Get ready for a good time! My husband, the amazing storyteller, is stepping in for me today with a fabulous tale about his first experience of a consumer smackdown.
Take it away, Mr. Mad Money Monster!
When was the first time, as a kid, you realized you’d been ripped off as a consumer? I’m talking parted from your money with absolute zero customer satisfaction? Most of us remember the excitement of TV ads promising amazing, wondrous toy experiences only to find out the hard truth of “reality vs. expectation.” I was 15-years-old in the spring of 1982 when I got my first consumer smackdown from the Atari Corporation. And this is my story.
The video game industry was booming. Arcades were the hot social spots at malls around the country. Space Invaders paved the way, but the Pac-Man arcade invasion of 1980 changed everything.
The game struck a consumer chord because, in essence, the goal of the game was to…well…CONSUME.
I remember our Time Out Arcade having lines down the entire mall with kids lined up along roped poles to keep a single row. Fights broke out until the “quarter down” rule was implemented to restore order. You plunked a quarter onto the machine console to reserve your spot as next player. Time Out had to bring in three more machines to keep up with demand and even that did little to alleviate the incredible lines.
Pac-Man Fever Unleashed
Pac-Man was THE game of the early 80s and a slam dunk for video gaming giant, Atari. When they announced a home version of Pac-Man for their wildly successful 2600 gaming console, the anticipation eclipsed that of knowing the truth about Darth Vader being Luke’s father.
My younger brother was a talented gaming junkie and did chores expressly for an allowance that was spent on video game cartridges. He was ahead of the iPhone gotta-have-the-next-best-thing trend. He always wanted more…better graphics, better resolution, and, eventually, better gaming consoles. He burned through Atari, bypassed Intellivision and went right for Colecovision by summer, 1983. And the spending curve went up with each upgrade to his gaming fix.
Atari finally announced a spring 1982 release date. Pre-orders were taken at every outlet that sold games. The boom was so huge that almost every store was hocking game cartridges to get in on the gaming gold rush. Our outlet of choice was the record chain, Listening Booth. They dedicated a long glass display case of colorful cartridge boxes to tempt consumers at the checkout stand.
I wasn’t able to drive until September 1983, so I had a full year before I would have a set of wheels to drive me the five miles to the mall. I started working to save for a car in eighth grade. I mowed lawns, did greenkeeping at a local golf course, shoveled snow and whatever else I could do until legal working papers allowed me to get a real job.
The Pac-Man cartridge was retailing for 60 bucks. My brother begged me to go in half with him. I was moving past the game thing at that point and saw it as a waste of money. While everyone stood in line for a single turn at Pac-Man, I discovered a better game: dating.
What few bucks I could spare went to dinner and movie dates. My younger brother wasn’t into that scene yet and was still content sitting on the living room floor zapping aliens.
My brother persisted, and I relented. We walked the five miles, most of it along a busy highway exchange, to our mall to put down a ten-dollar deposit on Pac-Man. Listening Booth took my money and we were on the magic list. Five miles to get wait-listed. To be that young again…
Gearing Up For The Big Letdown
As we got closer to the release date, magazines started showing print ads for the coming debut. They featured the artwork on the front of the box and it looked promising. However, there was a small “uh-oh” moment when no one was showing any screenshots of the actual game.
Most kids understood that the home video versions of hit arcade games couldn’t look exactly like the originals. Even at 15, I comprehended ROM limits and the effect on graphics. Unfortunately, only so much information would fit into those wallet-sized cartridges and the graphics suffered as a result.
Christmas was the big hype. The Sears Christmas Catalog splashed the Pac-Man cartridge on its cover along with its license version of the Atari console. Sears had it going on and they knew it. They had the hottest item for Christmas, but again…no previews of what the actual game looked like.
As they say, hindsight is always 20-20. Looking back, the lack of a gameplay preview was a sign that we should’ve gone to Listening Booth and asked for our ten-buck deposit back. Instead, we rode the hype train and anxiously awaiting the game’s arrival in March. The time couldn’t go fast enough!
Caution: Slippery When Wet
Then, trouble struck. We got the ET: The Extra-Terrestrial video game for Christmas and it was terrible. We couldn’t believe Atari released a game that failed so miserably at living up to the hype. Disappointed doesn’t even begin to describe it.
A little background on ET. Atari was pressed to develop a video game version of Steven Spielberg’s monster, all-time box office smash. The game dropped that Christmas, only months after the theatrical release. Hell, the movie was still playing in some second-run theaters on Christmas Day.
The video game crash of 1983 is often credited with the massive negative response to the ET game. I propose it was really Pac-Man that caused the gaming bubble to burst.
ET sucked, but it was forgivable because there was no preconception of the game. It was developed from a movie, not an already established arcade hit that had become a part of the pop culture fabric. In my opinion, ET was a far more forgivable sin.
Gamers started returning ET in droves, to the point where stores refused to take back the cartridges for refunds. I remember signs at Listening Booth proclaiming no cash refunds, store credit only for ET.
It was that bad.
The Eagle Had Landed
Then, we got the call on our landline phone in early March, Pac-Man was in that Friday. We could come to get it anytime after the store opened. My brother and I did the five-mile walk, one way to the mall, again. When they put the box into my hands, I flipped it over. No screenshots of the actual game. Again, there was a sinking feeling in my stomach, but I ignored it. We plunked down the 50-dollar balance and left the store with gold in our hands. Fool’s Gold.
I remember walking through that mall thinking I was the baddest kid there. The thought that someone would jump us for the game actually crossed my mind. I told my brother I would carry it, stuffing it into my jacket to make sure it couldn’t be snatched out of our hands.
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Blinky, Pinky, Inky, & Clyde In Monochromatic Color
Kids were waiting in our driveway when we got back to the development. It was like we were coming home to a hero’s welcome. Everyone followed us inside our house as we led the way with the coveted game. It was going to be great!
One kid, Tony, said something no one else could believe, “I hope it doesn’t suck like ET. “ That was dismissed. We ran up the stairs of our bi-level home to the living room. My brother took the Atari console off the top of the TV. I switched the back selector to channel three.
My brother had the honor of popping in the cartridge. The opening screen came up. It was this ugly, yellow and blue type screen. Not so impressive, but it wasn’t the actual game. Tony would later say, that’s when he knew we got hosed.
My brother hit “start” and then…well…we thought it was a glitch. The sounds were terrible. Pac-Man was this blocky joke of a ball and there were only two or three ghosts to give chase. It had to be a mistake. My brother reset the game to clear the problem.
The screen came back up and gave us the same thing. That’s when we knew…this was the best it was going to be. Blue and yellow color schemes, two ghosts, terrible, tinny sound effects, and nothing but blocks everywhere, no round pellets. It was the bad version of Pac-Man and it was the first time I realized I was ripped off as a consumer.
And to prove I’m not making this stuff up, check out this video I found on YouTube detailing the entire debacle. I wrote this whole post before finding it and they’re saying almost exactly the same thing!
My First Consumerism Smackdown
I was out thirty bucks. That was several dates. That was 30 fewer dollars to go to my car insurance fund. It was a week of lawn mowing. My first reaction was “take it back.” The kids in the room felt the same way. What a letdown. My brother, however, was in denial. Sure it wasn’t the arcade game, but it was better than nothing, wasn’t it?
The answer was no. This was a con job and we should get our money back. He refused. It took him about a month to come to terms with it all, and by that time another set of no cash refunds signs decked Listening Booth.
The gaming crash came in the summer of 1983 and I hold fast that it was Pac-Man that brought down the whole house of cards. The awful game design forced gamers to wake up and not to be so content with mediocrity. Atari knew they could just do a slap-dash knockoff and kids, like my brother and me, would just accept some crumbs from the table.
This was a cynical cash grab. There was no real intention to make something good. Atari tried to follow up with a 5200 gaming system that had better graphics and a Pac-Man version that was a little closer to the real arcade game, but by then it was too late. The bottom was out of the tub and the entire market was in free fall.
The backlash spread from the one-two sucker punches of ET and Pac-Man.
The urban legend of thousands of ET cartridges buried in the New Mexico desert turned out to be TRUE. There were so many returns and a glut of unsold cartridges that Atari had no choice but to dispose of them. So they did. By burying them.
However, few realize that Pac-Man was entombed alongside its alien cousin. There are actual documentaries about this.
Both games were the result of corporate greed and the cynical contempt for its demographic. The “they’ll buy anything” attitude peaked with the release of these two products and snapped a lot of kids out of their game-induced comas.
60 bucks was a lot of money in 1982. Atari was a venerated name, an almost religious figure…the high temple of gaming and it betrayed its followers. The cult members woke up and the backlash was fast and fierce.
The game industry wouldn’t recover until the late 1980s when the Nintendo 64 home system resurrected it with true-to-game graphics and play.
A Hard Lesson Learned
The lesson was learned. Pac-Man was the first of many consumer mistakes to come. And the stakes only got higher with each new level achieved. My consumer smackdown in the spring of 1982 with the loss of 30 dollars was the first red flag. I eventually got my act together, but not before making numerous other money mistakes with cars, credit cards, student loans, expensive mortgages.
The Pac-Man debacle would be followed by the Jaws 3-D incident the following summer, but that’s another story for another time.
So what was the lesson? Never believe the hype or the packaging. Apply that simple rule to just about everything and you have mastered Consumerism 101 and, maybe, relationships, and life in general.
6 Comments
Great article! And what a painful lesson learned.
Are you old enough to remember the game Pong? We had one of those at home. I can’t believe we would spend hours glued to the TV watching this little pong ball SLOWLY bounce across the screen. I think Pong might have been one of the first home video game.
We never owned an Atari.
Thanks for reading it! Yes, I definitely remember Pong and you’re right, it was the first home system. A friend down the road was the first in our neighborhood to have it under its name “Telstar.” Dashes for tennis, hockey or breakout in luxurious black and white. If you watch “Jaws 2” the Brody kids are playing it in the living room. It was a big deal for the late 70s until Atari took it all in the early 80s.
A minor note the late 80s recovery was the NES from Nintendo. The n64 was late 90s. And they marketed as home entertainment system rather then gaming due to the crash. Also they limited third party shovels are games. Those facets of the industry continue today.
Thanks for the clarification and the time to read the piece! Pac Man still ate my money. ; )
Oh man…. How I can relate to THIS. Our console was the mighty Intellivision. We loved that thing. Wore out the control pads (remember, they looked like a modern telephone handset?)
I had friends with Atari 2600s and remember Pac-Man and just about every other game being crap, aside from Missile Command of course! Nice post , sir – thanks for the nostalgic trip down memory lane. So glad I stumbled upon the piracy joys of the Commodore 64 a few years later…
Thanks for the time to read it! I remember the in television and my brother was biased against it for the very things you cited. He bypassed in television for Colecovision. And you are right about the games for the 2600. We were just fed a steady diet of crap and led to believe this was good as it was gonna get. PAC Man was the breaking point, I think. A lot of people woke up after that hosing. Thanks again!