Remembering CVG 101 and Classic Gamer Magazine

I no longer remember precisely how I got started writing for Classic Gamer Magazine. I seem to be missing my first e-mails on it and, unfortunately, I'm finding Google Groups completely unhelpful at the moment. But I believe the sequence of events was probably something like this. Chris "Cav" Cavanaugh published the first issue as a fanzine in 1998. It was a success, so he decided to relaunch it as a for-profit venture and put out the call for writers on Usenet. I'd quit my on-the-side job at Suite 101 a year before and was closing on my son's first birthday, so was beginning to feel like I had a handle on my new life with child. Also CGM was planning a bi-monthly schedule, giving me twice as long to write as I'd had on Suite 101's monthly schedule. Therefore, I volunteered.

I was relieved at the warm welcome Cav gave me. Reviewing the earliest e-mail I have from him, it looks like I probably referenced Suite 101 and he was not only familiar with my articles for them, but said he enjoyed them a lot. I quickly proposed a column called CVG 101 (for "classic video games") as a continuation of what I'd done at Suite 101 and he agreed. He introduced me to my fellow writers a few weeks later.

Our second item up for bid is: Lee Seitz.  Lee also knows his stuff.  He runs a great website at http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/cvg/nexus/ or better known as the "Classic Videogame Nexus" [sic].  His website is a great resource for information and I'm very thankful for having him along for the ride.

In addition to my column, I also worked with Cav on a classic video game newswire. My memories of this are fuzzy at best. I think we probably just agreed to make each other aware of news stories for our respective sites. I know I was running news on the Classic Video Games Nexus.

Looking through my old e-mails, it appears I gave feedback to all of Cav's e-mails about the progress on the latest issue or the magazine in general. I didn't mind giving my opinions, but tried to do it nicely and with the full understanding that I wasn't the one in charge. Which is good, because some of my suggestions were not the way the magazine went.

In addition to my CVG 101 column, I also conducted a couple interviews. They were both things I proposed to Cav and he thought were, indeed, good ideas. The (Buckner and) Garcia interview in #2 was the only time I got an article mentioned on the cover because you want news on the cover, not a recurring feature for newbies. Sadly, I never followed through on my proposed interview with former Atari programmer Dennis Harper. I still kick myself about that.

Things went okay. I say okay not because of any bad experiences -- Cav was incredibly nice and understanding -- but because I had a bad tendency to run up against and sometimes a bit past the deadlines. This was entirely my own fault. But when I did miss a deadline, I was typically given a bit of extra time because my work generally required little editing. I think part of the reason he was so understanding is that Cav had a tendency to blow his own deadlines, which is understandable since creating an entire magazine was, as best I know, an entirely new thing to him.

For #3, I wound up lifting a great deal of text from an article I'd written for Suite 101, with Cav's permission. I took the article I wrote on Sears labels and reworked it as an article on cartridge label variations with special emphasis on Sears labels.

I finally got to meet Cav at Classic Gaming Expo 2000. I also met his significant other (and later, wife) Sarah Thomas. It was a pleasure hanging out with both of them. It was also nice to hear Sarah, who was the one primarily responsible for editing all the submissions, say to me the same thing Cav had about my articles needing little in the way of editing.

Chris Cavanaugh and Sarah Thomas

I should point out that the magazine turned out not to be bi-monthly, but quarterly. After #4 was finished, Cav struck a deal with Tower Records to distribute the magazine on their newsstands! Unfortunately for me, there were no Tower Records stores in Alabama, so I didn't get the thrill of seeing a magazine with something I'd written on the racks. I suspect each store only got a handful of issues, as the one time I did find a Tower Records on a trip to Nashville, CGM was nowhere to be found.

I really blew things on my article for #6. That was when, because I hadn't finished reading a previous issue, I wrote an article very similar to one Leonard Herman had written for #4. Oops! Luckily, Cav gave me time to write another article instead. I've included that never-before-published article here, just for completeness.

I submitted an article for the seventh issue of CGM, but before the issue was published, Cav had to fold the magazine. Despite a major investment at the beginning, the magazine had continued to lose money due to lack of advertisers, so he had no choice. He later tried reviving it as a free, PDF-only publication, but only got two issues out before folding again. My article intended for #7 was included in Volume 2, #1 in 2004. But by then I had two kids and little spare time, so I was unable to contribute any more articles.

Cav has kept the Classic Gamer Magazine name around. He published a single issue of Volume 3, again as a free PDF, in 2010. He also still owns the www.classicgamer.com domain, although as I write this he's been having problems with his host and the site is down. However, he also runs an active Facebook page for it. And you can find a complete PDF archive of CGM at Digital Press. But for my own ego trip, here the articles I wrote for the magazine, which I'm proud to have been a part of.

• CGM #1, Fall 1999: Classic Video Games in a Nutshell
• CGM #2, Winter 1999–2000: Cleaning Your Cartridges
• CGM #2, Winter 1999–2000: Catching Up With Buckner and Garcia
• CGM #3, Spring 2000: When is a Combat Not a Combat?
• CGM #4, Summer 2000: Interview with Jerry Greiner
• CGM #4, Summer 2000: The Comic Book Connection
• CGM #5, Fall 2000: What I Learned Over Summer Vacation
• Unpublished: The Atari 2600-Hasbro Link
• CGM #6, Spring 2001: Please Don't Chew the Gum!
• CGM Volume 2, #1; April 2004: Em-yoo-lay-shun

CVG 101: Please Don't Chew the Gum! (originally for Classic gamer Magazine)

[Classic Gamer Magazine introduction. This article was originally published in CGM #6 (spring 2001). This is the article as I submitted it and may not exactly match what was published. Some information is incomplete, so please see the postscript at the end.]

If you're a child of the '80s, you probably bought at least a pack or two of Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, or some other kind of video game stickers.  Remember those?  They came in wax packs with a piece of pink cardboard masquerading as chewing gum, just like baseball cards.  While there were later ones based on characters like Super Mario Bros., for the sake of this article, we'll limit discussion to video games "Golden Age."  (That is, the early 1980s.)

Although there were two different companies making video game related stickers during this time, Fleer and Topps, there are many similarities in the way they were sold.  All of them came 36 packs to a box.  (Super Pac-Man was also available in boxes of 48 packs.)  Each pack (except maybe Dragon’s Lair) contained three sticker cards, three rub-off game cards, and the previously mentioned stick of “chewing gum.”  The packs sold for 25 to 30 cents each.

Fleer started the whole thing by releasing Pac-Man stickers in 1980.  Back then, Pac-Man was on everything from mugs to shoes to bed sheets, so it’s only natural the trading card industry would try to get in on the action.  There were 54 stickers in the set.  The front of the stickers generally had black, yellow, or white backgrounds and featured either one or two Pac-Man characters with word balloons or one or two rectangular stickers with sayings on them.  The text on several stickers was taken from the lyrics of “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner and Garcia.  (“Slide out the side door”/”I’m cookin’ now.”)  Others were just plain silly.  (“Happiness is a hungry Pac-Man.”)  This may also have been where the words “Waka!  Waka!” were immortalized, as they appeared on several stickers.

The backs of the stickers were rather plain.  They had the Fleer logo and said “Pac-Man Sticker No. X of 54.”  They also contained suggestions for holding contests using the rub-off games.  The interesting thing about the backs is that there were a few variations.  In my experience, most have blue ink on the back, but you can also find some that are black.  In the upper right corner is either the traditional circle-with-a-wedge-missing Pac-Man or the legged Pac-Man from the side art of the coin-op.

There were also two different styles of front:  those that had eyes and those that didn't.  That is, you could find the same sticker, but one would have eyes on the Pac-Man and another wouldn't.  The Pac-Men with eyes also had blue and red highlights around the edges.  My observations show that the cards with the circular Pac-Man on the back have a no-eyed Pac-Man on the front, while the side art Pac-Man on the back has a Pac-Man with eyes on the front.  (If you have examples that break this pattern, please let me know.) [There are, in fact, more than two variations. See the postscript below.]

As for the rub-off games, they were a simplified version of the Pac-Man maze covered in gold circles.  You “moved” through the maze by scratching off the gold circles that filled it, revealing either a dot; blue monster; red, orange, or pink monster; or a cherry.  The object of the game was to get through as much of the maze as you could before revealing three non-blue monsters, at which point your game was over.  All the other items were worth points, which determined how well you did.  There were 28 different rub-off games, so once you had an example of each, you were set to cheat your way through the rest of your rub-off games.

Apparently Pac-Man stickers were a success for Fleer, because in 1981 they released a set of Ms. Pac-Man stickers.  Again, they generally featured one or two characters with word balloons or a rectangular sticker with a saying.  Looking at them now, from an adult perspective, there was a strong undercurrent of sexual innuendo.  (“Ms. Pac-Man does it faster.”  Pac-Man saying, “I need it bad.”)  Most stickers had a blue or pink background.  The backs of the cards simply stated “Ms. Pac-Man Sticker No. Y of 54” in pink ink.  The Ms. Pac-Man stickers did not suffer from the variations that the Pac-Man stickers did.  On the fronts, both Pac-People always had eyes.  Pac-Man had the red and blue highlights around the edges while Ms. Pac-Man did not.

Since the Ms. Pac-Man arcade game had four different mazes, there were four different mazes for the rub-off games.  In addition to the cherry, the Ms. Pac-Man games also had pretzels and bananas.  The basic premise remained the same.  The backs of the games came printed in either blue or black ink.  I have never seen a count of the unique game cards for any sticker series other than Pac-Man, so I do not know how many different Ms. Pac-Man games there were.  The same goes for all of the sets described below.

Fleer’s last set of Pac-Man stickers was Super Pac-Man in 1982.  It was more of the same on the front.  Once again, the Pac-People all had eyes.  The backgrounds were red, blue, purple or divided into three stripes of purple, white, and pink.  The backs this time all promoted a Pac-Man poster contest.  They featured either a child wearing a Pac-Man hat, a girl wearing a Pac-Man shirt, or a boy holding a Coleco Pac-Man tabletop game.  I’m uncertain if you could find the same sticker with different backs.  It was pointed out to me by Geoff Voigt at Classic Gaming Expo 2000 that if you turn all the fronts to face the same way, some of the backs will be upside down!  Because the stickers don’t tell you how many there were in the series, I’m not sure, but there were at least 40.  From the previous two sets, I’d say 54 would be a good guess.  The rub-off games this time were all the same maze, but there were gates in the maze that you were not permitted to go through unless you revealed a key nearby.  There was also a large gold oval in part of the maze that might direct you to the scratch-off “super speed button” at the bottom of the card for bonus points.

Nineteen eighty-two was also the year Topps got their chance to cash in on the video game phenomenon.  They acquired the license to produce Donkey Kong stickers.  There was no set layout for the front of the stickers, which featured various corny sayings.  (“Jump Man at work.”  “I’m ape over Donkey Kong.”)  The backs of each sticker featured a piece of one of two pictures.  It took 15 stickers to make a complete picture.  There was a 16th sticker for each puzzle that showed what it should look like when completed, so there was a total of 32 cards.

There are four different styles of rub-off games, one for each board of the arcade game.  The object is to get to the girl at the top without revealing a combination of three fireballs and barrels.  That’s right, there are both fireballs and barrels on every card, even though barrels only appeared on the first screen of the coin-op.

One thing about the Donkey Kong stickers people don't know is that a slightly different version of them were included in specially marked packages of Donkey Kong cereal.  The fronts are identical to those found in the packs.  The puzzle pieces on the back, however, are oriented vertically instead of horizontally, and it takes less of them to make a complete picture.  The two pictures were the same, however.  Each picture was made of only nine stickers, plus a tenth one showing the completed picture.  Thus, a complete set of these would be 20 stickers.  Good luck finding them, though.

The next year, in 1983, Topps released their Video City stickers.  Instead of featuring a single, highly popular video game, this series of stickers featured four moderately successful ones:  Donkey Kong Jr., Frogger, Turbo, and Zaxxon.  A complete set consists of 28 stickers:  seven for each game.  However, describing the seven is a bit complicated, so bear with me.  There were four stickers that had a portion of a larger picture on the back, similar to the Donkey Kong stickers.  Then there was a fifth sticker showing the completed puzzle on the back.  The catch is that front of this fifth sticker was identical to one of the first four.  For most of the games, it’s the same as the one with the lower left puzzle piece on it, but for Frogger, it’s identical to the upper right piece.  The sixth sticker front is the same graphic as the complete puzzle and has playing tips for its arcade game on the back.  Then, there’s a seventh sticker for each game that is also the same as the puzzle, but has a special subscription offer for Electronic Games magazine on the back.  The rub-off games are much simpler to keep track of.  There’s only one board design per game.  In the case of Donkey Kong Jr., which had multiple screens, Topps used only the first screen.

Finally, Fleer got back into the act one final time with Dragon’s Lair stickers in 1984.  I have to admit, I never even knew these existed until a few years ago.  Most of the stickers featured art from the game, some with an extremely corny word balloon (“Please don’t squeeze the Dirk.”) and some with a just label naming the featured character.  Some didn't feature any art from the game at all, just a saying.  The backs of the stickers featured playing tips for the game.  Some game tips were repeated on multiple stickers.  According to the front of the stickers, there were 63 in a set.

I’m not sure anyone knows how many Dragon’s Lair rub-off games there are.  They featured art from the game as their backgrounds.  The problem is there are at least two dozen different backgrounds used.  Unlike all the other rub-off games mentioned here, instead of circles, they have solid paths that branch.  A nice change of pace after all those circles.

Now that you know what’s out there, you might wonder where to find these stickers.  First, there are the usual sources:  other collectors and eBay.  You might also try comic book and trading card stores.  Geoff Voigt let me in on an online merchant that he doesn't mind sharing named Marchant Non-Sports Cards (www.marchantcards.com or www.nscards.com).  Their prices for Donkey Kong and Video City are very reasonable.  The prices on the rest might give you pause.  Just remember, no matter where you manage to find your stickers, please don’t chew the gum!

Sidebar

If collecting stickers isn't up your alley, but you’d like to give them a glimpse or know what they say, try these web sites:

Donkey Kong

• http://www.ohio.voyager.net/~ngsippel/cv/donkeykong.txt

Dragon’s Lair

• http://www.tomheroes.com/Video%20Games%20FS/Arcade/dragon's_lair_cards.htm
• http://www.dragons-lair-project.com/community/merch/ [Try this instead.]
• http://bioinfo.mshri.on.ca/people/feldman/vgmuseum/cards/dlruboff.html

Pac-Man

• http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/cvg/pac_stick3.html

Author note: Many thanks to Geoff Voigt for his help in researching this article. You can also thank (or blame) him for letting us use his title.

Postscript (12 June 2013)

As I mentioned in the previous Classic Gamer Magazine entry, this article was written quickly to replace one that was rejected. (You can read about the reasons in that entry.)

Some of the information above, while maybe not inaccurate, is incomplete. If you have any interest in stickers for the various Pac-Man games, you must visit The Pac-Star web site by Kevin Jay North! It is the end-all and be-all of information on these stickers. (And Russ Perry, Jr. and I helped provide some bits of information.)

CVG 101: The Atari 2600-Hasbro Link (previously unpublished)

[Classic Gamer Magazine introduction. I submitted this article for CGM #6 (spring 2001), but due to an error on my part, it wasn't published. See the postscript at the end for details.]

As a Classic Gamer reader, it’s a safe bet that you’re aware that, up until recently, Hasbro owned the rights to Atari’s console-related properties. This, of course, included their Atari 2600 games. What you may not have thought about is just how many third party Atari 2600 games Hasbro also has the rights to. While I could simply list them for you and be done with it, that wouldn't be much of an article, would it? Although considering I’m writing this the night before my deadline, it would certainly be easier on me. (Writer’s block is a terrible thing.) So, let’s examine just how Hasbro wound up with the rights to so many Atari 2600 games in its holdings.

First, let’s start with Atari itself. Atari, incorporated in 1972, was the first of many companies founded by Nolan Bushnell. Although successful from early on, Bushnell had to call in debts every pay period to keep the payroll checks from bouncing. In 1976, Warner Communications paid Bushnell $28 million for Atari. Bushnell realized there was no way Atari would be able to afford getting their latest project, the Atari Video Computer System (VCS, later the Atari 2600), designed and into stores without the capital provided by a major company.

Unfortunately, the laid back atmosphere of Atari, Inc. and the more traditional corporate culture of Warner were like oil and water. In 1978, Bushnell could tolerate no more and left Atari. Atari went on to successfully launch the VCS and, after just a few years, became the dominant player in the home video game industry. In 1981, Atari’s annual sales were $35 million and a significant portion of Warner’s total annual income. Just two years later, in 1983, Atari posted losses of $536 million! Looking to get rid of the albatross that was Atari from around their neck, Warner sold majority interest in the home video game and computer divisions of Atari to Jack Tramiel, recently fired president and founder of Commodore. Tramiel called the new company Atari Corporation. Atari’s coin-op division was renamed Atari Games and went on, forevermore separated from the home division.

Fast forward to 1996. After the video game crash of 1983-84, Atari never recovered its former glory. Their last effort in the home video game market, the 64-bit Jaguar, was a failure. Tramiel had Atari Corp. do a “reverse merger” with hard drive manufacturer JTS Corporation. Two years later, in 1998, Hasbro bought the Atari properties from JTS for a paltry $5 million. Classic video gamers and Atari fans saw a glimmer of hope once again. Here we pause to look back at some of the other companies that created Atari 2600 games.

First, there’s Milton Bradley. Mr. Milton Bradley first started making jigsaw puzzles in 1880, beginning what would become his namesake company's entry into the toy and game business.A century later, in 1983, Milton Bradley published a whopping two games for the Atari 2600. A year later, in 1984, Hasbro acquired Milton Bradley.

Next is Parker Brothers.  Founded in 1883 as the George S. Parker Co., George Parker’s brother Charles joined him in 1888 and the company was renamed Parker Brothers.  Exactly 80 years later (1968), General Mills bought the company.  In 1982, Parker Brothers began releasing video game cartridges for multiple platforms, including the Atari 2600.  In 1987, Tonka Corporation acquired Parker Brothers.  A few years later, in 1991, Hasbro acquired Tonka, and thus Parker Brothers, too.

Then we have Tiger Electronics. In 1982, they hopped on the bandwagon with, it seems, half the companies in the world to create video game cartridges. They sold their games under the Tigervision label. In 1998, the same year they acquired the Atari Corp. assets, Hasbro also acquired Tiger Electronics.

Lastly, there’s Avalon Hill. Avalon Hill was the publisher of many strategy war games. They also formed a computer game division early in the establishment of the home computer market. In what must have seemed like a good idea at the time, they too entered the home video game market in 1983. Today, their Atari 2600 cartridges are among some of the hardest to find. Timing is everything; Avalon Hill’s was bad. In 1998, determined to be the Borg of the toy and game industry, Hasbro assimilated, er, acquired Avalon Hill as well.

So, in 1998, Hasbro has acquired Atari Corporation’s assets, plus four companies that published Atari 2600 games as third parties. What does Hasbro do with all of these assets related to the Atari 2600, once the best selling video game console of all time? Absolutely nothing. Instead, from 1998 to 2001, they concentrated on Atari’s classic arcade games. They updated them for today's gamers and slapped the original name and Atari logo on them for brand recognition. The Cyberpunks even attempted to get Hasbro's permission to do an emulation package during this time, but Hasbro was simply not interested.

In fairness, I should point out that all of Parker Brothers' and some of Tiger Electronics' 2600 games were licensed in some fashion. Publishing them would have required new licensing deals that were unlikely to happen. While no one could seriously expect re-releasing the Atari 2600 version of Spider-Man or the Star Wars games would have any impact on sales of current games featuring those properties, legalities are legalities. Companies tend to give exclusive rights to their properties for a number of years when they license them, and exclusive means exclusive.

Resuming the tracing of the acquisition of the rights to Atari's assets we come to the present. Early in 2001, Hasbro sold their entire Hasbro Interactive division, including the Atari assets, to Infogrames for $100 million in stock and cash. What will become of the Atari properties now? That’s uncertain. Both press releases concerning the sale specifically mentioned Atari. One even mentioned that Hasbro had 60 titles in development at the time, but failed to include any classic Atari properties in the short list of specific titles.  All that can be said for certain is . . . uh . . . er . . . um . . . . that writer’s block is a terrible thing.

Sidebar

One of the nice things about writing articles for a magazine like Classic Gamer Magazine, as opposed to a college paper or article for a scholarly journal, is that I don’t have to give a reference for every little fact I site. Still, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the following sites for their help in researching some of this article.

• The Atari Timeline by Robert A. Jung – http://www.digiserve.com/eescape/atari/Atari-Timeline.html
• The History of Hasbro – http://www.hasbro.com/consumer/history.htm
• The History of Toys and Games by the History Channel – http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/toys/inventors.html
• I.C. When by Don Thomas – http://www.icwhen.com/

You might also be interested in the timeline at my site, the Classic Video Games Nexus.  It can be found at http://home.hiwaay.net/~lkseitz/cvg/nexus/features/timeline/.

Postscript (12 June 2013)

It is ironic that as I post this to my blog, Infogrames renamed itself Atari several years ago, but has now gone bankrupt and has its properties up for auction. And sadly, every single one of those pages I referenced in the "sidebar," including my own, are now gone. (Although you can find my timeline archived at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.) I.C. When actually still exists and is still run by Don Thomas, but it no longer contains the wonderful timeline of video game history that it used to.

I wasn't kidding about writing this right before it was due back in the opening. I barely squeaked it in in time. Two days later I get an e-mail from Cav, the publisher.

We kinda have a problem. Your latest CVG 101 while good is extremely similar to Leonard Herman's "Ultimate Videogame Company" article from #4. I also had Sarah read them side by side and she also felt they were very alike.

He went on to ask if I had any suggestions or another spin on it. Uh-oh! I respond.

 Oops.  I never finished reading #4. Sorry! In my defense, maybe great minds think alike?  (Or maybe I did read the article and have forgotten about it. Regardless, I didn't intentionally set out to write an article similar to one already published.)

I went on to make some suggestion for new articles, wondering if I can write them fast enough. Cav offered me a choice of the video game sticker article I suggested within a week or "[taking] the time to research a real good article about emulators for the next issue." I took him up on the stickers article, which I managed to finish in the week I was given, and made a note of doing an article on emulators for the next issue.

CVG 101: When Is a Combat Not a Combat? (originally for Classic Gamer Magazine)

[Classic Gamer Magazine introduction. This article originally appeared in CGM #3 (spring 2000) and is a revision of one I wrote for Suite 101 using the same title.]


Once your classic cartridge collection reaches a certain size, you’ll discover you’re finding few new cartridges at thrift stores. In order to "get their fix," so to speak, many collectors start collecting label variations to keep their number of "finds" up. Label variations simply means different types of labels on the same game. For Colecovision cartridges, this might mean the difference between the labels saying the cart is "for Colecovision" and saying it’s "for Colecovision & ADAM." For Intellivision, it’s probably the difference between the colorful Mattel labels and the black and white Intellivision Inc. labels, which also featured slight name changes to avoid licensing fees (e.g. "Football" instead of "NFL Football"). For the Atari 2600 it’s more complicated.

Because the 2600 (or VCS) was sold for over a decade, Atari went through four major label styles. The original style was all text on a black background. Then they started replacing much of the text with a colorful picture like the one on the box. Next Atari went with a silver background. Finally, at the end of the console’s life, they used a rust background. (Most collectors call it red; some call it brown. I think "rust" is more accurate than either of those.) But in all but a handful of cases (see sidebar), the game names never changed. So when is a Combat cartridge not a Combat cartridge? When it’s a Sears Tele-Games Tank Plus cartridge.

When the Atari 2600 debuted, Sears was one of the strongest retail chains in the United States. If you wanted to sell your product at Sears, it had to have a Sears brand on it. Thus, when Atari signed an agreement with Sears to have them sell the 2600, it became the Sears Tele-Games Video Arcade. (Tele-Games was the "brand name" for video games at Sears. It has no relation, as far as I know, to the current Telegames company (www.telegames.com), which happens to sell video games.)

Several of the games received new names as well. It’s uncertain exactly why Sears did this. Perhaps it was to confuse shoppers and have them buy what they thought was new game when it was actually one they already have. To make things more confusing, they named some cartridges after dedicated consoles they had previously released and just added a Roman numeral to the end to differentiate them. The most obvious example is Breakaway IV (a.k.a. Breakout).

Not all games were renamed, of course. Home versions of arcade games Atari had to secure licenses for were not (e.g. Space Invaders, Pac-Man), nor were those based on other licensed properties (e.g. Superman). There were also three games that Atari created, but only sold through Sears (see sidebar).

It is interesting to note that while Sears similarly renamed Mattel’s Intellivision as the Super Video Arcade, they didn’t rename any of Mattel’s games. The boxes and instructions were different, but the cartridges and overlays are generally indistinguishable from Mattel’s normal releases when found loose.

As a collector, you might ask whether the Sears version of games and consoles are rarer and therefore more desirable. In general, all Sears releases are slightly rarer than their Atari or Mattel counterparts. Whether they’re more desirable, however, depends on the collector you’re dealing with. Some collectors who don’t care about most cartridge label variations do collect Sears labels. Others don’t care at all, except for the "Sears exclusive" games.

If you do decide to start collecting label variations and start examining your duplicate games very closely, you might be amazed at just how many differences you’ll find. There are some definite sub-types within the main Atari label variations described earlier. And even within those sub-types, you can find some very minute changes on labels that appear identical at first glance. And that goes for third party companies, too.

John Earney began compiling a list of 2600 label variations, which can be found on his home page at http://www2.best.com/~jearney/. It hasn’t been updated in a few years, however. I guess even John got overwhelmed by all the small changes one can find. So, if you decide to collect label variations, set a limit on what you’ll keep. Otherwise you’ll probably quickly find your collection (rather than your extras) overflowing with Missile Commands, Space Invaders, and maybe even Combat, regardless of the name on the label.

Sidebar

Sears Name		Atari Name
Arcade Golf		Miniature Golf
Arcade Pinball		Video Pinball
Baseball		Home Run
Breakaway IV		Breakout
Cannon Man		Human Cannonball
Capture		Flag Capture
Chase		Surround
Checkers		Video Checkers
Circus		Circus Atari
Code Breaker		Codebreaker
Dare Diver		Sky Diver
Dodger Cars		Dodge 'Em
Gunslinger		Outlaw
Math		Fun With Numbers
Maze		Slot Racers
Maze Mania		Maze Craze
Memory Match		Hunt & Score
Outer Space		Star Ship
Poker Plus		Casino
Pong Sports		Video Olympics
Race		Indy 500
Slots		Slot Machine
Soccer		Championshp Soccer or Pele's Soccer
Space Combat		Space War
Speedway II		Street Racer
Spelling		Hangman
Steeplechase		[Sears exclusive]
Stellar Track		[Sears exclusive]
Submarine Commander		[Sears exclusive]
Tank Plus		Combat
Target Fun		Air-Sea Battle
Name		a.k.a.
Atari Video Cube		Rubik's Cube
Basic Math		Fun with Numbers
Championship Soccer		Pele's Soccer
(A Game of) Concentration		Hunt & Score
Fun with Numbers		Basic Math
Hunt & Score		(A Game of) Concentration
Pele's Soccer		Championship Soccer
Rubik's Cube		Atari Video Cube

Postscript (June 2013)

As it says at the top, a big chunk of this article is identical to one I wrote for Suite 101 a few years prior. The reason for this is quite simple; I blew my deadline. On February 23, I thought to check old e-mails and discovered the deadline had been February 10. Luckily for me, Cav was way behind, so I got about 10 days to write something. The old article was stuck in my head for some reason and my contract specifically left me free to use articles in print media.

I found several copies of John Earney's label variations list around, but the most recent (from 2001) is available at Atari Age.

This article is also available at Good Deal Games and has been for many years. Cav worked out some deal with site owner Michael Thomasson, and Michael specifically requested this article. The request came several months after I wrote it, so the potential conflict with Suite 101 didn't occur to me until now. But by then the article had been gone from Suite 101 for a long time, so I'd say no harm done.

CVG 101: Cleaning Your Cartridges (originally for Classic Gamer Magazine)

[Classic Gamer Magazine introduction. This article originally appeared in CGM volume 1, #2 (winter 1999–2000). This is the article as I submitted it and may not exactly match what was published.]

Finally, after months of searching, you find a new and sought after cartridge for your collection. You take it home, plug it in your system, and . . . nothing! The game appears to be dead. Maybe it’s just dusty. You take it out, blow on it, and try again. Still nothing. Your sense of euphoria has been dashed by a cruel jest of the fates. Or maybe not . . . .

Just like everything else, cartridges get dirty over time. How dirty depends mainly on the environment they’re kept in, but you probably only care whether they work or not.Well, first let me suggest that you clean all the carts you find, because some of the dirt on the contacts is going to stay in your console’s cartridge slot. Using only clean cartridges will help prolong your system’s life. (Think of it as "safe sex" for your video game system(s).)

Before I proceed, I must say that neither I nor Classic Gamer Magazine take any responsibility for any damage you might do to your cartridges following any of the advice below. Although the techniques described work for most people, I can’t guarantee that something totally weird won’t happen when you try them, so please don’t blame me.

Okay, the first rule of cart cleaning is don’t blow into them! Although I don’t know of any studies that prove it, the conventional wisdom is that all you’re doing is blowing moisture right on to the contacts, which will only make them corrode faster. Although it may seem that you’re blowing the dust out of them and making a cartridge that didn’t work a second ago work now, it was probably just the fact that you reseated the contacts by taking it out and putting it back in. If you must blow into them, try using a can of compressed air from your local electronics store. This is exactly what those cans were created for.

There is a better, more thorough way, although it’s not as fast. First, go to your local pharmacy and buy some cotton swabs and a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol. The higher the percentage of alcohol, the better. The rest of the solution is water, you see. Alcohol evaporates quickly, but as you know, water doesn’t. Water causes corrosion, so the less, the better.

As you probably guessed by now, simply take a cotton swab and dip it in the alcohol. Then rub it up and down along the contacts. You will probably be surprised by how black the swab becomes. Now whatever you do, don’t dip it back in the alcohol because then you’ll just contaminate it. You can, however, rotate the swab to a clean area as you rub. You’ll end up with three or four "sides" to your swab. While I’m at it, I also clean the inside of the cartridge around the contacts so the dust there doesn’t settle back on them. Finally, make sure you wait until the alcohol has evaporated and the contacts are dry before plugging it in!

Oh, but you can’t get to the contacts because there’s just more black plastic on that end? Okay, then that’s probably an Atari-made Atari 2600 cart. If you look closely, you’ll see two tabs sticking out at each end next to a "hole." Take something like a nail file or knife and carefully poke it into one of those holes. You should see the "door" on the long slot in the middle slide up. Now simply push back on the entire black cover and the contacts should be exposed.

At this point, most cartridges will work if they didn’t already. Occasionally you have a stubborn one with harsher corrosion that won’t clean off with this technique. Now you have to bring in the big gun: a pencil eraser. Simply rub the eraser up and down on the contacts. This goes with the "grain" of the contacts from their many insertions into and removals from consoles. Don’t over rub, as the eraser can actually remove the conductive coating of the contact. Once you do that, your cartridge will no longer work no matter how much you clean it.

You might have problems getting the eraser to the contacts. William Cassidy once suggested cutting a slice of eraser and gluing it to a Popsicle stick. If that doesn’t work, you can try taking the casing off the cartridge to better get at the contacts. Many systems’ cartridges are held together with a screw under the label. This can lead to a dilemma if the label is in excellent shape. Do you want a beautiful looking cartridge or one that works?

There are a few options. You can use a utility knife to cut a small X over the screw, carefully peel the label back, and then fold it back down when done. You might also try removing the label (or peeling it back enough to get to the screw) and then re-applying it. If you do this, try heating the label with a hair dryer. This usually loosens the glue so that you can keep the label in good condition if you’re careful.


As time goes on, more and more cartridges will go "bad," when actually they’re just dirty. Keeping your cartridges, and thus your system, clean will increase their lifetime. And hopefully you’ll get a lifetime’s worth of play out of them as well.

Postscript (June 2013)

The date for this article is taken from the day Cav said he was going to start mailing out copies of the issue to subscribers. The issue's theme was video games and movies, but cleaning cartridges was the topic stuck in my head, so I went with that. CVG 101 was the kind of column that didn't necessarily have to follow each issue's theme. Also, if you have copies of CGM, you'll note that first issue had a header proclaiming the article part of "Lee's Classic Corner." I asked Cav to ditch that after the first issue and he did.

CVG 101: Classic Video Games in a Nutshell (originally for Classic Gamer Magazine)

[Classic Gamer Magazine introduction. This article was originally published in CGM volume 1, #1 (fall 1999). This is the article as I submitted it and may not exactly match what was published.]

Welcome to the first CVG 101 column. My name is Lee K. Seitz, and I’ve been actively collecting classic video games since the late 1980s. The purpose of this column is to help educate newcomers to the hobby of collecting classic video games. Each issue I’ll pick a different topic to explain. I hope you find these columns both educational and entertaining. For this, my first column, I’m simply going to try to define many terms often used within the hobby while giving a brief history of home video games.

If you’re on the Internet, there’s a Usenet newsgroup where collectors discuss classic video games. Its name is rec.games.video.classic, or r.g.v.c for short. If you’re not familiar with newsgroups, I’m afraid it’s too big a topic to go into detail about here. Try a site like DejaNews (www.dejanews.com) or RemarQ (www.remarq.com). You’ll see many of the terms I discuss here come up in the discussions in r.g.v.c.

First, let’s cover the home video game systems of the classic age (roughly 1972-1984). You are probably familiar with the some of the major systems of the time, particularly Atari’s. The Atari 2600 was first released as the Atari Video Computer System (VCS). When Atari released it’s second programmable system, the Atari 5200 Super System, they went back and changed the VCS to the 2600. Atari later released the Atari 7800 Pro System, which could play both games designed for it and 2600 games.

Although the Atari 2600 was the reigning champion of the classics, it was not the first console. That was the Magnavox Odyssey, released in 1972. It was a very simple system that played mainly pong-type games. It came with overlays to tape to the TV screen and numerous cards and game boards to help enhance it. Next came Atari’s Pong for homes, based on their Pong coin-op (coin-operated) game. It’s success spawned numerous imitators, notably Magnavox’s Odyssey series and Coleco’s Telstar series.

The first programmable console was the Fairchild Channel F, but the 2600 was released shortly thereafter, quickly taking the lead. Again, Atari’s success created competitors. Magnavox’s first truly programmable system, the Odyssey 2, was notable for its full keyboard. Toy company Mattel created the Intellivision, which upped the ante on graphics. Meanwhile Milton Bradley bought out GCE (General Consumer Electronics) and released their Vectrex. The Vectrex is unique in that it is the only home game system to use vector graphics. Vector graphics are those found in arcade games like Asteroids and Tempest, where everything is drawn with straight lines.

Finally, the technology ante was upped again, this time by Coleco with their Colecovision. And then came the Crash.... The Crash was a period in 1983-84 in which the video game market took a nose-dive. This was caused by several factors, including a glut of sub-par games and the falling cost of home computers. Many video game companies went out of business during this time. Most collectors consider this the end of the classic era. It took a company new to the American home video game market to turn things around when they released the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985.

As you can see, there are many "classic" systems out there. You might wonder where you can find them and their cartridges (carts, for short). There are several places. If you have a lot of time, but little money, search thrift stores (such as Value Village or those run by the Salvation Army or Goodwill), flea markets, and yard sales. Some collectors visit thrift stores so often that they’ve coined a word for the act of visiting several thrift stores around town: thrifting.

If, on the other hand, you have plenty of money, but not much time, you might try a classic video game dealer. Yes, there really are people who have made a business out of selling old video games. There are no national chains that do so, which makes finding them hard. On the bright side, most do their business via mail order throughout the country. Check out some of the ads in this issue. [Cav, do any dealers have ads going into the first issue? If not I’ll need to rewrite this part.] Another option is Internet auction sites such as eBay (www.ebay.com) or Amazon (www.amazon.com).

Notice I made the distinction of time vs. money. That’s because some items are rarer than others. For example, you’ll have no problems finding an Atari 2600 and a dozen games, while finding a Vectrex with any games can be quite a feat. Some enterprising collectors have created rarity lists of the games for various systems. The first to do so was Craig Pell, also known as VGR. (Only he knows what that stands for.) He created a 2600/7800 rarity list. While it is still around and often referred to, it has not been updated in some time so portions of it are outdated. Many lists use the same rarity ratings VGR created: C = common, U = uncommon, R = rare, ER = extremely rare, and UR = unbelievably rare. There is also an unofficial rating of OC (obnoxiously common) that people use in conversation to refer to Atari 2600 Combat and such.

A great way to get rarity lists for most classic systems is to buy the Digital Press Classic Videogame Collector’s Guide, more commonly known as the Digital Press Guide or DPG. Digital Press (www.digitpress.com) is a fanzine dedicated to all home video game systems, old and new, with more emphasis on old. It rates games and hardware on a rarity scale of 1 (common) to 10 (practically unique). It covers most of the systems mentioned above from the Channel F to the NES. To get a copy send $20 (for U.S. and Canada; $30 elsewhere) to Joe Santulli at Digital Press, 44 Hunter Place, Pompton Lakes, NJ 07442. [Prices and address for historical reasons only. Do NOT send money to this address.]

You might wonder what kind of items get rated a 10. Well, they’re mostly prototypes. The term prototype is used to refer to pre-production cartridges. These are generally of two types. The first is a cartridge containing an EPROM (erasable, programmable read only memory) chip that the programmer used to test his or her game on an actual console. In general, the programmer would erase and reuse a cartridge many times during the development process, so few of these exist. The more highly regarded ones are those that contain either a game with some differences from the commercially released version or a game that was never released at all. The second type are called "lab loaners." These were pre-production, but usually completed, games sent to magazines and such for review. Because of the lead time in publishing a magazine, game companies had to get the games to the reviewers early in order for the review to be published at the same time the game was released. These prototypes were supposed to be returned to the game company afterwards, but many were not. They generally have an official, yet generic label on them including the address to return them to.

Finally, let me mention holy grails. These are the games or systems that collectors prize most of all. Now not every collector considers the same game(s) to be his "holy grail." One that many collectors want, however, is Chase the Chuckwagon. (In fact, some collectors use the phrase "chasing the chuckwagon" instead of "thrifting.") Chase the Chuckwagon is an Atari 2600 game that was only available by mail order from Purina if you collected enough proofs of purchase from their dog food. Therefore, it’s fairly rare. It’s far from the rarest 2600 game, but it’s taken on a certain mystique among collectors. Good luck finding your own holy grails, whatever they may be.

Postscript (June 2013)

As you can tell, this is my first article for Classic Gamer Magazine. It appeared in CGM #1 (fall 1999). I chose the date August 14th for the first day of Classic Gaming Expo '99, where the magazine debuted.

I touched on many topics here that I wrote about previously for Suite 101. You'll notice this was back when r.g.v.c was still the center of the collecting hobby and before Google bought up DejaNews' Usenet archives.

This is the original article, before Chris "Cav" Cavanaugh did any editing, so I left in the comment addressed to him to give you a behind-the-scenes peek.  As it turned out, there were no advertisers for the first issue, so the sentence before the comment was struck and the sentence before the struck one was modified to say, "...via mail order throughout the country and many are based on the World Wide Web."  And remember when Amazon tried to go head-to-head with ebay by doing auctions?

Craig "VGR" Pell's list is still around (although even more outdated), as is the Digital Press web site (but not so outdated).