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JCPenney Imagic ad from December 12, 1982


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1982y_12m_12d Joplin Globe Sunday, December 12, 1982, Joplin, Missouri
(JCPenney Imagic newspaper ad with prices for many games.)

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$5 to $7 off Imagic cartridges.
Add imagination to your Atari or Intellivision video game systems.

Imagic cartridges bring imagination and a touch of magic to your Atari or Intellivision video game systems. Giving you a new dimension of excitement. With superb graphics, sensational sound effects and action that never lets up. From risky adventures, dangerous rescue missions to the challenge of time-tested competitions, Imagic has the game for you.

 

 

 

Trivia

 

How to pronounce Imagic:

 

randomterrain.com/rt-how-to-pronounce-words-in-the-usa.html#imagic

 

 

 

[Do you like these newspaper ads posted in the Atari 2600 forum or would you rather have me post them in my AtariAge blog?]

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Very interesting! Thanks!

I notice that the highest-priced 2600 games in the ad are $24.95. According to some online calculators I've tried, $24.95 in 1982 would be equivalent in purchasing power to about $65.00 today. It's amazing how (relatively) expensive these things were at the time.

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I love seeing stuff like this. If you keep posting them in the forum, more people are likely to see them and provide discussion.

 

Those 4 Imagic games for Intellivision still hold up today, and Demon Attack is IMHO one of the GOAT games on any platform.

 

Per my inflation calculator,

$26.95 in 1982 is like $70.98 today, and

$29.95 in 1982 is like $78.88, a nice Target or Walmart clearance price

 

What we called games back then would be considered "minigames" or even "microgames"

 

I had exactly zero of these Imagic games when they were new, but I enjoyed scooping them up at crash prices (Intellivision) and yard sales (Atari). Later on, I had some blue-label new in box versions as well.

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Some games were pricey of course, but it's always been a relative type of cost thing with me. In the early 80's when I was also buying records and tapes (those being priced at between $6-$9 most of the time), I'd compare how badly I really wanted a video game. A game that I'd potentially get bored of long before I'd get bored of an album.

 

So, having a super tight "budget" from doing chores around the house, helping my dad and working as a janitor, I was fairly careful about my money and how I spent it. The games I'd buy were usually priced between $10-$20, which was most of them easily. You only had to wait a little while before some of the best games (silver label Atari were/are my fav) were in that range or a tad bit more. All that said, I had topped out at around 30-35 carts BITD with very few real duds. Bugs, Atari Video Cube, Star Fox and Sneak 'n Peek were the biggest stinkers among the collection, but we played them anyway. :)

 

For Imagic games, we did have Atlantis, Cosmic Ark, Dragonfire and Riddle of the Sphinx BITD. Mom, dad and Santa must have helped get some of these, but I do remember getting Dragonfire one sunny summer day from a Zayre store. Love that game!

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How much is a new software release today? I don't think paying $50-$90 for a high-end release is all that unusual.

Remember, back in the day a lot of these games were as impressive to us kids as anything that get released today is to the younger generations.

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How much is a new software release today? I don't think paying $50-$90 for a high-end release is all that unusual.

Remember, back in the day a lot of these games were as impressive to us kids as anything that get released today is to the younger generations.

 

It depends on the platform, and what type of software. Most simple "twitch" type games on mobile (which these resemble) are free with ads, sometimes with a few dollars to unlock things. Obviously we didn't have that kind of distribution back in 1982. Our microtransactions were putting quarters into arcade machines.

 

The state-of-the-art extravaganzas with multi-million-dollar marketing budgets that fill up dozens of gigabytes on a BluRay or hard drive aren't very comparable to a couple of kilobytes on a ROM cartridge. Yeah, they're like sixty bucks plus season passes plus unlockables plus smurfberries, etc.

 

Yes, "high resolution graphics" like Microsurgeon were impressive once upon a time, but we were double-knit-wearing, bowl-haircut-having, pudding-pop-eating cave children back then.

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I love these threads with old ads. Keep em coming.

 

Imagic made some great games. I loved Demon Attack and remember searching everywhere for Fire Fighter. I was sure it was going to be an awesome game. I eventually found it and bought it (at a place that primarily sold electrical supplies - everyone sold Atari games back then). It was a bit of a dud but I played it a ton anyhow. I didn't get new games all that often so we'd make up new rules like seeing how long we could let the fire burn before saving him.

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These ads are awesome. The only games I had back then were Firefighter(which is a much better game when played with 2 people trying to see who gets the best time), and Atlantis(both 2600), which I am really good at.. My cousin had Demon Attack(2600), which is awesome also. I have added it to my ever growing collection like 2 years ago. Never had Intellivision till about 2 years ago. Personally, I prefer Demon Attack on the 2600 over the Intellivision one.

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Love this. Imagic had the flashiest cart shells. Atlantis was in my stash at age 5 or so, and my older brother could absolutely whale on that game. I'd be lucky to stay alive for a few minutes under that threatening, but colorful, atmosphere.

 

In any case, it made an impression on me. Atlantis was either a garage sale score or possibly from the teenagers across the street who were totally fine with handing me carts. To them, Atari was already old hat and they had moved on to surfing and girls.

 

Me being much younger, and all about getting more games of any kind, I was easily pre-compelled to spend my scarce allowance on games at Kay-Bee. Especially when grandma would slip me a $10. Mimi was awesome like that.

 

In one of my earliest game purchases at retail, for some reason my eyes landed on Quick Step. I remember it was pricy... And new, according to the cashier. Stuff was already hitting the bargin bin at the time, but the cashier had convinced me that this was an AMAZING game at a quality level that insured it would never be seen in any bargin bin.

 

Whatever he said to me worked. I remember it took all my savings plus whatever bump I got from Mimi.

 

Sheesh, but Quick Step? That cashier ought to get smacked for selling that to an impressionable little kid who's favorite game was Adventure.

 

What a frantic bouncing bunch of chaos. That damn squirrel was unbeatable (to my five year old self anyway). Also the noise that game generated was exactly perfect for irritating parents out of their minds, and if they weren't in a good enough mood to leave the room, they'd likely start cracking down on allowable game time.

 

Quick Step, like ET and Sneak & Peak, became one of those titles that I thought I was doing something wrong since I wasn't enjoying them. Therefore I doubled down on trying to derive some satisfaction from them. Space Jockey and Star Fox (Mythicon of course) are also on that list, but I have to say only Sneak & Peak and Quick Step couldn't get me anything as far as a good experience. Eventually they were cartridges I'd just sneer at.

 

I think I managed to get a friend to try Quick Step with me once or twice, or my little sister. No one seemed comfortable playing it however.

 

No one ever talks about Quick Step, so it seemed like a good opportunity to rant for a minute. Epilogue: I did eventually get good at the thing since it was a go-to rom to try every time I set up an emulator. Still, even getting good at it, it still seemed like a pretty hollow game to me. Colorful and noisy as shit, and smooth and solid at the same time (also like shit?), but too uncomfortably frantic to be enjoyable (also also like ... well you get the point).

 

It lived next to Atlantis since the cart shape was the same, and I often looked at it wondering if I could just walk it back to Kay-Bee and get my $19.95 back.

 

 

More epilogue:

I traded all my accumulated "old" stuff for a Game Gear in 8th grade. Amongst the pile was Quick Step. In my adult life as I've rebuilt my collection I've never had any desire to find Quick Step again. Hmmm. I find that kinda interesting. I have other "bad" games, or whatever subjective thing you want to call them. I'm actually really happy to see Star Fox on my little cart display, as well as most of the others. Quick Step, Sneak N' Peek and Bugs are the sour persimmons that my brain has an aversion too, despite a few very clear moments in memory.

 

Fun to write all that. Now something is out there on the net about Quick Step and it's place in someone's life.

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Glad you posted this!

 

I feel like I have played so many Imagic games, that until tonight I hadn't really taken stock of which ones I actually owned (bought new) back in the day...I just looked and I have Atlantis, Riddle of the Sphinx, and No Escape for Atari...Then Moonsweeper, Nova Blast, Fathom and Wing War for ColecoVision...I sometimes wonder when each of these games came out because for all I hear and remember about "The Crash", whenever Moonsweeper for ColecoVision came out, I was still collecting games and not noticing anything unusual...A tiny bit later I'd also get into cars, girls, Heavy Metal, etc., and my interests would shift...

 

Back to Imagic games...I know I played Demon Attack a ton at a friend's house and probably borrowed it for a while; I was always gonna get it eventually...And my memories of playing games like Cosmic Ark and Star Voyager are so vivid I wondered if owned them...Nope! Probably the same friend down the street had those and we'd trade games for a while...I think I've pretty much got'em all now, but I was actually a bit surprised by which ones I owned and bought new BITD. Curse my memory!

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