Gran Trak 10

Gran Trak 10 is a single-player racing video game in which the player drives a race car along a race track, shown from above. The player controls the car with a steering wheel, accelerator and brake pedals, and gear stick, as in a real car. The gear shifting requires the player to shift between reverse, first, second, and third gears as needed, but the pedals are digital controls rather than analog, so the player cannot control his speed by applying differing levels of pressure. The steering wheel turns the car only while it is being turned, rather than having a neutral "straight" position.

Braking does not stop the car instantly and turning while braking will cause the car to skid. The course is defined on the screen by walls of white dots representing pylons, which if hit stop the car and spin it. There is only a single track layout. The track contains one black path representing an oil slick, which prevents the player's car from turning.

In 1972, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell considered creating a driving video game as one of the company's first games, inspired by Chicago Coin's first-person electro-mechanical game Speedway (1969). He decided not to pursue the idea, however, due to the perceived complexity. In late 1973, Atari revisited the idea of a driving video game, unrelated to any prior arcade game. The design was instead created by Cyan Engineering, which had recently become a semi-independent research and development subsidiary of Atari and had previously handled the prototype design of Gotcha.

Larry Emmons developed the circuits to control the car itself in the game, creating the feel of braking, acceleration, and movement. Emmons also used integrated circuit-based memory—specifically, mask ROM (read-only memory)—in his circuit design to store graphical data such as the tracks, rather than the diode arrays that previous arcade games used. This is believed to be the first use of integrated circuit-based memory in an arcade game, and ROMs thereafter became the standard for arcade and console video games. The mechanical designs for the game, including the steering wheel, pedal, and gear shift controllers, were developed by Eigen Systems, located in the same building as Cyan and founded by ex-coworkers of the Cyan founders Emmons and Steven Mayer.

Atari reported a loss of $500,000 for the 1974 fiscal year, roughly as much as the previous year's profits, with Gran Trak as one of the major causes. This led Atari into deep financial problems, leaving part of Gran Trak's legacy being "the game that nearly put Atari out of business". In September 1974, Atari merged with its subsidiary Kee Games; Kee's final game Tank, released that November, was a commercial success, however, and is credited with buoying the finances of the newly merged Atari at a critical time for the company. The Gran Trak 10 game itself, after its problems were resolved, was considered a success, and Atari released multiple versions of it: a clone version titled Formula K was released through Kee Games for different distributors around July 1974, and Atari produced a small cabinet version in late in the year titled Trak 10.

According to Ralph H. Baer, Formula K sold 6,000 units. A two-player version titled Gran Trak 20 was released in August, along with its own clone version from Kee Games titled Twin Racer and its own small cabinet version, Trak 20. Baer estimates that Gran Trak 20 sold 4,500 units.