Andre81

Yes, got the game from the photo. $12 is a great price. Took me forever to find this one sealed.

Sealed first release Demon Attack: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 321645694412

With such an attitude he'll never beam you up to his spaceship.

I have two odd games in my collection. One is a PAL Bowling sold at Hills Department Stores and the other is a PAL Berzerk sold at Boscov's. Boxes are the PAL release, even have a "P" sticker on them and the cartridges are also PAL. The only explanation I have is that they made a mistake and accidently delivered the wrong game to the stores. But wouldn't the customer have complained about a rolling screen and returned the game? Does anyone else have PAL games sold in a US store in his collection?

Does anyone need more proof that stupid BIN prices will cause more stupid BIN prices? I don't even bother to make those sellers a fair offer, it's a waste of time. I enjoy seeing such listings rot on eBay. eBay Auction -- Item Number: 130946733304 eBay Auction -- Item Number: 281554299391

Absolutely. If you want 3 copies you now get combined shipping!

Those of you that say certain resellers offer a service may want to have a look at the Marauder thread. What kind of service is it to buy up all available Marauder cartridges for $25 each and relist them for $179.99?

The new price for a lose Marauder is $179.99. eBay Auction -- Item Number: 301474729938

With your logic you also couldn't make price catalogs without licensing every single picture. Back in 1980 I would have agreed as Atari could have claimed that you are doing business with unlicensed images. Like making your own Football trading cards of the current season. You may want to read on Wikipedia what kind of images can be used and which not.

And if you consider the inflation over 800 years then $99.50 is pretty cheap!

Should be fair use.

The date is on the small flap on the bottom, usually only the front and back is scanned and not the flat box with flaps.

In my Excel sheet I have the actual release date and the announced release date. I'd put both dates on your website and list it under July. Most games have been released after the announced date, but some were actually available earlier.

I would sell you my sealed copy for $150, but unfortunately I'm generally not considered a reputable seller

Buyers beware, JasonlikesINTV wants that game, don't dare to bid!

In retrospect you could see the crash coming as early as December 1981. From the Videogaming Illustrated from August 1982: "All in all, Skeet Shoot wasn't a spectacular game to start off with," concedes Emmitt Crawford, Apollo's director of public relations. He acknowledges that the graphics were flat, little more than a bor flinging pellets at a small saucer. To make matters worse, a high percentage of the cartridges had to be recalled due to image roll. But Skeet Shoot managed to cash in on the lucrative Christmas buying season and, more important, made dealers and consumers alike aware of the new company. One month after the inauspicious debut of Skeet Shoot, the company released the better-conceived, more topical Spacechase. This time, both the graphics and subject were worth writing home about. As commander of three Mark 16 starcruisers, the player is required to beat back alien raiders who, materializing from hyperspace, mercilessly fire neutron missiles and heat-seeking proton missiles as they attack from all sides. With its scrolling planet surface and fast-paced action, Spacechase was an immediate hit. Crawford says it's presently back-ordered to the tune of nearly 200,000 cartridges "and," he marvels, "even Skeet Shoot is still hanging in there," with several thousand orders waiting to be filled as Apollo's production schedule allows. (Source: http://www.digitpress.com/library/magazines/vg_ill/videogaming_ill_aug82.pdf) A director of public relations who admits that his game sucks but is still on backorder should have been a warning that the video game industry is waiting for a disaster to happen. So again, 1982 was the cause of the crash. Retailers ordered a ton of crap and everyone had a party in 1982. The hangover started 1983 when all this crap was still sitting in the warehouses.

For Garry Kitchen the crash indeed happened in 1984. In 1983 he was busy programming such blockbusters as Keystone Kapers. In 1983 Activision still released many new games. It was 1984 when they stopped making new games. So when he say in an interview that the crash happened in 1984 that is absolutely true for him. You just need to put it into the perspective of an programmer at Activision.

EXACTLY! Everything else than boring numbers and data are just opinions and conclusions. When I say the 3rd party vendors were the cause for the crash it's just a conclusion, a theory, because it's a "what would have happened if" game. We'll never know, because that has happened in a parallel universe. The best you can do is to gather as much data as possible. But except a few die hards no one would buy a book full with financial reports, sales figures and charts. But methodically it would be the best to contact the press relations department of those stores still in business (Sears, K-Mart, etc.) and ask if they have any sales figures for the 1980-1985 period. Here is some more boring data: http://www.nytimes.com/1982/09/10/business/mattel-inc-reports-earnings-for-qtr-to-july-31.html http://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/10/business/mattel-inc-reports-earnings-for-qtr-to-oct-30.html Sales and earning of Mattel went up for the first 3 quarters of 1982. It was the 4th quarter where they no longer could compete. http://www.nytimes.com/1983/03/18/business/mattel-inc-reports-earnings-for-qtr-to-jan-29.html But Mattel never really managed to be profitable. Sales $479,721,000 and net income $28,333,000, that's a mere 5%. At the same time Coleco made 10%! If you don't manage to be highly profitable in a boom period then of course the slightest decline will hit you hard. And that's the same the wallstreet analysts said back then. Too high fixed costs, unsound corporate structure etc. Number of employees at Atari went up from 6,000 to 10,000 in 1982. Spread across 50 buildings. And history repeats. Zynga just went through exactly the same as Atari. They thought there would be no end to social gaming on Facebook until they had to lay off their employees.

Interviews are methodical the worst way to get an accurate analysis of what happened. Everyone tells his version of the history and then the author mixes it all together to his own version. Even interviews back from 1983 are just plain wrong. Ron Dubren claims in an interview with Electronic Fun that he came up with the concept for "Name this game" and presented it to US Games in July 1982 and they accepted it in August. The truth is it was already on a price list from 06/06/1982 from US Games handed out at the CES. The price list and the press kit doesn't lie, Ron Dubren did. It gets worse the bigger the ego of the interviewees and the authors are. Atari was doing well the first 3 quarters of 1982: http://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/19/business/warner-communications-inc-reports-earnings-for-qtr-to-sept-30.html But for the holiday season 1982 they had nothing but stinkers (E.T., Raiders of the lost Ark) while others like Parker and Coleco took their business away (Star Wars, Frogger, Donkey Kong). That's why they issues a profit warning. The problems at Atari and Mattel had nothing to do with the problems of the overall industry. The problems at Atari were caused by the new competition. Overall the industry had an awesome year. The huge overstock retailers still had after the holiday season caused the problems. They ordered way too much stock, even of real stinkers like Skeet Shoot. That caused the decline in orders early 1983 and the crash mid 1983.

The wannabe self promoting wizard with moneyed interest (buy my book, if you want to believe in the truth!) says earnings and stocks dropped in 1982. Here is the truth: http://www.nytimes.com/1982/10/23/business/coleco-industries-inc-reports-earnings-for-qtr-to-sept-30.html "These hot products turned Coleco into a Wall Street darling. In August 1982, the company's stock languished at about $7 a share. But by June 1983, it was trading at a whopping $65. Then it fell off a cliff, plunging more than -50% from June to August 1983, as sales of its products dramatically slowed. By March 1984, Coleco stock sat at $10 a share, and in 1988, the company filed for bankruptcy." Yes, problems at Atari also affected other stocks short-term, that's how the stock market works. But Mr. Weisenheimer then uses this to back up his story rather than showing the complete data. The crash happened mid 1983.

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/19/business/the-game-turns-serious-at-atari.html "The situation at Atari is by no means dire. The video game industry in general and Atari in particular are still growing, although profit margins are shriveling from intense competition. And Warner still expects to report a 10 to 15 percent increase for all of 1982, an improvement that would delight many other companies during a recession. THE gain, however, is just not what people had come to expect from Warner and from Atari, which in the first nine months of 1982 contributed half of Warner's $2.9 billion in revenues and two thirds of its $471 million in operating profits."

Definition: Earnings are the net benefits of a corporation's operation. Atari's earnings for 1982 predicted a 50% increase over the previous year. On 7 December 1982 Atari reported only a 10% to 15% INCREASE in expected earnings. Earnings DID NOT started dropping dramatically. Just the increase dropped dramatically and that's why the stock crashed. That's how the stock market works. Parker Brothers took $30 million in sales away from Atari with just the Empire strikes back. But you're right, no need to go in circles with you, will never buy any of your books anyway.

No, sales were already down in 1983 and then halved again in 1984. The peak of the crash was in 1985 with only a mere $100 million in sales. I guess sales peaked in the holiday season of 1982 and then started to slip in the first quarter of 1983. Of course in the background it was already an unhealthy market in 1982. I think the best is to just present a timeline and facts and no opinions and conclusions.

It is accurate. Retail video game sales were up in 1982 and reached a new record. Atari was just not prepared for all the new competitors that entered the market in 1982. From 1977 till 1981 there was only Atari and Activision. The market was crowded in 1982 and in 1983 even more latecomer entered the market (SEGA!). All those 3rd party vendors didn't came to late to the party (your theory), they caused the party to be over (my theory). You should only present facts (number of games released per month, sales) and let the conclusion to the reader. Stop trying to be the preacher who tells everyone the one and only truth. You also need to differentiate between what happened in the stores (consumer point of view) and what happened in the background. From mid 1982 till mid 1983 the market was at its peak, almost all 3rd party games have been released during this period and sales peaked. Sales then declined in 1983 and crashed in 1984. All the mismanagement is a different story. Atari made a wrong projection for 1982 but their sales were actually up. Stores ordered way too much stock of really bad games. Heck, even Skeet Shoot was on backorder in 1982! Even Apollo with its pretty bad line up had a backorder of 200,000 games. You also need to differentiate between the layoffs that happened because they relocated manufacturing to Asia and the layoffs that happened because of the declining market / market share.