Bruce Poehlman, The Last Starfighter/Star Raiders II

Bruce Poehlman only worked at Atari for a year — from June 1983 until July 1984 — but he told me “it was an interesting year.” Bruce coded the game The Last Starfighter for the Atari 5200 and 8-bit computers — a game that was never released. Two years later, he was contracted to re-brand the game as Star Raiders II.

Teaser quotes:

“We have this contract with a movie, and we think you game with little tweaks might be able to fit the theme of that movie. And that movie was The Last Starfighter.”

“That bonus, within six months of my starting there, went from $40,000 to $20,000. Then in another three months it went to $12,000 then it went to $8,000.”