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RCA Video Game Club


JayAre

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I came across this ad for the RCA Video Game Club, which I had never heard of.  The club seems to be very similar to the Columbia House Video Game Club, and included a club catalog that members would periodically receive.  There doesn't appear to be any info. online on the RCA club.

 

A few interesting things about the ad.  It states that all the games in the ad are playable on the Atari VCS.  But one of the games is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons from Intellivision; the box is for the original AD&D game, Cloudy Mountain, while the gamescreen appears to be for AD&D: Treasure of Tarmin.  Also, the box and gamescreen for Burgertime, as well as the gamescreen for TRON Deadly Discs correspond to the Intellivision version of the games.

 

Was anyone ever a member of the RCA Video Game Club?  Does anyone still have the club's game catalog?  I'd love to see what it looks like.  Thanks.

 

image.thumb.png.418d2f3efb350ef28fa71340254b642d.png

 

image.thumb.png.f60dfeb2ebac9221fd64d7ff408e817f.png

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Actually, once upon several times, I belonged to both the Columbia and RCA (LP) Record clubs, which I bet these game clubs were modeled after. You received a new one every month unless you sent in a "no thanks" checkbox, through the mail of course, and you paid full list price plus inflated S&H. BUT, at each sign up time, I got something like 20 LPs I could choose. It was great. Even after the obligatory purchases, it was still worth the money, plus it was a really easy way to try out a bunch of music. They primarily pushed overstock and (probably paid) placement ads for the acts they marketed, I think.

The dates I see in this game club ad are 1982, so probably mostly overstock?

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10 minutes ago, fiddlepaddle said:

The dates I see in this game club ad are 1982, so probably mostly overstock?

That sounds logical but given that one of the games was never released for the vcs, it doesn't feel like overstock. I'm guessing they got a great deal (quantity discount) by pushing those 6 games plus as you mentioned, additional ad revenue.

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I remember reading somewhere that these record club companies would also manufacture their own versions of the LPs & CDs.  I guess they made even more money that way.  In the attached pic, you can see the disclaimer on the bottom-left corner.

 

I don't know if they did this with the video game clubs though.  If they did, would that open up a somewhat new category of box variants?

 

Vintage Cd's LED ZEPPELIN HOUSES of the Holy 1987 image 4

Edited by JayAre
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