Did anyone buy Froggo games back in the day?

[nester]

The whole Froggo story really confuses me, and because they were rereleases of older games they dont get talked about much. Why release older unsuccessful games on a system that didnt have much support anymore? Were they hoping for a boost from the 7800? I was just wondering if anyone bought them back in the late 80s or remember seeing them in stores? Ive always been curious about that.

[BONEMAN]

I remember seeing them at KB Toys but I didn't buy any.

[Flojomojo]

If I recall, they were always cheaper than the games from other companies, am I right about that? I might be confusing them with US Games titles like Word Zapper, which were everywhere.

[TrekMD]

I only bought their 7800 games.

[Supergun]

I was very weary of Froggos 2600 carts. Several companies were renaming, repackaging, and re-releasing clones & copies of older games. It was a minefield. Many of my friends had gotten burned in the past during the Sears days so I was extra careful.

 

If you got lucky, you could sometimes spot this from a screenshot; if they even provided one. But it was still risky. And Atari coverage had all but disappeared from video game magazines by the late 80s.

 

In addition, I was supporting many game systems by then, all of them with better graphics then the 2600. So to get my attention at Lionel Play World and Toys R Us, you had to be special. River Raid 2 comes to mind. I saw that & picked it up immediately.

 

Telegames was one that had me guessing. I had seen there ads in the Atarian magazine, and I knew they had a ton of M Network clones. But one game intrigued me. Glacier Patrol. I was fairly certain that it was a (new) game, but I couldnt find it locally anywhere.

[+Atari_Warlord]

I bought the 7800 games from KB Toys I believe. The 2600 ones I picked up maybe 18 years ago, mint off of Ebay. Most people avoided these back in the day as they were known to be fairly bad.

[King Atari]

Why release older unsuccessful games on a system that didnt have much support anymore?

 

The 2600 and the 2600-capable 7800 were still being sold new on shelves, and even if they didn't exactly tear up the gaming scene in the U.S. like the NES did, there was still market there. (Plus, theoretically there had to still be plenty of people with the capability to play 2600 games, due to the boom earlier in the decade.) Considering video games were once again 'hot' by 1987/1988, it makes sense, business sense at least, to grab older, mostly-unknown titles (that I assume were pretty cheap to acquire) and repackage them as new, with only the slightest (if any) modifications to them. Activision, Epyx, Absolute and TNT (not to mention Atari themselves) all saw enough interest to commission actual new games, so I imagine Froggo saw some profit potential with these. I mean, there would HAVE to be, because otherwise why release anything at all? (Now, whether they actually TURNED a profit or not, I do not know.)

 

I'm not sure if this was at the same time as their 2600/7800 offerings, but Froggo did also try their hand at supporting the NES at some point. I don't *think* they released any games, but they did release some wireless controllers for the console.

 

Frankly, despite the poor quality of their 2600 library (though I do like Spiderdroid aka Amidar and Task Force aka Gangster Alley), I'm fascinated by the company. Some of their re-releases, while technically awful, are of otherwise wildly-obscure titles; how else would most of us be able to own Karate, after all? (Wait, is that a good thing or a bad thing?) Where did they come from? How long were they around? How many consoles did they attempt to support? (Were the 2600/7800/NES systems it, or...?) To me, Froggo really recalls the fly-by-night pre-crash companies that flooded the market with junk, but obviously in that post-crash era.

 

Also: dig the sheer insanity of their Spiderdroid backstory!

Edited January 31, 2019 by King Atari

[fiddlepaddle]

I was the rare weirdo still collecting Atari games when everyone said video games were dead...some time before Nintendo took over the market and shortly after Coleco swerved into the computer lane and flipped over the median.

 

I may have seen Froggo games on store shelves at Best Products, Service Merchandise, and/or Gemco department stores.

 

Perhaps a few months later, once I saw them in the $5 (or maybe even $1, not sure) bargain bin, I bought whatever unique titles I could find for my collection.

 

I also remember once I opened them up and played them, I merely confirmed to myself that they seemed to be on sale for good reason.

[moycon]

I remember seeing these at a Lionel Playworld back in the 80s. They we marked down via giant day-glow orange stickers to like $7.99. I knew from the back of the packages that these were just other games with slight variations, and at $7.99 passed because games could be found as low as .99 at that time. If they had been cheaper, I probably would have picked a few up at that time. As it was, I never did, in fact I don't think I have any of them even today.

[nester]

Frankly, despite the poor quality of their 2600 library (though I do like Spiderdroid aka Amidar and Task Force aka Gangster Alley), I'm fascinated by the company. Some of their re-releases, while technically awful, are of otherwise wildly-obscure titles; how else would most of us be able to own Karate, after all? (Wait, is that a good thing or a bad thing?) Where did they come from? How long were they around? How many consoles did they attempt to support? (Were the 2600/7800/NES systems it, or...?) To me, Froggo really recalls the fly-by-night pre-crash companies that flooded the market with junk, but obviously in that post-crash era.

 

Also: dig the sheer insanity of their Spiderdroid backstory!

That is some good copy! I don’t think there’s anything else in the game that they could’ve added the word droid to.

[retrogoober]

That is some good copy! I don’t think there’s anything else in the game that they could’ve added the word droid to.

You can droid that again

[fiddlepaddle]

That is some good copy! I don’t think there’s anything else in the game that they could’ve added the word droid to.

 

These aren't the droids you're looking for.

[nester]

This whole post is starting to give me droid rage.

[+cvga]

That is some good copy! I don’t think there’s anything else in the game that they could’ve added the word droid to.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. I endroid reading it!

[Syzygy1]

I was very weary of Froggos 2600 carts. Several companies were renaming, repackaging, and re-releasing clones & copies of older games. It was a minefield. Many of my friends had gotten burned in the past during the Sears days so I was extra careful.

 

If you got lucky, you could sometimes spot this from a screenshot; if they even provided one. But it was still risky. And Atari coverage had all but disappeared from video game magazines by the late 80s.

 

In addition, I was supporting many game systems by then, all of them with better graphics then the 2600. So to get my attention at Lionel Play World and Toys R Us, you had to be special. River Raid 2 comes to mind. I saw that & picked it up immediately.

 

Telegames was one that had me guessing. I had seen there ads in the Atarian magazine, and I knew they had a ton of M Network clones. But one game intrigued me. Glacier Patrol. I was fairly certain that it was a (new) game, but I couldnt find it locally anywhere.

What's THAT?

[Supergun]

Well, if you grew up in South Florida, (I myself was born & raised in Miami), then you were very familiar with Lionel Play World. Their mascot was actually a Kangaroo, much like Geoffrey the giraffe was for Toys R Us.

 

They had 2 or 3 locations, but the one in Westchester was hands down the Mecca of everything that mattered in the late 70s & early 80s. Lego sets, Atari games, Tyco race sets, train sets, and US-1 trucking. Etc.

 

I bought everything at that store in Westchester.

 

Toys R Us didnt have a foothold in Miami until the mid 80s. I dont think they even existed in the early 80s for that matter. I think 1983 was the first time I walked into a Toys R Us. For us, Atari systems & games could be purchased at these fine retailers:

 

Sears, Service Merchandise, Best Stores, Lurias, Burdines, Play World, Zayres, Odd Lots, Kay Bee Toys, Eckerd Drugs, Toys n Joys, and a few more Im sure, but I cant recall them all at the moment.

 

Toys R Us gained ground & overtook Play World when the NES took off. And by 1992 or so, Play World was history.

[+-^CrossBow^-]

I honestly never knew Froggo existed until I got into retro collecting in the very late 90s/early 2000s and found the 2600 nexus which, became AtariAge.

 

Same thing with many of the late release games. Once I got my first IBM clone in '89 I never looked at the 7800 again until a decade later and by then all the games that were later released had come and gone. Additionally, I do recall that both TRU and KayBee had Atari games, but for some reason I only bought most of mine from Service Merchandise and they stopped carrying Atari releases by about 90 or at least I never recalled seeing them on the pegboards to look at anymore by then.

 

So I was more surprised by the games that had been released I'd never heard about. Midnight Mutants and Scrapyard Dog come to mind as at least two of the titles I never knew about until I got back into the hobby to say nothing of the 2600 late released games.

 

So to answer you question..No I never bought Froggo game releases because again, I never knew it existed.

[Syzygy1]

Well, if you grew up in South Florida, (I myself was born & raised in Miami), then you were very familiar with Lionel Play World. Their mascot was actually a Kangaroo, much like Geoffrey the giraffe was for Toys R Us.

 

They had 2 or 3 locations, but the one in Westchester was hands down the Mecca of everything that mattered in the late 70s & early 80s. Lego sets, Atari games, Tyco race sets, train sets, and US-1 trucking. Etc.

 

I bought everything at that store in Westchester.

 

Toys R Us didnt have a foothold in Miami until the mid 80s. I dont think they even existed in the early 80s for that matter. I think 1983 was the first time I walked into a Toys R Us. For us, Atari systems & games could be purchased at these fine retailers:

 

Sears, Service Merchandise, Best Stores, Lurias, Burdines, Play World, Zayres, Odd Lots, Kay Bee Toys, Eckerd Drugs, Toys n Joys, and a few more Im sure, but I cant recall them all at the moment.

 

Toys R Us gained ground & overtook Play World when the NES took off. And by 1992 or so, Play World was history.

I was born in 2002 and I only been to TRU and KB Toys. I was born in the PS2 era. I mostly remember the game aisle at Kmart in Closter had games on a pegboard for me to look at, behind glass doors. Also games on shelves.

 

Did Lionel Play World happen to sell this at all? (Or TRU since this was the mid 80s?)