Volume 6 Number 5
July 1982
ATARI®
At
l"lllllebrates Opening
of New Office in Tokyo
®
tari Far East (Japan) Ltd. of-
ficially opened its doors on
April 9, 1982. A reception
was held to celebrate the opening
of the new Atari office at the Ho-
tel Okura. Hosting the reception
were John Farrand, president,
Coin Games International Division
and executive vice president, Coin
Games Division, and Rivington
Hight, president of Atari Far East.
Included on the guest list for the
grand opening were representatives of
most of the major Japanese video game
manufacturers. Masaya Nakamura, presi-
dent of Namco, Limited, was one of the
Japanese attendees. Dig Dug™", engin-
eered and designed by Namco, was re-
cently licensed by Atari to manufacture
and sell to the American market. This
was Atari's first experience manufactur-
ing a coin-operated video game under a
licensing agreement with another manu-
facturer.
Also among those at the reception
were Shane Breaks, vice president of the
Atari Coin Games International Division ,
and Lyle Rains, vice president of engin-
eering, Coin Games Division.
Rivington Hight established the Atari
Far East office in April of 1981 on a pro-
visional basis. The office has been set up
with several goals in mind. First, the sale
of Atari coin video games to the Jap-
anese market can be run much more ef-
ficiently from an office in Tokyo. Second,
Atari hopes to be able to obtain high
quality video game software designed in
Japan. And third, the Atari Far East of-
fice will serve as a base from which a
number of marketing research studies
may be conducted. The first such survey
will be a test of the market for home vid-
eo games in Japan.
Rivington Hight may be contacted at
Atari Far East (Japan) Ltd., Fukide Build-
ing 2nd floor, 4-1-13, Toranomon, Minato-
Ku, Tokyo, Japan 105. He may be reach-
ed at the office by calling (03)433-0620.
• Dig Dug is engineered and designed by Namco Ltd.
Manulac1ured under license by Alari Inc.
John Farrand (left) and Masaya Nakamura (center) toast the opening of Atari Far East
(Japan) Ltd. Looking on are (L·R) Rivington Hight, Lyle Rains and Shane Breaks.
Youth and Leisure Time Activities
This is the first of a series of articles on Youth
Lifestyles.
social activities have replaced supervised
leisure-time pursu its by young people.
Changing Teen Behavior
Teen Problems
Teenagers have changed enormously in
the past quarter century. Their environ-
ment is influenced by technological inno-
vations. Consequently, youth have be-
come far more knowledgeable about the
world and what is happening than ever
before. While public funds have de-
creased, forcing youth-serving institutions
to reduce services, an increasing number
of women and single parents are joining
the work force leaving young children at
home unsupervised. As a result, negative
Young people today are apathetic toward
their community, and adult authority and
citizens are faced with rising youth crime
and vandalism. Unsupervised youth can
be found after school and on weekends
socializing in large numbers on local
street corners, parks, fast food restau-
rants, convenience stores or local malls
in neighborhoods throughout the nation.
Truancy and school dropout rates are in-
creasing. In addition, current economic
conditions have increased adult unem-
ployment, providing more leisure time for
an increased number of unemployed
youth.
Possible Solutions
All of the above problems have contrib-
uted to a society of young people who
have the responsibility of determining
how they use their leisure time. Parents
and other concerned adults need to work
on solutions to this problem! Public
youth-serving agencies, local businesses,
parents, schools and police need to sit
down together in each community and
work toward some common solutions in
order to divert young people into more
constructive educational and recreational
pursuits. The rising elderly population
continued on next page