Purposely POOR PAC MAN 2600

[Albert]

Atari listed all of their 82 games for $37.99, but the price in stores ran from thirty to thirty-five for a new game at the time. The cheapest spots were department stores like Sears, the most expensive were electronics stores.

Cool, thanks for the clarification. What does that translate to in today's dollars?

 

..Al

To answer my own question, I used The Inflation Calculator to determine that $37.99 in 1982 would be worth $77.07 in 2005.

 

..Al

[NovaXpress]

I don't know, but I don't like it when people try to compare today's systems to what they would have been back in the day, counting for inflation. As the value of a dollar goes down, its not just retail prices that inflate. Wages inflate as well. So spending fifty bucks in 1982 was just as much of a bite as spending fifty bucks today, no more no less. Therefore new games were cheaper back then than they are today. The first cart to hit the fifty dollar mark was Colecovision Zaxxon, and that price wasn't equalled until after the crash. The first 2600 cart to break the 30-to-35 mark was ET at 40-45 bucks.

[jboypacman]

i dont think it was on purpose Atari wanted Pac-man out and for sell as quickly as they could knowing it was going to sell big time and the profits would be huge.

[Albert]

i dont think it was on purpose Atari wanted Pac-man out and for sell as quickly as they could knowing it was going to sell big time and the profits would be huge.

Yes, I'm sure that's all it was in reality: Pure corporate greed. Such shortsighted thinking continues to plague companies today.

 

..Al

[+FujiSkunk]

Yes, I'm sure that's all it was in reality: Pure corporate greed. Such shortsighted thinking continues to plague companies today.

 

Like Atari.

[NE146]

All this talk of the price back then just made me remember...

 

MY DAD GAVE AWAY MY PACMAN TO SOME CHINESE DIGNITARY!!!

 

 

I remember now. We had just gotten Pacman, and my dad who was big in Govt at the time was entertaining some Chinese officials back home and the guy asked my dad if he knew where he could get an Atari Pacman for his son since it was the hottest thing around and newly released. My dad of course instantly knew where there was one.. right at home with his son! So they drove by the house, my dad asked me for mine and gave it to the mutherfucker. Ahh buried memories.

[moycon]

This would explain NE146's deep and seething hatred for the Chinese.

[Godzilla]

that's just wrong. ya don't touch a kid's pacman. I'm still a fan of the original pac man, and nukeys amazing hack just proves it even more. The gameplay is still a lot of fun. The looking like it should have in the first place thing is just a great bonus :-)

[Bryan]

that's just wrong. ya don't touch a kid's pacman.

 

Or, how about:

 

that's just wrong. ya don't give a crappy game like Atari Pac-Man to a Chinese dignitary.

 

-Bry

[Nukey Shay]

Info about the 2600 Pac-Man's development have been reduced to "urban legend". The fact is that the only person who knows ANYTHING about it is Tod himself. So you can believe what you want to believe.

 

Facts: (according to him)

He wanted to be able to use bankswitching for the game, but the suits didn't agree (supposedly due to Asteroids hogging the only 8k workstation available). So he had to dump the more advanced multiplexing kernal (similar to 2600 Ms.PacMan's) planned for the game and use standard sprite flicker instead. This also limited other aspects of the game, because space was even more constrained.

 

 

BTW the hack I made is still using his kernal. So even if the "multiplexing kernal" in his statement never existed even as a pre-production idea, the game could have still been made much closer to the arcade game -IF- he would have had 8k to work with. Besides that, sprite multiplexing ideas have come a long way since then...so there's not much of a clue what his would have looked like if Atari would have agreed to his request. I've got no reason to doubt his statement...just as he would have no reason to lie about it (especially after 2 decades!).

[Pixelboy]

As a kid, I thought 2600 Pac-Man was pretty lame, but my biggest problem with it wasn't the graphics (I understood that the 2600 couldn't do the arcade game justice at the time). My biggest gripe was the controls: You had to be properly lined up with an intersection in the maze if you wanted to change direction, and that really ticked me off, because the arcade game is a bit more permissive in terms of cutting maze corners.

[Mr. Postman]

No matter which way you look at it, at least Ms. Pac-Man didn't turn out half bad IMO.

[homerwannabee]

This would explain NE146's deep and seething hatred for the Chinese.

This may also explain the Chinese deep hatred for the U.S.

[dwh]

I thought from the thread title that this would be like a challenge to make a "worse" pac-man.The game that won this contest would be determined by just how quickly the player cries and/or throws the joystick at the tv screen in a fit of rage.

The Chinese Connection mentioned above is priceless.

[WildBillTX]

I was in Jr College in 1982 and also working part time for a small 5000 watt AM station in Pawhuska OK. When Pac-Man for the 2600 came out the station ran a big weekend remote promotion with a local TV dealership who sold Atari consoles and carts. He must have sold 100 of them that week. (The town had no Wal-Mart then)

 

But looking back Atari had no clue that Pac-Man would create such a big backlash. Not only from gamers but from the new gaming magazines that were coming out then. After creating so many winning games that showed they gave a damn, they released a real turkey that caused a lot of people to jump the 2600 ship for home computers and other gaming systems.

Edited June 18, 2006 by WildBillTX

[jpfalcon2003]

could have been done purposely. Possible I guess. I don't think we'll ever know. We've all heard so many different versions of why the 2600 Pac-Man sucked. I'm so glad I wasn't playing video games when that bomb came out.lol

[moycon]

Was it really only $30? I don't remember, that's too long ago.

 

..Al

 

I just won a 1982 Sears Wish List (AKA Christmas Catalog) catalog off Ebay. I thought it would be cool looking through all those classic toys and games I drooled over as a kid. I dunno about other outlets, but soon I'll know exactly how much Sears was charging retail for Pac-Man that year. I'll post a pic of the video games page when I get it.

[G.Whiz]

But looking back Atari had no clue that Pac-Man would create such a big backlash. Not only from gamers but from the new gaming magazines that were coming out then. After creating so many winning games that showed they gave a damn, they released a real turkey that caused a lot of people to jump the 2600 ship for home computers and other gaming systems.

 

I think that an important side note too is that this is about the time that Activision and then Imagic began to show the world that there were more possiblities for the 2600 than blocky graphics. You start seeing sharper images, definite steps forward in graphics, and then Pac Man comes out for Atari and it's like Maze Craze except blockier with headache-inducing flicker.

 

I remember thinking that the future of carts was going to be in the hands of third-party vendors (okay, not that succinctly, but you get the point). It also wasn't that big of a disappointment for me -- I was never that big of a Pac Man fan anyway.

 

But it doesn underline the point -- Atari created production pieces on deadline (couldn't used the 8k, but couldn't delay for the sake of quality...!) while Activision et al. took the time to make masterpieces. Someone above mentioned "why would Atari want to sell crap after they built their consumer base" -- well, that's a big part of why they fell apart.

 

IMHO,

 

~G

[Room 34]

Was it really only $30? I don't remember, that's too long ago.

 

..Al

 

I just won a 1982 Sears Wish List (AKA Christmas Catalog) catalog off Ebay. I thought it would be cool looking through all those classic toys and games I drooled over as a kid. I dunno about other outlets, but soon I'll know exactly how much Sears was charging retail for Pac-Man that year. I'll post a pic of the video games page when I get it.

Well...

 

http://www.atariage.com/magazines/magazine...&CurrentPage=16

 

According to the Atari Club (a.k.a. Atari), in Dec. 1982 the list price for Pac-Man was $37.95 and the club was selling it for $33.95, which means you could probably buy it retail for $33.95 or less.

 

I already had Pac-Man by then... got it on the day I got my Atari in May 1982. I'm not positive what we paid for it, but I believe it was around $35.

[Philflound]

My friend collects tv guides, so if I ever run across the ad for it, then I'll see if I can get a scan. I still could swear it was like $55. I thought it was crazy at the time, and I sort of remember one of the kids in my class ordering it.

 

Phil

[moycon]

[According to the Atari Club (a.k.a. Atari), in Dec. 1982 the list price for Pac-Man was $37.95 and the club was selling it for $33.95, which means you could probably buy it retail for $33.95 or less.

 

Yep I already mentioned the Atari Age price of $37.99 in an earlier post. Will be interesting to see exactly how much the retail stores were selling it for that Christmas of 82. As far as I know the Sears catalogs would reflect the same price as was in their outlets. Unless Sears offered a discount for mail order.

[atm94404]

Info about the 2600 Pac-Man's development have been reduced to "urban legend". The fact is that the only person who knows ANYTHING about it is Tod himself. So you can believe what you want to believe.

 

Facts: (according to him)

He wanted to be able to use bankswitching for the game, but the suits didn't agree (supposedly due to Asteroids hogging the only 8k workstation available). So he had to dump the more advanced multiplexing kernal (similar to 2600 Ms.PacMan's) planned for the game and use standard sprite flicker instead. This also limited other aspects of the game, because space was even more constrained.

 

 

BTW the hack I made is still using his kernal. So even if the "multiplexing kernal" in his statement never existed even as a pre-production idea, the game could have still been made much closer to the arcade game -IF- he would have had 8k to work with. Besides that, sprite multiplexing ideas have come a long way since then...so there's not much of a clue what his would have looked like if Atari would have agreed to his request. I've got no reason to doubt his statement...just as he would have no reason to lie about it (especially after 2 decades!).

 

That jives with what I heard from Stephen Landrum (I used to work at the same company with him). Atari didn't try to make Pac Man bad, but they didn't think the extra memory was worth it. They thought it would sell without the better programming and they were interested in maximizing profits after agreeing to Frye's "bonus". Landrum (who made Starpath Frogger- so he knows what a huge difference a little extra memory can make in a 2600 game) said that the 8K version did exist and was light years better.

As for the colors, Atari designers knew from Pong and their early games that they couldn't have high contrast colors for static backgrounds (i.e. the maze) because tv sets from those days were VERY susceptible to burn in. That's also why all Atari games cycle the color palette when they finish. Imagine a kid playing Pac Man for six hours a day for a few weeks. Bright blue on black would have left a burn-in on those old tv sets.

[NovaXpress]

As for the colors, Atari designers knew from Pong and their early games that they couldn't have high contrast colors for static backgrounds (i.e. the maze) because tv sets from those days were VERY susceptible to burn in. That's also why all Atari games cycle the color palette when they finish. Imagine a kid playing Pac Man for six hours a day for a few weeks. Bright blue on black would have left a burn-in on those old tv sets.

That's nonsense. First of all, burn-in wasn't that big an issue. Second, bright colors on black made up the majority of 2600 games so it's clear that no one was avoiding it.

 

It took an extremely long time to cause burn-in, even back then.

[carmel_andrews]

Aparrently it only took about 8-9 weeks for the 2600 version to be programmed, remembering ofcourse that Atari had just succeeded in suing philips/magnavox over the oddysey game 'KC Munchkin' (which was a pacman lookie likee) as well as pacman variants from Activision and commodore and that Atari had to get pacman product onto the marketplace, thats's why Atari did a 'rush job' on the 2600 version of pacman

[NovaXpress]

Atari did not have to do a "rush job" in order to protect their rights. They owned the license for a home version of Pac-Man. It didn't matter if they ever released the game, they still held the rights to those characters.

 

What Pac-Man variant from Activision? The only company Atari sued over this issue was Magnavox (and they didn't win the case until a year after KC hit the shelves). Other Pac-clones such as Munchie for the Astrocade voluntarily faded away.