Great rivalries are a fundamental element of pop-culture fandom and that is of course especially true for gaming as well. There could be books written about this very topic (probably there are) and needless to say, there can be plenty examples in early gaming history.

One of those rivalries is the one between Atari and Activision. Not only between the companies, which even led to a fierce legal battle, but also between fans of both camps. 

What about the community? Are you team Atari or team Activision?  

This is a quick follow up to my earlier post about the crazy treasure hunt, that was part of the marketing campaign for the Atari 2600 game Swordquest: Earthworld. Since many users talked about the comic books that came with the game in the US and other countries, I double checked my old treasure chest, where I kept the games and found - nothing!

We just got a plain instruction booklet, which was not even very self explanatory! Can you believe it? No cool comic, just a few pages with text! That was 40 years ago, I never knew and never minded. Up to now! Now I kinda feel betrayed. 😩

Currently I am trying to set up my old Atari 2600. After getting lots of positive feedback and advice from the community, I am really motivated to get it done. And I even found the tv- and power cable yesterday.

Unfortunately there are just a few cartridges left from my original collection. So it will be fun starting the treasure hunt again. One of these titles is Swordquest: Earthworld. I never really understood how to play the game, back then I wanted something like Adventure or Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I really enjoyed! But Swordquest? To this day I have no idea how to  play it. I remember though I liked the movement from room to room and the vivid colours. But beyond that...

So I thought, I just google a little bit and maybe after merely 40 years I can go deeper than the title screen. But what I found was quite different. This Wikipedia articles, I stumbled upon, mentioned real life treasures you could win, when you beat one of the four games in the series. 

Swordquest - Wikipedia 

It's absolutely insane. According to the article for example the prize for my game Earthworld would be this: The "Talisman of Penultimate Truth", an 18-karat solid gold disc studded with 12 diamonds, the birthstones of the 12 Zodiac signs and a miniature white gold sword set atop it.

I mean I hear lots of crazy and hilarious legends about games over the years, like the nude cheat in the first Tomb Raider game. Honestly games are prefect for creating this extra surreal layer on our everyday lives. Don't you think? But in a Wikipedia article?

I don't know. Does anybody know if this was true as explained in the article?

Just realized quite a few new people have joined this community. Really nice to have you onboard. Looking forward to exchange with you. Please let me know if there is any topic you would like to talk about or you would like me to address here. 😀

I could have sworn the name was Choplifter! It wasn't! The name of the game, I liked so much and played for hours on end in my childhood, was Chopper Command!

Now that I think more about retrogames and contemplate often about titles, I played as a kid, I sometimes learn facts the hard way when browsing the community and realizing how much my memory has tricked me. So it's Chooper Command and not Chopflifter, as I proudly remembered the last 40 years. 

There is a psychological effect called the Mandela Effect, describing a collective memory, that everybody is absolutely sure to remember correctly, but which still is wrong. It comes from the collective memory saying that Nelson Mandela died in prison, while in reality he left Robben Island and even became president of South Africa. 

In videogames one of such false memories is Pikachu having a black tip at his tail, while in reality the tail is fully yellow. I could have sworn on that too. Doesn't help, it's still wrong.

Do you have any wrong memories about old games, that you always thought were true, only to find out later, that reality play by its own rules?

When trying to get my old Atari 2600 running again I found an old copy of River Raid in my treasure box of lost games. I have wonderful memories of this game, especially how my friends an I spent hours taking turns on the game, when all we had to worry about in life was not forgetting math homework for tomorrow. Those were the days before tax declaration and TEAMS calls.

So now if have this old cartridge in hands and while realizing the label comes off, I suddenly recall that River Raid was once put on the index in Germany by the unforgiveable Bundesprüfstelle in 1984, as a quick Google-search showed me. As a teen I heard that somewhere, but really didn't think much about it, showing how effective that system was back then. It is really laughable how videogames where considered dangerous until not too long ago. For example this one got of the index only in 2003. But seeing the blocky graphics and relative slow pace of River Raid, it is hard to believe how this game could have ended up on the index. My reckless research also showed me that quite a few other titles ended on the blacklist namely:

Blue Max (1985): 

Commando / Who Dares Wins II (1986)

Green Beret (1986)

Rambo: First Blood Part II (1986)

Among many others. And not to forget the infamous

Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior (1987): 

The funny thing is, this title was not only on the index for its gruesome beheading scene, but even more for the cover showing a scantily clad b-movie starlet Maria Whittaker. 

I know the German authorities are well known for their stance and allegedly some companies were marketing their games with the line "indexed in Germany", although I never saw proof of that.

I wonder, how was that in your your countries? Were any of the early games of the Atari 2600 era or later indexed?

When I browse the subreddits related to gaming, I am always amazed how diverse the respective journeys through this hobby are. It is almost like no two are alike. I ever thought my personal touch points with gaming wre so typical, everybody must have the same experiences. But of course when you think about it, there are so many decisions, coincidences and random factors that play a role in what you played, where you encountered games and what you do today.

I am really curious to hear your journeys through the ever expanding gaming landscape starting with the good old games from the arcade time.

For me, I followed this path:

Phase 1: Game&Watch

Phase 2: Pong

Phase 3: Arcade Games

Phase 4: Atari VCS 2600

Phase 5: Commodore 64

Phase 6: DOS Games on PC

Phase 7: PS 1

Phase 8: Nintendo 64

Phase 9: GameCube

Phase 10: Wii

Phase 11: Various Appstore games and PC

Phase 12: Switch

Our course the Phase were not always completely exclusive to each other. Many overlaps and priorities over time. But I can say, that in all these phases, I had retty clear preferences, also preventing pretty much games from other plattforms at the same time. For example, in my Atari VCS phase, I never had a Intellivision or Colecco system.

How did you travel through the gaming landscape, especially in the early years? What were your first contact points with games?

It is funny how we often talk about the first game, we played, or the first console we owned. But I noticed, the way we encountered games, is so different between countries and regions. Being a kid in Germany, I always thought it was just everywhere the same, playing Pac Man in a backroom of a local pub. There was just one single arcade machine in that room and half of the village teens gathering around that one. 

Can you imagine how mesmerized I was, when I went to Italy with my family for a vacation and ran into a sparkling, brightly lit game centre at our holiday spot? Literally dozens, or hundreds (?) of arcade machines creating an infernal noise. Many of games, I haven't even heard about. Heaven for me, hell for my parents.

Up until then I didn't know that this was a specific cultural moment — one that existed in that exact form only in certain countries, certain decades, certain kinds of rooms. Of course I didn't think about it too much. Only that Italy was right and Germany was wrong on that respect, just to learn as an adult, that this was due to gambling laws in Germany.

Really strange how the location, or the area where you live also defines how you experienced games. Something hard to imagine nowadays with globalized marketing, mobile games and Steam libraries.

And yet we talk about retro gaming as if it were one shared experience. 

Later when I lived in Japan, I again learned a different gaming culture, so I am really curious, how did you encounter games first time? What impact do you think it had on your love for games?

Photo by Carl Raw on Unsplash