What was BECK-TECH?

[o2william]

A couple weeks ago, I found a stack of 5200 and 2600 manuals at a thrift store. I was looking through them tonight, and I noticed this line on the back of the Spike's Peak (2600) manual: "Game programmed by the creative designers at BECK-TECH." I'd never heard that name before and was mildly curious.

Then the next manual I picked up happened to be for the 5200 version of Pitfall, where I saw this:

http://64.159.77.51/~helmet/o2william/becktech.jpg

Suddenly I'd gone from never having heard of BECK-TECH before to seeing them credited twice, on two different games published by different companies for different consoles. Very interesting.

I haven't had the chance to look through the rest of my manuals for references to BECK-TECH yet, but a very quick 'net search turned up this interview (http://www.sloperama.com/advice/lesson22.html) with Matt Reichert. He mentions that he once traveled to Beck Tech in Berkeley where he saw an in-development version of Up 'N' Down for the 2600. That was published by Sega, which brings a third publisher into the equation.

Moby Games (http://www.mobygames.com/company/beck-tech) credits Beck-Tech with one game, "The Ford Simulator." I know nothing of this game.

And that's all I have so far. Now my curiosity is piqued. Anybody here know what Beck-Tech was? What other games did they work on? Are they still around? And why haven't I heard of them before? If they made that many games, you'd think their name would turn up more often.

[CRV]

Having done a bit of developer research myself, nothing surprises me.

According to DP's own online rarity guide, Beck-Tech did a number of 2600 games:
http://www.digitpress.com/DP/cmf/listing.cmf?designer=Beck-Tech

[digitalpress]

It's Steven Beck's company. Basically, it's Steven Beck, who did all kinds of things on the Atari 2600. I've had the pleasure of meeting him when CGE worked out the details with the release of Save the Whales a few years ago, and he spoke at CGE (I believe) 2002.

He's still in the industry because we bumped into him at E3 a few years ago, but as I recall he was working on family software (PC stuff for kids, basically). If he or his company is responsible for Ford Racing 2 it's news to me.

Gameography:
http://www.digitpress.com/DP/cmf/listing.cmf?designer=Beck-Tech

[Pete Rittwage]

Break Dance (C64) by Epyx was also done by them.

[o2william]

*Checks link that CRV and digitalpress posted*

Hmm, sure enough, the manual that pic is from is 5200 Pitfall, not Pitfall II. I edited my original post.

Thanks all. I figured somebody here would know! I wonder if Steven Beck is actually in that photo?