Lazarian arcade version developed by Zaccaria, not Midway (Lazarian)

Forums > Game Forums > Lazarian > Lazarian arcade version developed by Zaccaria, not Midway

tcooke182 (5904) on 5/25/2020 11:30 AM · Permalink · Report

Zaccaria is listed on the front screen of the arcade version of Lazarian. It is also listed as the developer of the US release at https://archive.org/details/ArcadeGameList1971-2005/page/n125/mode/2up/search/midway which gives a release date of June 1982. The original release may have been by Zaccaria themselves in 1981 under the name "Laser Battle" ... see the "Games" section of http://www.zzzaccaria.com/zzz/welcome.html

Freeman (65148) on 5/27/2020 6:00 PM · Permalink · Report

The Operator's manual (Aug, 1982) mentions at the top that the game was 'licensed from Zaccaria'. And on page 6 they have the section 'Major New Features', which outline, I'm assuming, the changes Midway made to Laser Battle?

From the site tcooke linked to, they have as a note for the Laser Battle machine:

'At least one near-complete machine exists. Licensed to Midway Manufacturing, Inc. for release in the U.S.A. as "Lazarian".'

So from this, would it be correct that Lazarian was in fact developed by Bally/Midway as an updated version of Zaccaria's Laser Battle?

Also, could the date listed in the operator's manual be used as a release date? Or, would the date from Akagi's list be better?