DJ Badger

Atari 2600 "Chase the Chuck Wagon," in the box with the instructions in great shape... $265 plus shipping from an eBay dealer in 2001. I can still remember asking my girlfriend at the time to go into the living room... so that I could concentrate on dropping in my bid towards the end, and so that she wouldn't see how much I was paying for an Atari game! After it was over and I'd paid, I discussed the game with the dealer. He admitted that he'd paid $10 for a batch of carts that included this one at a garage sale. These days, I've got a wife and two kids, so I can't go throwing that kind of money around anymore. But, in retrospect, if I could go back to that fateful day in 2001, I have absolutely no doubt that I would have made the exact same bid and purchase.

I had somehow gotten "out of the loop" and just found out about this yesterday. Luckily, I got in my pledge for that final copy of the limited edition yesterday evening. Whew! I'm looking forward to this!

I, too, am very much looking forward to purchasing the boxed edition of this, along with Zippy and hopefully Ladybug as well. Thank you as usual for all of you hard work in producing these!

You are very welcome! I'm honoured to have been able to contribute.

It also has no screen shots, with a description of the game:

Yep, I do. I don't post nearly as often as a lot of people here, but I've been extremely fortunate in my Atari collecting over the years. I remember being told by Jerry Greiner back in the 1990s that he didn't have a black "Halloween" box, but that just made me think that some copies were released in black boxes and others in orange box. I had no idea that the black box was a prototype box. Cool! I bought my CIB "Halloween" from Villa Video for about $16-$17 back in the day... along with a copy of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" with manual for about $13 or so. I eventually bought a red-box copy of "TCM" on eBay in the mid-2000s for a decent chunk... but I kept my first copy around as well. It would be awesome to be able to purchase a black "TCM" box as well and have two CIB copies in my collection. I decided to include my boxed copy of "Quadrun" in the picture as well. I bought that one from another collector for $35 + shipping way back in my early Internet days - probably 1996 or 1997. Neither the seller (who had set the price, incidentally) nor I realized exactly how rare it was at the time. I've been very, very lucky. [There are a few other pictures of my collection on this 2004 OKGE gallery page... 107.jpg, 108.jpg, and 109.jpg, specifically.]

I didn't realize that the black box for "Halloween" was rarer; I've had my black box since buying it CIB from Villa Video way back in the mid-1980s!

I received mine today. I'm thrilled. It's wonderful to such an unusual piece of Atari history in my collection, and I'm very happy to have it. The game's fun, the box was well-done, and it was securely packaged. Many, many thanks! However... I do need to note one thing: No offense, of course... but hopefully you'll correct the spelling of "Massacre" on the label before these go to print! Thanks again... I'm looking forward to this! It's a minor, minor deal... but the copy I received ended up with the "Masacre" misspelling on the front label as well as the end label. That was rather surprising. Still... It's a great piece, and I'm very pleased to have it. Thank you again!

For me, the box has always been a BIG deal. Even back when I was a kid, collecting in the early 1980s, I made a special point of keeping my Atari game boxes in good condition. For the most part, I don't feel like I really "own" the game until I have ALL the pieces that I would have gotten if I'd bought the game in a store as a child. These days, I'm extremely fortunate to have over 300 games CIB - including "Quadrun," "Q*Bert's Qubes," and "Rescue Terra I." Way back in 1985-1986, I made one of the few purchases I've ever made of a "non-complete" game, ordering "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," with the manual, from Villa Video for $12 or so (along with a CIB copy of "Halloween" for about $16-$17). It always irritated me that I didn't have a "complete" copy of "TCM." In the early-to-mid-2000s (when I had zero children and thus a lot more spare money), I saw a boxed copy on eBay, and I told myself I WOULD have it. If I remember correctly, I paid $205 plus shipping for it - just to get the box. My boxed copy of "Chase the Chuck Wagon" was also an eBay win - $265 plus shipping in 2001. I would not have bid nearly as much (or most likely at all) if it hadn't been a boxed copy. (For contrast, my CIB "Quadrun" cost $35 plus shipping from an online dealer in the mid-1990s... neither the dealer nor I realized exactly what a steal I was getting at the time.) I've had one particularly painful instance in the past in which my "box vanity" bit me in the butt. Back in the 1980s, one of the Tulsa Kay-Bee Toys locations brought in a batch of "Swordquest: Waterworld" carts for a whopping $12.95. I thought the "Swordquest" series sucked, so I spent my money on other games, knowing they'd still have "Waterworld" around for a while. The next week, I went in and they were down to one last copy of "Waterworld." I told myself that I'd hold off, because the box had a dent in it, and I would just wait until they got another shipment. They never received another shipment, and through a series of bad circumstances and comic misadventures, "Waterworld" has continued to be my "white whale." Eventually, if I win the lottery, perhaps I will be able to purchase a complete copy. I have no interest in an incomplete copy. On a related note... if anyone ever has a box for "Track + Field" that they'd like to sell, please send me a PM. I can't offer CRAZY money for it, but over time I've acquired all the parts except the box, and I'd love to make it "complete."

Seob, thank you very much for posting those ads. Indeed, Electronic Arts had some of my favourite gaming ads back in the day, because they so very blatantly showed off the people responsible for providing us with such entertainment. Because there are so many people involved in each game's production these days, it would be impossible to do something like this for any mainstream entertainment software product... so these ads end up being (in my opinion) beautiful reminders of a much simpler and wonderful time.

The first game that came to mind when I saw the subject was "Dragonstomper." As far as adventure/RPG games went, that was the most technically remarkable game that I could remember from that era. But, then, just a few moments later, I thought... "Is it really my favourite from that genre?" No, it's not. "Adventure" holds a much bigger place in my heart, and I have much more enjoyable memories of playing "Adventure" than I do of playing "Dragonstomper." Plus, it was a long time after I got "Adventure" that I found out about the transmolecular dot and the secret room, which gave me a whole new reason to play it. That added even more adventure to, well, "Adventure."

My first computer was a TRS-80 Colour Computer, one of the big silver beasts with 32K of RAM. That was in 1983, if I remember correctly. In 1985, I upgraded to an Apple IIe.

Oh, that is awesome! I especially like the hand at the bottom "locking" the floppy disk. Thanks for sharing that!

Well, it certainly means a lot to me. I've been having fun going over a lot of those early advertisements and articles as well. If you find the ad, I'll be overjoyed. I did have a fleeting thought cross through my mind when I started thinking about whether or not I could be more grossly mistaken about details than I'd thought: Could this ad have been from Infocom instead of Electronic Arts? That feeling nagged at me for a while in the back of my brain... but after a good deal of thought, I am almost positive that the advertisement was posted by Electronic Arts. I do want to clarify something: I don't think that this ad showed pictures of any of the games, although I could be wrong. It was like a public service announcement that EA posted to tell people "When you pirate the games we produce instead of paying for them, that has an effect on us." It didn't really focus on any particular games, as far as I can remember; it was just a direct statement to say, "Hey... please stop copying our stuff." :badger:

Seob, Thank you very much for checking. I haven't been able to find it in my recent searching on digitalpress either. I am almost positive that the ad was done in black-and-white, and it was definitely geared towards computer gamers rather than console gamers. If I remember correctly, it was done in the same style as their classic "We See Farther" poster, shown here: http://www.digitpress.com/library/posters/ea_poster.pdf So, if they used any colour in the advertisement at all... there wasn't much. It definitely wouldn't have been a "flashy" ad. It was very direct and straightforward. Also, I remember the advertisement being at least a full page. I could be wrong there, and I'm not ruling out that it could be easily be another computer-oriented magazine. I'm definitely getting old... and I will readily admit that I don't remember all of the details. However, I do remember the advertisement existing, and that "pizzas we'll never eat" became embedded in my memory. The whole thing was such a straightforward and simple plea to their customer base, and I found it very impressive. I feel extremely grateful to everyone who has helped look for this so far. I certainly haven't intended to lead anyone on a wild goose chase or a snipe hunt. Thank you again!

I know what you mean! I have a wife, a four-year-old son, a three-week old son, a full-time job, and multiple hobbies to juggle (including DJing, of course, and a pretty intense music obsession). I know how precious the "spare" time can be. Wow! Thank you! I'm flattered that you're seeking it as well as jtoubeaux. I've been looking through some of the mags on digitalpress to which NE146 pointed me... so I might find it after all. It means a lot to have others looking at the same time... but I want to emphasize that this is not a huge priority for me. I don't have a project that urgently requires it or anything like that. I'll be THRILLED to find it... but don't take too much time out of your lives to help me with this weird little search. Thank you for this! I was pretty sure that the ad I saw was from 83-85, back when EA used to post the black-and-white photos of their programmers in their ads... but I'm not ruling out that the ad could have been from up in the late 1980s as well. Obviously, if I find it, I'll let you all know. Thanks again!

I actually did not realize that. WOW! Thank you very much; I really appreciate it!

Awesome! Thank you very much!

I have been driving myself nuts trying to find a copy of an advertisement that Electronic Arts ran in magazines back in the early-to-mid 1980s (most likely 1984-1985). I distinctly remember seeing the advertisement multiple times, most likely in either Electronic Fun with Computers and Games or Electronic Games magazine. This was way back when Electronic Arts featured pictures of the actual programmers in their advertisements, like Jon Freeman, Anne Westfall, Dan Bunten, and Bill Budge. The ad I've been hunting was an anti-piracy ad - fairly revolutionary for its time - taking up at least a full magazine page, and possibly even a double-page spread. It tried to put a more human face on the losses that they would suffer as the result of software piracy. I specifically remember the ad stating that when someone illegally copied their games, "That's movies we'll never see and pizzas we'll never eat." I've quite literally been wanting to find a scanned copy of this advertisement for several years, and it just now dawned on me that I might be able to request it via AtariAge. So, I figured it was worth a shot! Does anyone else remember the ad to which I'm referring? Thank you very much! Badger (PS: Please, please don't let this thread devolve into a piracy vs. anti-piracy argument, as that wasn't my intention at all. Thank you in advance for your understanding.)

No offense, of course... but hopefully you'll correct the spelling of "Massacre" on the label before these go to print! Thanks again... I'm looking forward to this!

How about a Superman comic book maybe? Or was it really just a sales gimmick? I seriously think it was just a sales gimmick. The price was the same as most other popular games at the time, and there were no extras included. The box just contained the cartridge, the manual, an Atari catalog, and (most likely) a warranty registration card or something like that. There was nothing special that differentiated it from the packaging or presentation of any other Atari game of its time, except for that "Special Edition" corner banner.

Agreed. I received my "Special Edition" Superman as one of my Christmas gifts along with my original VCS thirty years ago. It was a text-label cart, not a picture-label cart, and I, too, remember wondering why it was a "Special Edition" version at the time. It was a good theory, though! [it's also worth noting that there was no wallet included.]

Holy cow! Congratulations... that's beautiful!

PM sent! This looks beautiful. I'm okay with any number.

WOW! I didn't even know about this prototype until I saw this thread today. It looks like the double-enders are already spoken for, but I'll be happy to purchase a CIB special edition. Thank you!