: tengen game company :

Tengen (meaning the central place in the universe) was another name for Atari. Atari Games bounced back around 1987, but had to change their name because they were blamed for almost destroying the video game market in the early eighties. Tengen had problems with Nintendo's licensing contract from the start, but never the less agreed to follow all rules set by the company. The first released games by Tengen were Pac-man, R.B.I. Baseball and the smash hit Gauntlet. In 1988 Nintendo claimed to have a chip shortage, so only only the best games got full orders. Some of Tengen's orders were only 25% complete and then 10% complete. This infuriated Tengen executives who felt Nintendo had no right to short the company who was essentially the father of videogames. Tengen's lawyers then went over the Nintendo licensee contract to try to find a way to make games for the NES without consulting Nintendo. It was determined they could do so if they did not violate any of Nintendo trademarks. The big problem was the lockout chip. How could Tengen get around this blasted thing? People in R&D took apart NES after NES and determined that the game and the lockout chip had to "communicate." As long as the chip reacted to what the game was "telling" it, everything went smoothly. Nintendo had recently registered the lockout code at the U.S. patent office. Why? I have no idea. Tengen filed under false pretences to look at the code. They then simply copied it and BAM! Their games now "communicated" with the systems.

Tengen then re-designed their games so that they did not resemble NES carts and began marketing them. Since they did not have to pay Nintendo royalties or production fees, Tengen's profits soared. Of course, this did not settle well with Nintendo and resulted in suits and counter-suits by both companies. In the end, Nintendo prevailed. Although Tengen was still allowed to continue publishing NES games, they lost so much money in legal fees, the company could no longer afford to produce games. Since Nintendo decided which games were featured in Nintendo Power, Tengen had next to no advertisements. Most shop keepers could not afford to limited shelf space on games not featured in the magazine.

Before long Tengen folded and did not appear again until Atari Games released the Jaguar.