As much as I love the 2600, this Yahoo article is on point.

[jaybird3rd]

Agreed, the author has no clue about his subject matter. I suppose that's the norm these days.

 

I'm sure we all loved the artwork, and I'm sure none of us expected the games to look like that. It would take 40 years of computer evolution before we could so.

It seems that being knowledgeable isn't as important to today's "journalists" as being able to write sarcastic clickbait. I wouldn't be surprised if the author is another snarky Millennial who thinks that everything before they were born "totally sucked."

 

This article has popped up twice in the status updates over the last 24 hours. I can see the humor in it, but I think it completely misses the point of what Atari's box artwork was meant to do. Those of us who were kids at the time—and who were not literal-minded idiots—understood perfectly well that the games wouldn't look just like the box (and in fact, today's games still don't look like that). The artwork gave us a mental picture that we could superimpose onto the game as we were playing it, so it was actually very successful in "priming the pump" and engaging our imaginations.

 

The problem is that many of today's games—and movies, for that matter—supply everything for you, leaving little work for the imagination. So, when someone raised in that context looks at the Atari games and box art, it isn't surprising that they can see only how the games don't "live up" to the box art, instead of seeing both as two different parts of the same imaginative experience. So no, I don't think the article is "on point" at all.

[bigfriendly]

I disagree, that article is not on point at all. It's an anachronistic view of an earlier time period. Arcade cabinets were adorned with graphics that even their expensive hardware couldn't reproduce, so nobody would have expected home consoles to do so.

 

I suspect that whoever wrote that wasn't alive (or was extremely young) in the late 70s/early 80s.

I'm sure your are correct about the age of the author of the article. I don't however remember any arcade cabinets being as over the top as the artwork that was drawn for the 2600 games that Atari released. If I was gonna compare 2600 box artwork from the early 80's to the arcade cabinets of the time I would say Activision's art would be a closer comparison. My brother and I got our 2600 for Christmas in 1981 and I definitely had a big imagination back then. I was also bright enough to understand that no computer in the world could produce images in a real game that were on those boxes. But as Atari and many other fly by night companies started slinging shit shingles in pretty boxes I started getting ticked off. I actually remember thinking that if they spent less time on the box art and more time making a decent game maybe titles like ET, PacMan and the Swordquest series might have not been the colossal crappers they ended up being. That's not to mention all the 3rd party crap games with good art that were released.

 

 

 

[p.opus]

I laughed hard at both articles. And I surely didn't mean to start a sh1t storm.

 

Some folks really have to lighten up.

 

I was an "Atari Kid". It was one of the more shocking Christmas presents I ever received. In my house $50 was pretty much at the top of the limit. We waded through the Sears holiday wish book with the best of them. The catalog could almost open itself to the Atari page. I played the VCS (Tele-games Video Arcade) whenever I went to Sears (my parents had to literally on more than one occasion drag me away from the thing), I longingly wished for one but never bothered asking. At 4 times our gift limit. I knew in reality that my chances in owning one was roughly the same as obtaining the Hope Diamond.

 

So we had less expensive video games like "Video Pinball/Breakout" and Pong hooked up to an old 12" black and white TV in the corner of the living room.. Those were "affordable". That year I had my heart set on a Coleco "tank" game that featured head to head tank battles with the twin dual stick arrangements just like the arcade and fit right into the gift budget at $29.99 or $39.99, something like that.

 

Had it not been for poor quality control at Coleco, I might have never gotten the revered VCS.

 

My dad bought three of those Coleco systems (unknown to me) and tried setting them up. All three were broken pieces of crap. I guess in the meantime he really wanted to play a tank game because after the third one, he just broke down and got an Atari VCS with Combat included...HOLY CRAPOLY....

 

Of course it was still in black and white (no game system would interrupt my father's TV watching), but at the time it was glorious. And it wasn't until I started back into Atari recently, that I actually played for any extended period of time in color.

 

I loved the artwork, but they pushed the bounds of Creative license. The Starship one was especially fun. Take a look at it. There is a huge space battle erupting while our poor astronauts are stuck in the lower left corner just trying to take another small step for man.....

 

Edited August 17, 2015 by p.opus

[Giltygear]

Modern games pull the same shit.

[WolfAmongWolves]

I agree that as a kid growing up in the 80s, you never expected the games to look like the box art. I think jaybird said it best - the artwork gave us a mental image we could superimpose onto the game as we played, and it added to the atmosphere and to the excitement.

 

However, for me there is one exception to that rule, a game whose title, description, and box image left me feeling truly cheated by the actual game. That game is Video Olympics. The box art shows people playing hockey, basketball, soccer, volleyball, etc. The description at the top mentions "50 games", including all of these sports. I had already played Atari games like Pele's Soccer, Basketball, Football, and Home Run at my friend's houses, so I was expecting something similar to those games on one cartridge. I remember that feeling of utter despair when I popped in the game for the first time and discovered I had blown my hard-earned allowance on 50 shades of Pong.

[bigfriendly]

I agree that as a kid growing up in the 80s, you never expected the games to look like the box art. I think jaybird said it best - the artwork gave us a mental image we could superimpose onto the game as we played, and it added to the atmosphere and to the excitement.

 

However, for me there is one exception to that rule, a game whose title, description, and box image left me feeling truly cheated by the actual game. That game is Video Olympics. The box art shows people playing hockey, basketball, soccer, volleyball, etc. The description at the top mentions "50 games", including all of these sports. I had already played Atari games like Pele's Soccer, Basketball, Football, and Home Run at my friend's houses, so I was expecting something similar to those games on one cartridge. I remember that feeling of utter despair when I popped in the game for the first time and discovered I had blown my hard-earned allowance on 50 shades of Pong.

 

 

Well said

Edited August 17, 2015 by bigfriendly

[+SpiceWare]

I don't however remember any arcade cabinets being as over the top as the artwork that was drawn for the 2600 games that Atari released.

Not necessarily the sides of the cabinets; after all, you didn't normally see them when the machines were lined up next to each other in the arcade. Was thinking more about the art on the control panel, the bezel, etc.

 

I thought of the art on an Atari box as being in the same vein as the art found on books covers and album sleeves.

[Vic George 2K3]

It wasn't the box art of Basic Programming that made me feel cheated. It was the idea in my head that it would fantastically turn my Atari 2600 into a powerful home computer. And this was before I even got a Timex/Sinclair 1000 somewhere along the line. Oh well...it eventually led to my getting an Adam Family Computer a few years later.

[Bryan]

Can you imagine how bad those boxes would have sucked with actual game graphics? We were so excited to be playing something on our TV's that we really didn't care if we had to imagine it was something grander than it was. Today's gamers are pissed off if their games aren't 100% photorealistic, so I guess this article's for them.

[jaybird3rd]

Activision tried to strike a balance with their boxes by creating stylized versions of the in-game graphics. This allowed them to show some semblance of what the game was really like without limiting themselves to screenshots. Their boxes were very appealing also (especially when you put a bunch of them together on a shelf), but I still like the montage of images that Atari's artists created in their paintings the best. I certainly wouldn't agree that anything other than bare screenshots on the box is tantamount to false advertising.

[Keatah]

It wasn't the box art of Basic Programming that made me feel cheated. It was the idea in my head that it would fantastically turn my Atari 2600 into a powerful home computer. And this was before I even got a Timex/Sinclair 1000 somewhere along the line. Oh well...it eventually led to my getting an Adam Family Computer a few years later.

 

I also used Basic Programming as a bargaining point into making my parents let me spend my summer money on an Apple II+.

 

 

[..]

 

I actually remember thinking that if they spent less time on the box art and more time making a decent game maybe titles like ET, PacMan and the Swordquest series might have not been the colossal crappers they ended up being. That's not to mention all the 3rd party crap games with good art that were released.

 

I highly doubt the time spent on the artwork interfered with the programmer's coding task. They were two separate people in nearly all cases. At best the programmer may have spoken with the artists for short time describing the game. And that was that.

 

 

I'm sure your are correct about the age of the author of the article. I don't however remember any arcade cabinets being as over the top as the artwork that was drawn for the 2600 games that Atari released.

 

Arcade artwork was simplified because of cost and visibility. It would take too much money to print up a detailed shaded marquee and side panels. At least early on.

 

It was beneficial to have the artwork simplified so that it would be recognizable from a distance. Much like traffic signs. Atari box artwork would look all the same from a long way away. Not so with the 3 and 4 color illustrations.

 

Bringing box artwork to the cabinet would be unnecessary overkill. But on the boxes they were perfect. You could place the box beside you while playing and imagine the world unfolding around you. Whether Atari intended that I don't know. But that's what we did. And each game was personalized to us. We each had unique experience. Unlike today, where in-game visuals are at or passed the uncanny valley. Your mind is clamped into a singular experience that isn't yours, it's someone else's vision. Might as well watch a movie.

 

And let's revisit Basic Programming. I had many great times with that cartridge.

1- It was my sworn life goal to create a VCS Game Program with it.

2- I imagined re-writing the software(1) in the speed controller in my RC car, made a DB-9 interface and all.

3- I used it as a telemetry display in my mock Lunar Lander cockpit I built out of a decrepit bunk bed.

4- I tried reprogramming my grandfather's pacemaker, made an antenna interface and all!

5- Pretended I was the systems engineer onboard a space colony(2).

 

.. and more!

 

The box artwork on the Atari games was like a window into the world of the game. The in-game graphics were surrealistic boxes and other simplistic shapes. They served as placeholders in the imagination of a child whom would then superimpose his or her own fully detailed character. It could be a jet fighter roaring and screaming past. It could be shiny sword glistening in the sun. And in doing that they developed a variety of observational and spatial skills not usually found in today's gamers. A side advantage of all this was that the level of detail was automatically adjusted, by you!

 

For example, when I played Slot Racers. I was not a shit-faced fat kid sitting on a bean bag eating junk food with my parents nagging me to not get crumbs all over. I was a futuristic warrior piloting a battle car through a city no one invented yet. http://www.hexanine.com/zeroside/how-atari-made-me-a-designer/

 

Another example was when I played Miniature Golf back in the day my head was filled with fairies and butterflies dancing and hopping through this green pasture. And somewhere in there I had a golf club and was nudging a snow-globe up and down through this maze. Happy sheep and Barney and Sesame Street characters were cheering me on. The perfectly blue sky with a happy sun and fighting clouds shining down on a grass field that had blades as thick as a broomstick that I could body surf on after my junkfood sugar high took hold.

 

Today when I play Miniature Golf all I can think about now is the Tiger Woods scandal and women fucking golfers everywhere. Or some crooked ceo and politician getting it on while the useless products I buy pay for their outing.

 

NOTE (1)

The speed controller didn't have software in those days. It was all analog discrete parts. And they were quite large, about the size of a VCS Game Program cart. And of course my makeshift bundle of wires going from the VCS to the R/C car would horrify any first-year electronics' engineer. I was lucky nothing shorted or blew up. In reality it did nothing. In my imagination the motor was spinning faster and more powerfully. The battery could charge itself. All cool things. Things that electric cars do today. Brushless torque and speed control. Regenerative braking. All done by software and various forms of digital-to-analog power control circuitry.

 

NOTE (2)

Imagine how thrilled I was to read this article:

http://uhcn.nl/em/how-atari-box-art-turned-8-bit-games-into-virtual-wonderlands/

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/19/4716444/how-atari-box-art-turned-8-bit-games-into-virtual-wonderlands

..and discover that my imagination was spot on with Basic Programming! It really was about space colonies and intense action and spacecraft and control rooms of the 70's. Programming, indeed can be intense fun as I would soon discover later in fixing my BBS code under time pressure to get it done and get all my school stuff done.

 

You see.. And that's something else we get. Just like with Apple II stuff. You buy a game, and play it. That's the first game. The second one was trying to figure out how to copy it. Those copy protected schemes to an 8 yr old were devilish and oftentimes we had to collaborate with big kids down the block.

 

Well with Atari we'd get the game cartridge and play the game. Then we'd use the art to set the stage or just give us a little idea of where the game was taking place. When we saw Tron we wondered if the artwork was somehow "stuck inside" the Game Program cartridge. This was around the time we were looking for secrets in video games. This led me to take a couple apart and smash the chips open with a hammer and chisel. We had to be careful, and it took going through several carts till we finally sliced it perfectly. Or, rather, split them down the centerline just so to show the silicon part. To my dismay it was looking like nothing special was in there. It looked the same as the brown chips with the round window on them.

 

Not to be discouraged just yet. I powered up some any old Apple II board that had an EEPROM on it and turned out all the lights in the room. I even taped over the glowing "Power" square light and the red LED on the mainboard. The red LED was a second power-on warning that you better not go pulling expansion cards in and out while it was lit! While we were able to do it successfully, the card had to go in perfectly vertical so as no not cause the gold finger contacts on the edge connector to short crosswise. And when we did so, sometimes the computer experienced a logic-lock-up anyways.. But it didn't seem to blow anything up. It was just one of the many experiments we conducted.

 

Anyways, I never found anything moving or living inside the chips. There were no mazes with cars, no magic cities or bits running around and flowing through chutes and slides. But something was happening. And they did look like the map of a futuristic city. Everything had the sharp right angles of a Syd Mead painting. I read a book called "Miracle Chip" and it explained how some of it all worked. I was surprised the book didn't make mention of anything videogame related. Nothing. Absolutely nothing! Why? And it was published in 1979! Some years I learned physics and electronics in greater detail..

 

So yeh, with Atari games you got great artwork and a great game, a 2-for-1 special in every box!

 

And it is clear that the author of the article in the first post has quite the infantile viewpoint. And that passes for "journalism" WTF? And I'm happy to say I didn't click on that article, but found an old cached copy. So at least they didn't get my clickbait clicks. Ha!

[Keatah]

True.......artwork never lived up to what the game was in many instances..............but we had imagination back then and it filled the void on some (not all) of the games

 

kids nowadays don't even know what that means

 

Truer words never spoken. The author of the article is quite juvenile and has no taste or culture.

Edited August 18, 2015 by Keatah

[RevEng]

The cool thing about that early box art is that it captured the feeling of an activity or scenario, which is just what the programmers were trying to do in with their new medium. Complementary, but not identical or competing. Because of this the early cover art engages the viewer's imagination, even after all these decades.

 

Contrast that with game cover art from today, which evokes a literal representation of the game itself, rather than engaging your imagination. It is disposable art that will not be cherished 30 years down the road.

 

The author completely missed this point with his attempts to ridicule, and he's poorer for it.

[+frankodragon]

Reminds me of something related.

 

Check out these Atari artworks.

He should take a look at Benny's and my Shativision collection.

[Keatah]

Contrast that with game cover art from today, which evokes a literal representation of the game itself, rather than engaging your imagination. It is disposable art that will not be cherished 30 years down the road.

 

Often times when I play VCS on the big screen, I have the emulator window on the left side of the screen, and a full hi-res scan of the box art on the right. Or sometimes on a separate monitor aside the main one. And sooner or later during get-togethers people do comment about the art and try to draw parallels between it and the game. And it is a catalyst for their own storytelling.

 

The artwork is integral on a level that's completely over the author's head. And several people here; revealed by what they say. Well..

 

I even remember my parents cruising down the expressway in Chicago. We were on our way back from doing something. I was getting impatient like all bratty and snotty kids do. I opened up the shopping bag and felt the heft of this unusually large sized box for Indy 500. Whaa?? What's up with that. Eh no matter. I got to looking at the box art for a while. But the mystery bothered me about the size of the box. I opened it a little without anyone seeing. Ohhhh!! A spare set of paddle controllers. Ok. Now I was getting cranky. It was hot. The car stunk from exhaust. I put the bag over my head for a while. That's didn't work I got more of a headache. I tore out the front part, thus making a paper helmet of a sort. I dived into the back seat and stared at the Indy 500 box, then at the traffic, then the box, then the traffic, then the box, back and forth like a crazed idiot for what was surely at least a half an hour. Maybe more. Swaying left and right imagining we were blasting through traffic. Making engine sounds and spitting up a storm on the back window. But instantly the real cars became race cars and we were home in like 2 minutes. And most marvelously of all - I just discovered I could play the game without the console!

 

At home I realized I had a real bona-fide addition to my budding VCS library, I got 2 paddle controllers to boot! When I played it on the console I thought the controllers were broke because they spun around and around and around without any stops. Ohh, they were DRIVING controllers! Ahh... I immediately thought of other uses for them since no other games supported them. A truck driving wheel or mini Sit & Spin for my hamster? A mini-sized Sit & Spin? Ha.. Wait a truck driving wheel? Hot shit! I made a paper cutout from paper plates. Painted it brown with non-odorous water-based markers. My parents took away all the Sharpies when they caught me sniffing them. I had cut off both ends for extra air flow. Anyhow, right there I glued my paper wheel to the top of the knob with Elmer's School Glue. I loved that stuff, but it never got me high. Then I strapped the driving controller to the VCS with tape and more tape. I even made an extension to the red button with a straw I pulled from the garbage.

 

Now I could play like a man! Barrrhuumppf.. Big-ass wheel in my face.. I was truck'n with the best of them! Watch out!! I then made the same thing for the paddle controllers so I could play Street Racer that way too. Eventually I got tired always having to fix the tape and glue and moved on to other things like recording the crash sound and then recording it over and over again in this one home-made looping cassette tape I made at home. It was about 10 inches of Boom! Boom!, Boom! Boom!, Boom! Boom! over and over again. I loved playing that when my parents were outside doing something in the garage or mowing the lawn. Especially on big stereo from Lafayette.

 

Great times.

[+wongojack]

BASIC_PROGRAMMING.jpg

X2, those are some really cool looking computers and to boot he is wearing a space suit with a wrist computer; a visionary At apple probably got the idea for the watch looking at this cover art

 

 

 

I also used Basic Programming as a bargaining point into making my parents let me spend my summer money on an Apple II+.

 

And let's revisit Basic Programming. I had many great times with that cartridge.

1- It was my sworn life goal to create a VCS Game Program with it.

2- I imagined re-writing the software(1) in the speed controller in my RC car, made a DB-9 interface and all.

3- I used it as a telemetry display in my mock Lunar Lander cockpit I built out of a decrepit bunk bed.

4- I tried reprogramming my grandfather's pacemaker, made an antenna interface and all!

5- Pretended I was the systems engineer onboard a space colony(2).

 

.. and more!

 

NOTE (2)

Imagine how thrilled I was to read this article:

http://uhcn.nl/em/how-atari-box-art-turned-8-bit-games-into-virtual-wonderlands/

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/19/4716444/how-atari-box-art-turned-8-bit-games-into-virtual-wonderlands

..and discover that my imagination was spot on with Basic Programming! It really was about space colonies and intense action and spacecraft and control rooms of the 70's. Programming, indeed can be intense fun as I would soon discover later in fixing my BBS code under time pressure to get it done and get all my school stuff done.

 

 

I kinda think of it like the guy is the CPU carrying out all the commands the programmer sends in. He's got that headband collar and the wrist interface. I think of him as maybe even being a robot and not really human - a depiction of something electronic anthropomorphized into a human form.

[MrMaddog]

News flash for Millennial journalists, the actual screen shots are on the back of the box which never comes up on Google searches...

 

And even that was a drawn repoduction with a little disclaimer saying so, cause we knew then that getting shots off the TV was near impossible.

 

That said, the Activision games were had nice artwork that still resembled what the games looked like with rainbows used to convey motion.

[Keatah]

News flash for Millennial journalists, the actual screen shots are on the back of the box which never comes up on Google searches...

 

No need to ponder. Google was programmed by millennials.

[Keatah]

There's a little program you can type in on the Applesoft Tutorial cover. It comes complete with REM statements to explain how it works too.

Edited August 18, 2015 by Keatah

[+frankodragon]

It does happen at times when there's the good game but the horrendous artwork for other systems as well keeps gamers at bay from playing them. Such examples are Mega Man 1 for the NES and that horrible artwork for Cosmic Fantasy 2 for the TG-16 CD.

 

I did feel cheated one time as I thought the screenshot on the back of Kung Fu Master for the 7800 was supposed to have the giant score fonts:

 

[Schizophretard]

I agree that as a kid growing up in the 80s, you never expected the games to look like the box art. I think jaybird said it best - the artwork gave us a mental image we could superimpose onto the game as we played, and it added to the atmosphere and to the excitement.

 

However, for me there is one exception to that rule, a game whose title, description, and box image left me feeling truly cheated by the actual game. That game is Video Olympics. The box art shows people playing hockey, basketball, soccer, volleyball, etc. The description at the top mentions "50 games", including all of these sports. I had already played Atari games like Pele's Soccer, Basketball, Football, and Home Run at my friend's houses, so I was expecting something similar to those games on one cartridge. I remember that feeling of utter despair when I popped in the game for the first time and discovered I had blown my hard-earned allowance on 50 shades of Pong.

But the description included Pong, Superpong, Foozpong, Quadrapong, and even had a picture of paddle controllers on the box. It was also a launch title created before all the sports games you just listed were created and the VCS was launched at a time when people were used to uncountable varieties of dedicated Pong consoles with images of people playing sports on the boxes. Its name even sounds like it could be a dedicated Pong console. In other words, at the time of the game's launch everything about the box basically said,"This is a Pong multicart. So, you can just sell all of your dedicated Pong systems and use that money towards buying our new Video Computer System that can play all of those games and more." When it was launched what most people thought of as sports games were Pong games.

[PhoenixMoonPatrol]

Todays "journalists" are awful. Few weeks back there was a guy who did an early preview of the game Quantum Break for the XBox One,which releases next summer. Game wasn't in a playable state and yet he was loving the game from what he saw of it. Article gained tons of hits with such a rosey preview. Then there was a game show in Germany called GameCon last week,he claimed he was there and saw the game again in am ore advanced state. Lots on Twitter to web sites that attended the show Twitter loved what they saw. But the same guy that gave that glowing impression a week earlier wrote a follow up and scorned the game,ripping on it. Saying ti looked dull. His site again gained a mountain of hits. The site,Polygon. Theyre notorious for doing stuff like this. Writing up stuff that is sensational,over dramatic. Lots of folks were totally thinking this guy was nuts,everyone loved the game,all but this journalist. How could a guy who loved the game a week earlier suddenly hate it? Easy...to gain hits,aka click bait. Controversy and sensationalism sells. So I wouldn't put much stock in to this guy who was knocking Atari covers from the 8 bit era. Chances are he didn't really care to do a legit job of open minded covering all bases and how things were viewed back then next to today. He probably just wanted allot of hits so those ad banners can pay his salary.

Edited August 18, 2015 by PhoenixMoonPatrol

[+SpiceWare]

News flash for Millennial journalists, the actual screen shots are on the back of the box which never comes up on Google searches...

Not always:

[p.opus]

Wow quite a bit of mileage for what I considered to be a humorous fluff piece.

 

No one EVER expected box art to match content. We were well aware of the limitations of the VCS and similar video games. The Colecovision came the closest to rendering arcade quality graphics (pre NES) at the time, and even state of the art arcade couldn't replicate box art, unless you were playing an interactive Video Disk game like Dragons Lair, or Firefox.

 

I just didn't expect so many of my peers to take the article seriously or be so mortally offended.

 

One thing I did notice about the old Atari games is just how BRUTAL they are. Only a handful (Superman, Adventure, Haunted House, Starmaster) even had the option to last more than 15 minutes let alone WIN.

 

Some games you could exploit the programming patterns to play for extended periods of time, but for the most part, death was quick and brutal.

 

I'm still trying to get past Level 11 in H.E.R.O. and am still trying to remember how I routinely rolled over the score in space invaders. The final levels give you a frighteningly short time to kill the low hanging invaders before they turn the corner and land on top of you.

 

But that was some of the magic. You didn't have to invest HOURS into a game. You did, only in 5 minute blocks at a time, and a lot of destroyed joysticks later.

[CapitanClassic]

My dad claims the world wasn't black & white back in the 50s, but he never showed me anything but B&W photos. i never figured atari box art was representative of actual gameplay, as others have pointed out, the back of the box had mock screenshots. I dont think my reality was shattered by playing the actual game and comparing it with the box.