Atari has revealed the winners of its Pong Indie Developer Challenge, handing first place – and a $50,000 cash prize – to Texan studio zGames.

MadRuse Games took second place in the contest, which was launched back in March 2012, while third place went to Brooklyn-based developer Eppy Games.

The competition challenged independent iOS developers to reimagine the 1972 Atari classic Pong.

Pong 2.0

Out of the 87 submissions, though, only the three winning studios will see their efforts published to the App Store, as part of a three-year revenue sharing agreement that includes marketing and promotional support from Atari.

"The Pong Indie Developer Challenge presented an opportunity to introduce the talented work of independent developers to the Atari community, and their creativity was met with great enthusiasm," explained Atari's EVP of product development Giancarlo Mori.

"This enthusiasm, along with the success of our recent mobile releases like Centipede: Origins, is a further testament to the ability of our widely-recognised brands to engage both hardcore and mainstream audiences.

"We'll continue this momentum with the forthcoming releases of qualifying winning Pong titles from this challenge."

There's no word yet on when the three winning titles will be published to the App Store, but you can see a trailer for zGames' winning entry below.



[source: TriplePointPR]