I read through this and had a few good laughs over this article. I'm sure our European friends will be thrilled to know that they are wrong about the correct terms for "soccer," "Checkers," and "Sega Genesis," (which they are, of course). :-)
Contrary to the prevalent opinions here, though, I think this "Checkers" box looks.... sterile. In fact, that was my opinion of the Intellivision back in the day: sterile.
I couldn't tell you why the Atari VCS seemed more inviting to the casual gamer, but perhaps this "Checkers" box might be a clue. The cover artwork does not scream "videogame excitement." In fact, the cover art would look more at home on the cover of the "Saturday Evening Post" than on the cover of a videogame box. And I'm saying this as a big fan of Norman Rockwell. The Intellivision artwork looks generic. It looks early 80's, even 70-ish. (And it probably was.) Although I can't prove it, since I have never owned an Intellivision, I suspect that most Intellivision boxes looked similar (I assume you, Bill, can prove me wrong on this one).
In contrast, I think that today's videogame boxes have a much wider variety of cover art, and are certainly less generic-looking and sterile than Intellivision Checkers (or "Draughts," for you Europeans who don't know the correct term).
To be fair, most Atari VCS games had similar boxes. I think most VCS boxes were ORANGE, if I recall correctly. I don't know what was going on in the marketing department's heads, but I think they were going for an "encyclopedia" look on the bookshelf.
In twenty years, we'll all laugh at how quaint the videogame boxes of the 2000's looked.
I read through this and had a few good laughs over this article. I'm sure our European friends will be thrilled to know that they are wrong about the correct terms for "soccer," "Checkers," and "Sega Genesis," (which they are, of course). :-)
Contrary to the prevalent opinions here, though, I think this "Checkers" box looks.... sterile. In fact, that was my opinion of the Intellivision back in the day: sterile.
I couldn't tell you why the Atari VCS seemed more inviting to the casual gamer, but perhaps this "Checkers" box might be a clue. The cover artwork does not scream "videogame excitement." In fact, the cover art would look more at home on the cover of the "Saturday Evening Post" than on the cover of a videogame box. And I'm saying this as a big fan of Norman Rockwell. The Intellivision artwork looks generic. It looks early 80's, even 70-ish. (And it probably was.) Although I can't prove it, since I have never owned an Intellivision, I suspect that most Intellivision boxes looked similar (I assume you, Bill, can prove me wrong on this one).
In contrast, I think that today's videogame boxes have a much wider variety of cover art, and are certainly less generic-looking and sterile than Intellivision Checkers (or "Draughts," for you Europeans who don't know the correct term).
To be fair, most Atari VCS games had similar boxes. I think most VCS boxes were ORANGE, if I recall correctly. I don't know what was going on in the marketing department's heads, but I think they were going for an "encyclopedia" look on the bookshelf.
In twenty years, we'll all laugh at how quaint the videogame boxes of the 2000's looked.
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