Pitfall Harry

If Air Raid has a pause feature, I think they should have called it Men-A-Pause. -Ben

Oh, right. I forgot to take into account the crazy high eBay fees. With that in mind, my appraisal falls pretty much in line with yours. You've got a CIB copy of it, huh? Sweet! Do you have the $5,000 contest entry form insert too? -Ben

Hello, I've recently become aware my "complete" boxed copy of Keystone Kapers for the Atari 2600 isn't as complete as I thought it was. Activision included a Scratcher (like a lottery card) Game card inside the Keystone Kapers game box as an insert, and mine seems to have gotten lost. If anyone has one to sell (preferably an un-"scratched" card), I'm looking to buy. -Ben

Yep. Cosmetic condition plays a critical factor in the value of games in the rarity class of Rescue Terra I. And yeah, your game is pretty darned rare. But some will consider the bubbling of the label in your cartridge pic as "damaged". Others, not so much. Another critical factor in assessing value to a game like RTI is: how much fun is it to play? Many of the extreme rarities in the Atari 2600 library of games are not very much fun to play, which is a contributing reason for why they are as rare as they are in the first place -- the games sucked, nobody bought them, and therefore those games suffered the consequence of earning only very limited production runs. Rescue Terra I is a double rarity, as it is a super rare game that is also a great deal of fun to play. The RARE + FUN synergy working for RTI makes the game considerably more valuable to those that are aware of this. Rescue Terra I has long been one of my favorite Atari 2600 games, which is why I almost compulsively note its selling price whenever it pops up for sale or for auction on eBay. Earlier this month, for example, a copy of RTI sold at auction on eBay for $195. There were some 20 bidders competing for its purchase. That game was in much better cosmetic condition than yours, with no readily noticeable signs of label damage. It also came with its original Instruction Manual, also in very good condition. So you can use that as something of a baseline for the value of the THAT game, with YOUR cartridge-only copy of it being worth somewhat less than that. But not a lot less. With games this rare and this fun to play, many collectors looking to add RTI to their collections will be very forgiving about its cosmetic condition so long as it plays. And these are the types of collectors you want to attract to your "silent" auction anyway. These are the collectors who will actually end up buying it from you. Based on the above considerations, along with other observations I've made about the selling price of this game over the years, I would assess the value of your game at around $120. If you get lucky and two bidders get caught up in a bidding war over your game, you can always make a crazy amount more. But I wouldn't expect to get too much more than about $120 for it. I won't be making an offer, because I already have a copy of this game. But best of luck with your auction! -Ben

Space Invaders is a pretty good title to have as a first Atari cartridge. My first Atari cartridge came with an Atari 800 Home Computer I bought at a yard sale, years ago. It was Caverns of Mars, also a pretty good first Atari cartridge. I can't recall the first 2600 cartridge I owned, but it was probably something ordinary like Combat, which is still a lot of fun to play as a 2-player game. Be careful, though. 30 or so years from now you may find yourself with more Atari cartridges than you know where to put them. Kinda like The Trouble with Tribbles episode from the original Star Trek series, only more adorable. -Ben

Atari heavy 6 Atari light 6 Atari 4-switch Vader Atari Jr. small rainbow Atari Jr. Long rainbow Atari Jr. with 64 games built in (from Argentina, I think) Atari 5200 VCS adapter Sears Telegames 6 Sears Video Arcade II Coleco Gemini Colecovision/Atari2600 adapter module Intellivision/Atari2600 adapter module ...and multiple copies of each. Just in case. -Ben

I may sound preachy, but only because I feel passionate about issues of software piracy and IP theft in particular. I merely took a stand and stated my opinions on a very polarizing issue. Hard to believe in this day and age, huh? Someone who is actually willing to take a stand on a matter of consequence. But I am not trying to change anyone. I am not about imposing my beliefs on others, nor am I motivated to diminish your argument by taking it apart on a point by point basis as you have now done. I believe there is plenty of room on this forum for multiple viewpoints, including yours. I've said all I am going to say about this issue, and I shall now abandon this thread for good. The OP has long since sold his games, and this lingering thread is now showing all the signs of turning ugly. And nobody wants that. Do have a great day! -Ben

AI is an unstoppable force. We're really in for it now. -Ben

Well, after reading all of two sentences about the matter, I believe the guy skipped a very important step by not securing the intellectual property rights to Leisure Suit Larry prior to developing a derivative product based on it, made from scratch or otherwise. There could be other mitigating circumstances beyond your two sentences that may color my view, but I doubt by much. Why did he skip that step? I have no problem with this guy developing an unauthorized game for his own personal amusement. Or even uploading the .bin file -- for free -- for others to enjoy the fruits of his hard work via emulation. It's when he begins financially profiting from his unauthorized game that I object to. If he lives in a country where U.S. copyright laws cannot be enforced, that still does not matter very much to me. By neglecting to secure the IP rights to the original game CONCEPT and to its CHARACTERS, and then selling his game based on it, he has crossed a serious ethical line. He has made the conscious decision to profit from IP theft. This is just flat out wrong. Theft should never be rewarded, regardless of whether you live in a country where IP theft is legally enforceable or not. And if this guy finds himself getting sued by Sierra Entertainment (or whoever the legal copyright holders of LSL may now be), I gotta say he has it coming to him. Intellectual property rights theft may not matter much to you, but it does to me. If this guy intends to sell his game for any amount greater than the cost of materials to manufacture it, I surely won't be one of his customers. I cannot condone software piracy (which this is clearly not), nor can I condone or support unethical profiteering (which this clearly is). As a member of the human race, I feel an obligation to be better than that. If I sound a little "preachy," may I remind you that you did ask me how I felt about projects such as this. Oh, and I think Infocom created a similar game in The Leather Goddesses of Phobos, except they did it much better. I love that game! -Ben

I have only two Sprintmaster cartridges, but both slip easily in and out of the cartridge slot on multiple different Atari 2600 console models. The labels on both of my games say they were made in Hong Kong. So now I am wondering whether your game cart was made somewhere else, where quality control was somewhat less carefully monitored than at other production sites. If there are any other than Hong Kong. Someone else mentioned that your cartridge appears to be coming apart a little. I can see a definite gap in the cartridge case along the seam. That little gap may account for some of the width discrepancy you are recording, but not all of it. The calipers do not lie. You are not crazy. -Ben

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Hahaha. I do exactly the same thing. Every time. -Ben

I don't know anything about it. Sorry. Perhaps you can enlighten me with some details. -Ben

Yes, I totally agree there is no need to introduce politics into a gaming and collecting website. I do apologize for a lapse of good judgement. At least I am not calling other AtariAge members "snobbish" or "ignorant." -Ben

Thousands of VCS cartridges have passed through my hands over the years, but I have never encountered a problem with one not fitting into the slot. Maybe I got lucky. You could try opening up the cartridge shell, removing the ROM card, and transplanting it to a different cartridge shell. If you're careful, you can remove the original label and affix it to your new cartridge too. Or you could slap a reproduction label on it for little cost. It may be even cheaper, though, just to buy another Sprintmaster cartridge. But then, you might run into the same problem if they are all 1 mm wider than other cartridges. Still, many thousands of people have bought Sprintmaster and got it to fit in their Ataris. Maybe the problem you have is that your VCS console slot wasn't quite made to specification. Now I have to go find me a pair of calipers and measure my Sprintmaster carts. I'll get back to you. -Ben