2600 Label Variations List (Opinions Needed)

[Tempest]

As the offical maintainer of the 2600 Label Variaitons list (I love saying that!), I'm curious as to what people think of the current list.

 

The list is getting a major overhaul soon, and I was wondering if there are any changes people would like to see made to the list (format, information, the whole damn thing, etc.)

 

One thing I want to know is how many people collect the very minute label variations. Many people collect color, name, and style differences, but how many people collect year variations, manufacture locations (Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, etc.), or label layout differences (get out those rulers!).

 

Is the current list too cluttered? Is the amount of detail just right? Do you hate it and wish that all variation collectors would rot in hell? Please send me your suggestions!

 

Here's the current list: www.msu.edu/user/reicher6/label62.txt

 

Oh, and check out my label variation museum: www.msu.edu/user/reicher6...museum.htm

 

 

Tempest

reicher6@pilot.msu.edu

[Albert]

Not sure what happened to your Label Museum link, but here's the correct one:

 

http://www.msu.edu/user/reicher6/labelmuseum.htm

 

You've got some great scans of some pretty unusual carts. For instance, all the PAL Red Label Atari carts. It would be nice to get some of those scans for AtariAge. I believe we have some that would be useful on your site as well. For instance, I have an oddball Othello cart that has a Picture label with a Text end label!! I haven't put it up here on AtariAge...

 

Enjoy!

 

..Al

[Tempest]

Thanks for the in-depth analysis, this is exactly what I'm looking for.

 

Originally my goal was to totally redesign the list from the bottom up. However I'm not sure I can do that, one of the provisos of me taking over the list was that I only update it and not change it. I'm currently trying to get permission from John to redesign it. Hopefully he'll see that the design is outdated and let me redo it. I'd hate to go against his wishes but I don't think the list is managable (or overally useful) in its current form.

 

Personally, I was thinking about taking out those rarity numbers (they're out of date and not as useful as you would think). To make your idea work would take info from collectors all over the US to get an accurate reading. That could be a project for another time.

 

I'm going to reorder the list by serial number (I know you hate that) because I think that's the way most collectors look at lists (I know I do). Any input on this subject would be helpful. BTW, I knew that Moon Patrol was CX-2692. Scary huh?

 

I too was thinking about farming out the box variations to a seperate list. They're alot of them out there, and the info on this list is very incomplete. That's a project for another person (any volunteers?)

 

Credits will be moved to the end, that's where they belong. I don't know why John did it this way.

 

I'll probably do away with the C,U,R,ER,UR ratings and go to the DP numbers. I know they're out of date but that's how I still think of them (I know Dig Dug is a C off the top of my head, but I can never remember if it's a 1, 2, or 3).

 

There has been talk of somehow intergrating this into the DP guide. I don't know how we would do this, but it's a nice idea.

 

Tempest

[Guest]

Most collectors look at lists by serial numbers? Are you sure about that? I know I hate that method, it makes looking anything up a big pain. Alphabetical is so much easier. That is my number one gripe with the current list.

 

And I don't think any collectors use Craig Pell's scale any more.

[Albert]

I just want to offer my opinion that having the games sorted by model number is a royal pain. At one time I was religiously collecting label variations by the Giant List and I remember how much of a pain it was looking through all the Atari and Sears carts for a particular game. At least I knew Combat was always at the beginning of Atari.

 

And if John doesn't allow you to change the list the way you want, I would just create a new list from scratch. I don't see any reason why you shouldn't be allowed to improve the list, the original will always be available if people want to look at it.

 

..Al

[videotwit]

I agree with Ben and Alex here. Now, I used to categorize all my personal collection lists by part number, but soon realized the error of my ways - no one could figure out at a quick glance what I actually had or needed, thus trading was difficult. I now organize these lists alphabetically by manufacturer, and all the games are alphabetized under their maker. I think it is just easier to make sence of.

 

I also think it is important to strip out all non-label information. I don't see a need for playability ratings / etc. / etc. That's a different project all together, plus there are a ton of reviews available both in print (try Leonard Herman's "ABC to the VCS" - a great reference), and on the web. A completely different list is really needed for box variations, and a seperate one yet could be made for instruction manuals. Some way to cross reference these lists would be nice (yet difficult to implement). Then a collector who is building a collection piece by piece would have a guide to follow as to what cart variation came in which box variation, and with which revision instruction manual. WHEW! It wears me out just thinking of the effort that'd be needed for a project of this scale, but useful nonetheless.

 

One more thing - It'd be REALLY nice to be able to reference a visual of each of these variations. It'd take a ton of disk space, of course, as well as the cooperation of many people contributing, but a scan of each variation would be an amazing resource. These scans could be referenced by a hyperlink, so the 56K surfer (like me) can load just the labels they need to see - small pop-up windows would work well here.

 

Anyhow, now I'm just running on.

 

~Scott

[Tempest]

So everyone sorts their collection alphabetically huh? I guess I'm the only one who still goes by serial number (I like it that way). But if everyone wants alphabetical, alphabetical it is. Do you want it sorted by Company and then title or just pure alphabetical?

 

Yep, all the ratings, letter ratings, and non label stuff is gone! John just copied the VGR list entries, that's what they're there.

 

I definetly agree that boxes should go to a seperate list (any volunteers?). An instruction rarity list would be interesting if someone wanted to persue that. Maybe Scott Stilphen could look into that since he already does the catalogs.

 

What about the information detail? I was thinking about removing the different circuit board protector types (C1, C2, C3). Do people really collect those? And maybe dropping those minor printing differences, stuff like differences in letter placement that's less than a mm or two. What about different copyright dates? Do people want those? And those cropping differences like:

 

1 Silver1 ©1982, C1, "USA" on shirt touches bottom of picture

4 Silver1 ©1982, C1, "USA" on shirt doesn't touch bottom of picture

 

Are these really necissary? I don't want to take out all the info, but maybe getting rid of some of the exreciatingly painful details would result in less clutter. Any thoughts?

 

Tempest

[videotwit]

I'm not so sure about getting rid of the tiny details. I realize that most people probably aren't that picky, but I do think it is interesting. I guess I don't see attention to obnoxiously minute detail as clutter in this instance.

 

Back in my label variation collecting days I was really into the cartridge variations - C1, C2, C3. Solid post vs. spring loaded post, vs. foam insert Activision cart cases, and on and on. If you decide to keep on with the detailed list, I actually have a ton of stuff to contribute if you want. I still have a 3-ring binder with about 300 pages of variation notes (painstakenly hand written - what was I thinking!). I'm willing to go through it again to extract items that are missing from the current list. Just let me know if you are interested.

 

It all comes down to this: If there's going to be a list of label variations out there, it should be as descriptive as possible. Even though I decided that I'd personally rather concentrate on getting different games instead of doing the variation thing, I still think that there are people out there that DO collect minute variations.

 

That's just all my opinion, though. Take it for what it's worth.

 

~Scott

[Tempest]

Yeah I suppose your right. If I'm going to do this I might as well go full hog. One thing I do need to weed out is those variations that are just one time printing errors. Things like the picture being 1 mm higher than a standard cart. These are just normal printing glitches. But I want to save really odd printing errors that were done to multiple carts (like my NTSC Joust that has a P on the end label).

 

Tempest

[Tempest]

Well now this brings up an interestng point, just what constitutes a label variation?

 

If you take it at it's most extreme then any difference (no matter how mintue) counts as a new entry. So we could have 50 different variations for Combat alone (I have several with very slight cropping and color differences). I don't want the list to get that way, but I don't want to exclude legit label variations. To me a label variation is a difference that was actually produce on more than a handful of carts (more than just a bad printing job because the dye was running low).

 

I guess I need to know to what extreme I should take this.

 

Tempest

[Tempest]

Oh, I alomst forgot. I'm willing to scan and link to all the label variations on the list if someone can provide the drive space (maybe if we split it up among a few people). I would host it on my page but I'm limited to 2MB because I'm using my free school account (I'm a cheap ******* ok?).

 

I don't know how much room it would take, I could probably keep each scan down to 20K or less (depends on the size you want).

 

Tempest

[Tempest]

One more question, should PAL labels be moved to another list? The PAL info on this list is woefully out of date.

 

Maybe I should just get rid of the pirate games. There are way too many for this list. I'll keep the PAL games on this list for now, but all those Tiwian pirate games have got to go.

 

Tempest

 

[ 05-03-2001: Message edited by: Tempest ]

[Tempest]

Ok, I know the last thing you want to read is another message from me but this is something I need to know before I can proceed to update the list.

 

Should I keep the list in the .txt format it's currently in or should I try and transfer it to the web? If we ever hope to put in pictures and hyperlinks then I guess it would have to be on the web. The only thing is that it would then take up a massive amount of room (even without pictures). The nice thing about it being in text format is that it's small and fairly printable (a web version with links going everywhere would be harder to print).

 

Should this list go Hi-tech or is simpler the better way? One problem I'm running into with this .txt format is the formatting is hard to control and looks cluttered. If I were to put it into something like Word or Excel it would like much nicer. But if I was going to do that I might as well go the HTML route.

 

Another thing to consider is that if it's in HTML format with hard coded links and a picture database it's impossible for other people to post it on their webpages. The old .txt list really got around, I'm not sure if this was a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe I should get rid of the old list all together and make a giant Label Variations List Database (similar to what this site has now).

 

What does everyone think? Am I getting way too involved with this? Should I just update the old list with a new format and be done with it? Or should I try to totaly redo it?

 

Tempest

[videotwit]

I have mixed feelings about the PAL labels.

 

On one hand, I think that the PAL variations probably don't belong on the list yet. There are SO MANY of them to start with, and so little is really known about them now they should probably be held off the list until more is known.

 

And yet, if you are going with the "a variation is a variation" ideal, they probably should should be kept somewhere.

 

I guess seperate lists would be the ideal here - kind of like version 5 of the DP Guide does it (Where if a game was released in the USA, it was listed on the NTSC list, but if it was a Non-US release, it was in a seperate section. This isn't actually NTSC vs. PAL, though - as most of the Taiwanese pirates were NTSC format, yet never released in the States, thus they were listed with the mostly-PAL non-US releases.)

 

I don't know, though... With the 2600 Community growing as it is, this might be a too US-centric way of thinking.

 

Thoughts? (Boy, am I being indecisive and generally all over the place today!)

 

~Scott