

31 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Our man is on that list.  And you're all gonna laugh your ass off when you find out who it is (because of where he is on the list). 

 

Online Gaming !!  ??   LOL  😂🤣

List of video game industry people.

10 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

Um, you sure comments are disabled?

 

They told me until they change the code that they are manually deleting by hand until it gets fixed. 

They said they haven't really seen anything like this before (haters doing this every couple of hours) and feel it's a really great sign that we have so much positive and negative attention already.

So...

Thanks negative morons!!

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Our man is on that list.  And you're all gonna laugh your ass off when you find out who it is (because of where he is on the list). 

so its J Allard?

He'd be a good get...  so what do I win.. a T shirt? oh I know an autographed ceiling fan?  hmmmm a picture with the ceiling fan?  

23 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

 

They told me until they change the code that they are manually deleting by hand until it gets fixed. 

They said they haven't really seen anything like this before (haters doing this every couple of hours) and feel it's a really great sign that we have so much positive and negative attention already.

 

So...

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks negative morons!!

 

 

 

 

This is both humorous and sad. One might ask, “Why don’t these people get a life?” But the reality seems to be... this is their life. Someone examined various options for their day and consciously chose: “Make a fake review for a device that isn’t being sold yet.” 

Years ago at the dawn of the popular internet portals like AOL and Prodigy, I was a regular part of a group and there was an older guy in there who I got to know and he was kind of the life of the group. One day he I and were chatting privately and I was sharing about how I didn’t know what I really wanted to do with my life. He gave some advice and then ended with his own general goal that he and his wife wanted to do all sorts of great and wonderful adventures, and that’s the way they lived their lives.  

He ended with a sentence I’ll never forget... “Toward the end of my life at the rest home, I want to be the one with all the best stories to tell.” 

It struck me that some of these haters will be sitting in a rest home one day bragging about the day they snuck in a fake review on GameStop before it was quickly taken down. And no one will care. 

I can’t imagine waking up each day and setting “lie and be hurtful” as one of my goals. I can only imagine what must have happened in someone’s past to bring them to that point in their life.

Has anyone guessed this person yet ? If not I guess the whole list 😜 

If @LePionnier is correct and our man is listed under Online Gaming, the only "young" one who's also American and who is not working right now is Dean Hall, creator of DayZ, but he was working about 6 years ago and he's too young to have played an Intellivision as a kid.

IMPORTANT NOTE: A few of those creators, such as John Carmack, appear in several categories simultaneously.