Need a history lesson

Ok a simple question, but first, the reason why i ask.

I have been reading up on a lot of atari stuff lately as it was before my time, my introduction to games was the super nintendo era. And then i watched that E.T mexican dump documentary, which i highly recommend you watch if you haven't already.

But it has left me wondering, whenever i see of people having owned ataris, i see that their collection of games is rather large, often with dozens of games. And im not talking about aussie arcade collector types, but i mean it seems to me everyone that owned the 2600 back in the 80's had a heap of games, and that a lot of the games were crap just like the E.T game.

Now I absolutely adore the Atari, my 6 switch woody is sitting pride of place at my TV in the loungeroom, and what i enjoy is finding games that are real gems amongst many poor games. But it seems like people bought a lot of shit games its as if a lot of them were disposable games. My question is how much did 2600 games cost back in the early 80's and what does that roughly convert to now given inflation. Because it seems crazy to me that people would have spent (todays) $80 on so many rubbish games. I realise that people are still buying crap games today.

They were about that cost from what I have read. Hard to tell how many in a collection were bought new, at full price, or even in that decade. Potentially a large proportion were picked up years later for peanuts.

I was given an Atari 2600 for xmas back in the day, can't remember if it was 78 or 79, but almost all my mate had been given one also. I never purchased a single game for it, I couldn't, I was only 10 years old in 78, so didn't have the money to buy much at all, so I can't help you with pricing. I think you'll find that games were purchased mainly as gifts, and Granny or aunt May had no idea as to what was good or bad, so you tended to get what you were given. Even at that age I wasn't a big fan of the Atari, as the graphics and game play just didn't compare to the games I was playing at the various Arcades.

 

Regards,

 

Johns-Arcade.

Ok a simple question, but first, the reason why i ask.

I have been reading up on a lot of atari stuff lately as it was before my time, my introduction to games was the super nintendo era. And then i watched that E.T mexican dump documentary, which i highly recommend you watch if you haven't already.

But it has left me wondering, whenever i see of people having owned ataris, i see that their collection of games is rather large, often with dozens of games. And im not talking about aussie arcade collector types, but i mean it seems to me everyone that owned the 2600 back in the 80's had a heap of games, and that a lot of the games were crap just like the E.T game.

Now I absolutely adore the Atari, my 6 switch woody is sitting pride of place at my TV in the loungeroom, and what i enjoy is finding games that are real gems amongst many poor games. But it seems like people bought a lot of shit games its as if a lot of them were disposable games. My question is how much did 2600 games cost back in the early 80's and what does that roughly convert to now given inflation. Because it seems crazy to me that people would have spent (todays) $80 on so many rubbish games. I realise that people are still buying crap games today.

 

You also need to remember we had video nothing. A 48cm crt tv was top of the line..

I think to understand why people bought some of the games you talk about you need to understand the era and how huge Atari and the like were. Not like now where a new console is released every few years and is just the same as the last...

You think how big Pac Man and Space Invaders were out on site and within a couple of years they are available in homes to play for free whenever you wanted..

You also need to remember we had video nothing. A 48cm crt tv was top of the line..

I think to understand why people bought some of the games you talk about you need to understand the era and how huge Atari and the like were. Not like now where a new console is released every few years and is just the same as the last...

You think how big Pac Man and Space Invaders were out on site and within a couple of years they are available in homes to play for free whenever you wanted..

 

A very good point. We were lucky, as we had a 48cm TV, but it was B/W.

 

Regards,

 

Johns-Arcade.

Yeah my uninformed guess was that you couldn't just jump on your computer or iPhone and check out the ign review for a game so it wasn't so easy to find out if a game was any good before you purchased it. While we are at it, what game did you play the most back then? I remember playing barnstorming and pitfall on my uncles Atari back in the 90s

I had a 2600 junior so it was the late 80s for me, but I don't remember $80+. Some of my boxed games still have thier price tages on, here is a few examples:

 

- Space Invaders - 49.99

- Warlords - 49.99

- Desert Falcon - 24.99 - Target

- Ms. Pac-Man - 19.99 - Target

- Robot Tank - 29.74 - Target

- Winter Games - 29.99 - Target

- Netmaker (bootleg) - 4.00 - KMart

- Galactic (bootleg) - 9.94 - KMart

- Bermuda (bootleg) - 7.99 - KMart

- Action Hi-Tech bootlegs - 9.00 each - KMart

 

So Space Invaders and Warlords were released in the early years of the 2600 and they are priced a fair bit higher than the others, later on in the console life the prices seem more like $20-$30 and the bootlegs were very good value for money :077:

Yeah my uninformed guess was that you couldn't just jump on your computer or iPhone and check out the ign review for a game so it wasn't so easy to find out if a game was any good before you purchased it. While we are at it, what game did you play the most back then? I remember playing barnstorming and pitfall on my uncles Atari back in the 90s

 

Yep, thats pretty much it. My local David Jones had a huge cabinet filled with games and on top was a playable system so you could at least try before you buy. I do recall the top games being $50

Yep, thats pretty much it. My local David Jones had a huge cabinet filled with games and on top was a playable system so you could at least try before you buy. I do recall the top games being $50

 

Remember

Petrol was about 45c ltr

Milk about 40c for a 600ml glass bottle

Pack of Winfield guess around 90c

The brand new Commodore Wagon.. Around $7000 ??

 

So $50 was huge for a game, even 20

The console was $200..... Thats a lot of Darbs and tinnies for the cricket so getting the old man to cough up for one... not easy

Parents came home one day with a new VCR with remote

 

Was amazed at the remote and the top loading VCR

 

Remote was even wired lol

Parents came home one day with a new VCR with remote

 

Was amazed at the remote and the top loading VCR

 

Remote was even wired lol

 

My old man came home with one of these when everyone I knew was buying VHS. Was such a tank of a thing that sounded like an EM pinny coming to life when you pushed the buttons. Yep, 3 button wired remote with pause and picture search :)

 

http://www.palsite.com/newgif_bg/slc6.jpg

My old man came home with one of these when everyone I knew was buying VHS. Was such a tank of a thing that sounded like an EM pinny coming to life when you pushed the buttons. Yep, 3 button wired remote with pause and picture search :)

 

http://www.palsite.com/newgif_bg/slc6.jpg

 

 

Ha Ha... Beta... suck balls...

 

The blueray/HD war of the 80's

Ha Ha... Beta... suck balls...

 

The blueray/HD war of the 80's

 

But, but….it came with 6 free blank tapes!

But, but….it came with 6 free blank tapes!

 

And there was a lot of porn on Beta.

Wow so going by those figures, and going by inflation of the commodore wagon $7000 then and $35000 now, then the space invaders game cost $250 in todays money. $50x7 =$250. Does that seem right to you guys?

Confirm the price on the VB wagon in 79/80 as it was only an estimate as the kingswood was about $6000 i thought

the Atari 2600 was around $199 when it was most popular I was told by my uncle who bought one new.

 

I bought mine for $10 with about 30 carts at a garage sale with my very hard earned pocket money around 1990

we didnt have the money to have a Sega or Nintendo so i thought i had bought something really awesome, until i actually played the next door neighbors brand new Nintendo lol.

In saying that my brother and i did play our Atari for many years. I do have it some where.

 

I do remember most of the carts having kmart sticker on them saying like $40, often those stickers were under the garage sale or secondhand shops sticker of 50cents lol. which was great for me being a kid with out much cash we could afford these games easy enough

like Moorty Moose said, Atari ruled the day back then

 

there were other tv game units out there, but most were crap

Intellivision (?) was the only competition, but it came a distant second

Yeah my uninformed guess was that you couldn't just jump on your computer or iPhone and check out the ign review for a game so it wasn't so easy to find out if a game was any good before you purchased it. While we are at it, what game did you play the most back then? I remember playing barnstorming and pitfall on my uncles Atari back in the 90s

 

lol This is completely true.

Often you would just rely on picking what box looked best to decide. lol

 

I was always buying secondhand games for like 50cents as kid which was still a big deal for me lol but yer i would look at the graphics on the boxes to decide what game to buy. that was not really a good indicator lol

 

i would think the reason people had lots of games for these machines was mostly due to them being so cheap to buy second hand games during the 90's, it didnt seem to matter what game it was, what the original stickered price was the going rate for these games in the 90's was 50cents lol.

 

what games I used to play the most would have been like pitfall and space invaders, Asteroids was a very good game to play against some one to try and beat scores. so me and my brother would have massive fights over who was the best at asteroids lol, many a controller was thrown because one was having a bad game on the space invaders. there was also Tomcat and chopper command i used to play a fair amount.

 

Im gonna go dig it out in the next few days. there has been a long running dispute between me and my brother since children to now even when i bring it up, as to what games he owns and I own lol. I

Edited April 12, 2015 by jason1
added content

My old man came home with one of these when everyone I knew was buying VHS. Was such a tank of a thing that sounded like an EM pinny coming to life when you pushed the buttons. Yep, 3 button wired remote with pause and picture search :)

 

http://www.palsite.com/newgif_bg/slc6.jpg

 

I know the pain. We too were a Beta family. It was impossible to hire/buy tapes and I couldnt trade with my mates as we were the only Beta family in town.

Just checked out a couple of my games and they have price rags on them of Ghostbusters - $10, Frogger - $10, Skateboardin - $24.99 and a few 3 in 1 for $14.95.

I remember it was similar to it is now. The newer games came out and they were very expensive but they would slowly drop in price and thats when you would buy them. There was always the adrenaline rush of walking into a department store and heading straight for the game sections to see if there were any bargains.

and that a lot of the games were crap just like the E.T game.

 

I'm not having a go at you, although like the documentary stated, how much of the E.T game did you play?

 

After watching the documentary I have to give it a go myself.

Nah I haven't played it at all, and don't reguard it as the worst game, only going on the word that it is bad, I was using e.t as a well known example. It was more of a question of how much did games cost back before I was born and did people pay a lot for the crummy games. I think Where's Wally on the NES is the worst game ever made and anyone that bought that game should be returned every cent of what they payed. Any bets that e.t is ten times the game that WW is.

I don't think Pacman on 2600 is as bad as everyone says. Played the shit out of it when I was a kid. Knew it wasn't as good as the arcade, but no console really was until they caught up in the mid 90's.

See here's the thing...

Not like now where if it is a shit game then you dont buy it or play your xbox instead of your play station for a while..

Home gaming was just born.. nothing really before it, zip other than really bad ibm or microbee crap.. perhaps some hand helds

 

So basically every game was good...

I dont remember buying a 2600 game and going well this is crap... you still payed it to death

 

Also they sold more 2600's world wide than the original Xbox and 3 x Sega Dreamcast..

Nah I haven't played it at all, and don't reguard it as the worst game, only going on the word that it is bad, I was using e.t as a well known example. It was more of a question of how much did games cost back before I was born and did people pay a lot for the crummy games. I think Where's Wally on the NES is the worst game ever made and anyone that bought that game should be returned every cent of what they payed. Any bets that e.t is ten times the game that WW is.

 

I have never heard of or played the 'Where's Wally (Waldo)' game so I looked it up... Man, you are right, that does look like the lamest game ever.

Worth having a look at for a laugh

 

 

:lol