I wanted to do
something special in remembrance of the Atari 2600 (or VCS,
whatever) so I sat down today to write out a short but detailed
history about the first successful video game console the world has
ever seen. I'm going to call it, “From Beep to Bloop: A Looking back at
the Atari 2600”. Not a bad little title, eh?
Most people may already
know what I'm about to discuss and that's fine, many may not known
the detailed history of Atari and it's first major breakthrough in
home video game consoles, so I'll take my time and explain it all so
newcomers can understand. Heck, maybe you've been a 2600 fan and
collector and still don't know the interesting details of the
consoles life, if that's the case and you happen to be reading this
than allow me to thank you for taking the time to do so and please
get comfortable and enjoy the history lesson.
In the early 70's a guy
named Nolan Bushnell created a game known as Pong that would help to
launch the arcade movement and bring electronic video games into the
public eye. After founding Atari in 1972, Bushnell decided that Pong
was going to be the company's first major foray into what would be
known as “video games” and launched Pong into a few remote
locations in hopes that people would pay to play the unit. The game
began to bring in a steady income for Atari and eventually Bushnell
and the rest of his Atari crew released the machine into more
locations and eventually manufactured a home unit in 1975 that would
go on and become popular with consumers. Once Bushnell saw that there
was a market for playing video games inside of the home he went to
discuss with it team that there may be a market for a machine that
could play more than one game, that maybe they could create a console
that would play individual games that people could purchase to play
on the unit. It didn't take long before things were rolling and the
“Atari VCS” (Video Computer System”).
Now, the VCS wouldn't
be the first home video game machine to play cartridge based games,
that would go to the “Fairchild Channel F”, a console that went
on sale about a year previous to the VCS but lacked games and a user
base. The Fairchild saw a very limited release and had an even more
limited library of games and the folks behind the unit quickly faded
after the machine went to market. Atari knew they had already won
over consumers with Pong and that they could change the way that
people spent time with each other in their living rooms and Nolan
wanted to release a machine that would launch a revolution. After a
year or so of messing around with demo units and production kits
Atari finally finished the project and released the VCS in the Fall
of 1977.
The system launched
with 9 games but it took a while to catch on with consumers and Atari
struggled with the VCS during the Christmas seasons of 1977 and 1978,
it brought Nolan Bushnell to believe that maybe Atari should
discontinue the VCS and move onto something else. The fact that
copycat consoles that played VCS games were coming out almost weekly
just added more feul to the fire and Nolan was adamant about Atari
dumping the 2600 in favor of new technology. Atari would have done
just that too if not for Time Warner purchasing Atari in 1976. The
reason for the sale is that Time Warner saw some profit in Atari
prior to the launch of the VCS and bought the company from Nolan for
about $32M. When things began to run quirky for Atari after the 2600
saw life on retail shelves Warner brought in a man named Ray Kassar
to oversee the daily operations over at Atari in hopes that he would
discover what wasn't running properly and fix it. Kassar was a true
professional in every aspect and Warner knew that he could step in
and right the ship toward success, something Atari heavily needed and
quickly. Instead of agreeing to new technology Kassar did some
research and found some ways to improve the VCS and to build a user
base who would purchase games for the unit.
One of the first things
the company decided to do was to license a highly popular arcade game
known as “Space Invaders” for it's VCS system, which was
something that has never been done before and a move that Atari hoped
would become the first must have game on their home console. It
worked. Atari began moving 2600's out of their warehouse in
tremendous speed and Space Invaders became the highest selling home
video game of all-time at that point in time, the mothership was
happy and Kassar looked like a genius. The problem was that behind
the scenes things weren't looking so hot for Bushnell as he created a
lot of issues behind closed doors and his actions brought Time Warner
and Ray Kassar to let him go. Luckily for Bushnell is that because of
contractual obligations he was still going to receive a paycheck
based upon the success of the VCS and he stood to make a killing for
doing absolutely nothing. Nolan, forever the hungry business man, would
eventually make a comeback and go on to create a highly popular chain
of pizza and arcade restaurants known as Chuck E. Cheese.
Meanwhile at Atari
things were off and running. On top of the success of the 2600 Atari
decided to release the 5200 sometime in late 1982, yet the 2600
remained the king of the mountain of video game consoles. The 5200
was not a commercially successful unit at all and was discontinued a
mere 2 years after it's release. As the success of the 2600 continued
to rise the company licensed more highly successful arcade games like
Asteroids, Missile Command, and Defender for release on the VCS and
the system was finding it's way into homes from from coast to coast,
Kassar and Atari couldn't have been more pleased as their financials
skyrocketed and the 2600 was gearing up for another remarkable year.
At one point during this stretch of success it's been noted that
Atari was bringing in a third of Time Warner's income and profit,
that's a lot of revenue to be bringing in for a massive media mecca
such as Time Warner and the folks at Atari were on top of the world
and extremely happy. Well, the powers that be were happy I guess I
should say, not the developers.
Eventually more massive
hits would find a home on the VCS with companies like Activision and
Imagic coming into the fold. The short of the story here is that many
of the game developers and programmers at Atari became very upset
over Kassar's rule of not wanting game developers being credited for
their work and eventually branched off to create their own companies.
Some of the 2600's best games would come out between 1981-1982 with
huge titles like Pitfall, Cosmic Arc, and a slew of sports games that
would bring a whole new dimension to Atari's console despite Atari's
disdain for these companies to be producing games for the VCS. Atari
would even fight the case in court, but came up short multiple times.
After enjoying a few
years of much needed and much deserved success in the home video game
market, Atari began to make some poor decisions and blew away
hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to scoop up as much
licensing as possible. The Colecovision and the Intellevision were
both on store shelves and were considered threats to Atari's throne
for a short while and many consumers were left unimpressed by many of
the games that saw release on the VCS in 1983/1984. Two of the
biggest games in question were the arcade port of Pac-Man and the
movie adaption of E.T, two games that Atari had poured millions and
millions of dollars into in hopes that the games would help to move
more 2600's into living rooms. They manufactured more cartridges than
people owned VCS units and paid out the nose for Pac-Man and E.T to
find a home on their console which helped to buy Atari a massive loss
in 1983 and cause the higher up's to re-think the brand as a whole.
Pac-Man was released to
huge numbers despite the game not resembling the arcade version
whatsoever. Millions of people purchased the game with most being
disgusted at how the game looked and controlled in comparison to the
arcade, this caused a lot of returns and a stream of negative press
that hurt Atari's reputation in a medium in which they had the
biggest hand in creating. Personally, I loved Pac-Man on the VCS as a
kid and played the game to no end and still even enjoy it to this
day, but I can see where people would be upset with it seeing as how
it's nothing like it's arcade father. But hey, I was a kid and had no
idea that Pac-Man was a “bad game”, but as an adult I can see
it's flaws and can see that the game was very rushed and very
unpolished.
E.T was the final nail
in the coffin. The game was over manufactured much like Pac-Man was
but the issue was is that the sales figures couldn't keep a title
like this afloat and when orders for the game ended up being poor to
mediocre at best Atari was left with warehouses worth of product that
they couldn't move. I was surprised as an adult to read about E.T
selling poorly, especially since most ever kid I've ever known owned
a copy of the game back in the mid 80's when I was actively playing.
Heck, I didn't even know there was a video game crash going on, I
just played the games happily in my room and ignored the real world.
In fact, I played E.T quite often as a child and really liked it.
Well, because Atari was left with millions of unsold carts they
decided to do something that still hangs in video game lore to this
day. As the tale goes, Atari crushed, dumped, and buried what was
rumored to be between 10-20 dump trunks worth of inventory in a
desert landfill in New Mexico. When they realized that the dump site
was being looted by locals they sent in more trucks to pour cement
over the lot so that it would become inaccessible.
The story of the
dumping has become such a huge part of video game history and lore
that people from Atari have both confirmed and denied the rumor, but
it all depends on who you talk to. More to the rumor is that it
wasn't just E.T cartridges that were buried in the landfill and that
many rare prototypes, games, and systems were a part of the dumpings
too. Whether it's true or not still remains a mystery to this day and
it wasn't long until Time Warner sold Atari off and the VCS and the
5200 found themselves heavily discounted in retail outlets until they
were phased out all together.
Well, that's it for
now! That's my account of the history of the Atari VCS/2600 and I
personally hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing
it. Until we meet again dear friends, keep on retro gaming!
Twitter - @OfficialRVGA
© 2013 Bill Mulligan
