The last time I mentioned an auction for Air Raid for the Atari 2600, it was for a boxed game and it reached stratospheric levels. Hopefully this copy of Air Raid that just appeared on eBay will sell for slightly less. It is after all lacking its box and you'll only be bidding on the cartridge. Then again it has already reach $1000 and that boxed copy I mentioned did sell for a bit over $30000. Shocking eh? Seller ships worldwide, though you're probably better off grabbing a ROM and enjoying it via emulation.
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Always an exciting day when such a rare item pops up for us to watch! This will help establish the 'loose' end of the spectrum - I'll guess $3500.
ReplyDeleteEasily. I would say something over $5000, but definitely wouldn't bet on it :)
ReplyDeleteI was going to bid but saw the shipping was $4. That's where they get ya - the shipping!
ReplyDeleteI did play the game on Stella when the boxed one came up last year and thought it was actually a halfway decent little game by Atari 2600 standards.
$30,000? I've got a couple of spades and a tent, Gnome. Fancy a camping trip to the New Mexico desert?
ReplyDelete@ MadPlanet: An outrage. $4! Ridiculous! A scandal! Oh, and we did play the thing at the same time seems, but I believe I was even less impressed by it...
ReplyDelete@ Bob: Ooooooh! I'd love a camping trip to New Mexico. And then a road trip on the abandoned interstates. And $30000. Guess I'll skip Air Raid.
Well I probably oversold my evaluation at the time even with the tepid "halfway decent" comment. I meant halfway decent in the context of my extremely low expectations for a lot of these ultra-rare carts which are often total crap. I didn't think it was total crap. Partially fecal yes - but not total.
ReplyDeleteAh! Precision! Gotta love it. Now we fully and utterly agree my friend!
ReplyDeleteAh yes. You can thank Atari & their rather blinkered decision not to actually reward or acknowledge the people who created the games for the 2600 for that. I read in one interview, with one of the founders of Activision, (might have been David Crane, maybe Larry Kaplan) that the tipping point for him was when he worked out that he & two other programmers were responsible for about 1/2 Ataris' revenue one year with just three games, but they received no thanks or bonus. All the programmers got was a voucher for a frozen turkey that xmas, while the managers got a shiny new sports car. Talk about an incentive to go out on your own...
ReplyDeleteCourse, once a few really talented programmers set up on their own and started making serious money, it didn't take long before less talented people tried the same. And produced total crap, or horrible games like Custer's Revenge. It's really no wonder that the videogame market crashed in the U.S. to the extent it did.
I too believe that Activision was the answer Mr. Kassar needed. Besides, I've always deeply disliked those managing people; they rarely do anything and always get a ton of cash out of the work of others.
ReplyDeleteMind you Custer's Revenge, was not only a display of poor talent, but also one of poor taste.