Page 52 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #3

-By Lee K. Seitz-

When is a Combat not a Combat?

sold for over a decade, Atari went ment with Sears to have them sell
O The original style was all text on a Tele-Games Video Arcade. (Tele-
the 2600, it became the Sears
through four major label styles.
black background. Then they
nce your classic car-
Games was the "brand name" for
tridge collection reaches
relation, as far as I know, to the
with a colorful picture like the one
a certain size, you'll discover you're started replacing much of the text video games at Sears. It has no
finding few new cartridges at thrift on the box. Next, Atari went with a current Telegames company -
stores. In order to "get their fix," so silver background. Finally, at the www.telegames.com - which hap-
to speak, many collectors start col- end of the console's life, they used pens to sell video games.)
lecting label variations to keep their a rust background. (Most collec- Several of the games received
number of "finds" up. “Label varia- tors call it red; some call it brown. I new names as well. It's uncertain
tions” simply means different types think "rust" is more accurate than exactly why Sears did this. Per-
of labels on the either of haps it was to
same game. For those.) But, in confuse shop-
Colecovision car- all but a hand- pers and have
tridges, this might ful of cases them buy what
mean the differ- (see sidebar), they thought was
ence between the the game a new game
labels saying the names never when it was ac-
cart is "for Cole- changed. So tually one they
covision" and say- when is a already had. To
ing it's "for Cole- Combat car- make things
covision & ADAM." tridge not a more confusing,
For Intellivision, Combat car- they named
it's probably the tridge? When some cartridges
difference be- it's a Sears after dedicated
tween the colorful Tele-Games consoles they
Mattel labels and the Atari’s “Combat” Tank Plus cartridge. Sears Tele-Games’ had previously re-
black and white Intellivi- When the Atari 2600 Tank Plus leased and just
sion, Inc. labels, which also fea- debuted, Sears was one of added a Roman
tured slight name changes to avoid the strongest retail chains in the numeral to the end to differentiate
licensing fees (e.g. "Football" in- United States. If you wanted to sell them. The most obvious example
stead of "NFL Football"). For the your product at Sears, however, it is Breakaway IV (a.k.a. Breakout).
Atari 2600, it's more complicated. had to have a Sears brand on it. Not all games were renamed, of
Because the 2600 (or VCS) was Thus, when Atari signed an agree- course. Home versions of arcade
Classic Gamer Magazine Spring 2000 52