How Atari Tried to Appeal to Kids

Ойындар

Atari had a lot of success making games using licensed properties. Later on, they started making games that were targeted for kids. They even made a Kids Controller. What was Atari really going for? And were the games purely educational?
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Full List of 2600 Controllers:
atariage.com/controller_list....
Children’s Games:
atariage.com/label_page.php?L...
Unreleased Peanuts Prototype:
www.atariage.com/software_pag...
Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
1:35 Computer vs Console
2:39 Keyboard & TouchPad Controller
4:43 Other Controllers
6:13 Kids Controller
7:28 Games
10:05 Summary
11:01 Why Kids Games?
11:43 Outtro
Special thanks to the following users from pexels.com for the stock footage:
84LENS, 霍天赐, A frame in motion, Ahmet Akpolat, Andrew Hanson, Anna Hinckel, Anvar Tushakov, Artem Podrez, Caleb Oquendo, Cottonbro, Cristian Dina, Curtis Adams, DAV Grup 1, David McBee, Distill, Drones Scot, Edward Jenner, EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA, Ekrulila, Evgenia Kirpichnikova, Free Videos, George Morina, Glen McBride, Hirsh Philippe, Jack Sparrow, Joseph Redfield, Kampus Production, Kamrul Chowdhury, Karolina Grabowska, Kelly, Kindel Media, Ksenia Chernaya, MART PRODUCTION, Mikhail Nilov, Miguel Á. Padriñán, Mike B, Monstera, Nazim Zafri, Nicole Michalou, Pavel Danilyuk, Pete Wales, pickarick, Pixabay, Polina Tankilevitch, Pressmaster, RDNE Stock project, Ricky Esquivel, RODNAE Productions, Ron Lach, Ruvim Miksanskiy, Sora Shimazaki, Steve B, Thirdman,Tiger Lily, Tima Miroshnichenko, Tom Fisk, Tony Schnagl, Vlada Karpovich, Yan Krukov, Yaroslav Shuraev
Special thanks to streambeats.com for the music used in this video.
#atari #retrogaming #sesamestreet

Пікірлер: 89

  • @BradTheProducer
    @BradTheProducer5 ай бұрын

    Snoopy and the Red Baron was an S tier game. I played it constantly as a kid. The music sounded amazing, and it was also the first game I ever found an easter egg in! In the summary screen after each level, if you let it just sit for a while, a secret song starts playing. I found it when I left it on the screen to take a bathroom break, and came back to a mysterious march playing and was totally freaked out at first.

  • @SylveonTrapito
    @SylveonTrapito5 ай бұрын

    I still have a bootleg argentinian Atari multi cart with the Mickey, Snoopy, Smurfs and the Donald Duck. I never knew is was never released. But the game was here around 1989 or 1990.

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    Nice, that's a pretty solid collection of games, and cool that Donald duck got an unofficial release

  • @SylveonTrapito

    @SylveonTrapito

    5 ай бұрын

    @@pojr if you want to, I can send you pictures :)

  • @SylveonTrapito

    @SylveonTrapito

    5 ай бұрын

    @@pojr I can send you some pictures if you want, so you can show them in your videos :3

  • @Yousef77077
    @Yousef770775 ай бұрын

    Thanks a lot for the shoutout, Pojr! It really made our day :)

  • @brandong.1857
    @brandong.18575 ай бұрын

    It was cool seeing footage of some of these unreleased games. Another great video pojr.

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you!

  • @nightbirdds
    @nightbirdds5 ай бұрын

    My parents had given me those Sesame Street games. Got a lot of fond memories about those. The Big Bird one in particular got a lot of play. Those levels with the invisible chutes were kind of brutal, though.

  • @leroyvisiongames2294
    @leroyvisiongames22945 ай бұрын

    0:35 love the new dye job, really digging the green(screen) highlights..... LOL

  • @skRapKlan
    @skRapKlan5 ай бұрын

    I recommend you check out the ancient history of "Sierra" and their development of Disney game for the Atari and other home computers before they went full in and focused on the home computers, where they made their brand! A worthy search would be Al Lowe ( he was one of the lead developers for those games in the early days of Sierra)

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    Interesting, I'll have to look into it. Nice find!

  • @skRapKlan

    @skRapKlan

    5 ай бұрын

    @@pojr Happy to share some old knowledge! And thanks for staying strong and keep putting out these awesome videos you do! I love it..!

  • @JohnMartin-ll9cw
    @JohnMartin-ll9cw5 ай бұрын

    Hard to believe Atari managed to make a controller like the Wii Balance Board before it was even a thing...

  • @mr.pavone9719

    @mr.pavone9719

    5 ай бұрын

    Keep in mind it was NOT an analog controller, it was more a giant D-pad in an NES than a Wii balance board. The only analog controllers were the paddles and they only controlled the player sprite on a horizontal OR vertical axis, not both at the same time.

  • @RetroJack
    @RetroJack5 ай бұрын

    Almost 12,000 subscribers - so cool seeing your channel grow! 👍👍

  • @Larry
    @Larry5 ай бұрын

    They could have gone for kids as the 2600 was getting older at that point, so maybe Atari thought the system might become a hand-me-down to younger brothers/sisters while the older kids upgraded to newer hardware like the 5200.

  • @blarghblargh

    @blarghblargh

    5 ай бұрын

    as a person who personally went from 2600 to NES, that would make some sense, from the perspective of atari's marketing department.

  • @Gojiro7
    @Gojiro711 күн бұрын

    Dang this video is a double whammy, I never realized how many novelty controller is the Atari had or that it had so many canceled games, this is quite the rabbit hole that has potential for more videos if you ask me

  • @blakegriplingph
    @blakegriplingph5 ай бұрын

    The edutainment angle was explored in an ad for the 2600 when it was sold in the Philippines during the early 80s. Ferdinand Marcos banned all electronic games at the time (or at the very least, arcade games and pinball machines) in response to a moral panic, so some video game resellers attempted to downplay the consoles as a games machine and present them more as an "educational" tool through software such as BASIC Programming.

  • @HelloMyNameIsRED
    @HelloMyNameIsRED5 ай бұрын

    I remember first time seeing that controller was in the AVGN intro, thinking that it was one of the most bizarre controller I've ever seen by that time.

  • @FeralInferno
    @FeralInferno5 ай бұрын

    I wonder if "Miss Piggy's Wedding" was intended to be a movie tie-in with The Muppets Take Manhattan.

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    You're most likely correct. Before making this video, I didn't know pigs in space was a reference to the show. So perhaps miss piggy's wedding was a reference too.

  • @8ozz220
    @8ozz2203 ай бұрын

    Correction for the second part of the video at about 2:20. This definition of consoles not having software built in mostly applies to hardware made after the 1st generation. Every console before the fairchild had all their games built into them, and even after the fairchild and 2600 consoles like the vectrex had a game prebuilt into the machine.

  • @Solidier1
    @Solidier15 ай бұрын

    I'm sure kids back then really don't care what games they're playing. Something like the Atari in the 80s was like getting a PS5 or a Gaming PC. The revolution was extraordinaire as technology advance. Seeing their favorite cartoon characters on a video game was like seeing a celebrity on the Sega Genesis in the 90s. Will say though that adding a cassette player that played games like the Commodore was very impressive. Heck using a vinyl to play games like Mario would of been cool.

  • @Digiflower5
    @Digiflower55 ай бұрын

    Wow the animation on these games look great. Thanks for shortening the intro a bit. The intro still feels a tad forced though. You may want to convey the intro info with visuals a bit more and less audio to help with flow. Awesome video though I had no idea this stuff existed. :)

  • @thewingedavenger1007
    @thewingedavenger10074 ай бұрын

    Fascinating. I had an Atari 2600 when I was a little kid but never knew about this stuff. Your voice is very similar to that of Rerez. That channel only talks about rubbish games nowadays, so I tuned out, but you just reminded me of it.

  • @chrisp1601
    @chrisp16015 ай бұрын

    Another excellent episode on underlooked video game history. Great job!

  • @johnellis3383
    @johnellis33834 ай бұрын

    Hey pojr, great video about an interesting subject. Keep up the awesome work man!

  • @toxicmule
    @toxicmule5 ай бұрын

    As a kid once, I can assure you, we loved anything and everything we could play. Even E.T. was fun if you paid attention to what you were doing and where you were when symbols appeared. I can't wait on your great grandkids wondering how you managed to have fun playing in only 3d...well, actually almost everything recently made is a throwback to 8-bit..sooo...game on!

  • @blarghblargh

    @blarghblargh

    5 ай бұрын

    agreed. I think with a bit of a spit polish (specifically, fixing the "get out of the well, fall immediately back in the well" problem), E.T. could have been remembered as one of the best 2600 games today, or at least gotten a "late re-review" treatment by youtubers and considered a misunderstood classic.

  • @nekokonata
    @nekokonata5 ай бұрын

    Just discovered your channel, pretty entertaining retro content. Subbed.

  • @lunarmodule6419
    @lunarmodule64195 ай бұрын

    Your vids just bring so much memories. I totally understand why you like vintage tech, I love mainframes computers which were before my time. Thx!

  • @ScriptCatz

    @ScriptCatz

    Ай бұрын

    The good ol ibm big irons, never used one as I’m quite young but I have a deep appreciation for the history of computing

  • @BlueMSX.
    @BlueMSX.5 ай бұрын

    I hadn't ever heard about these until recently from griz, i suppose there's always something new to learn. great video going over this obscure bit of atari history pojr!

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you! If it weren't for grizz, this video would have most likely never happened.

  • @caucasoidape8838
    @caucasoidape88385 ай бұрын

    The green screen tinge on Pojr's hair, makes him look like a caveman ninja.

  • @MrPoestyle
    @MrPoestyle5 ай бұрын

    Great video again , POJR !!!! I have all of those released games except for the Mickey Mouse game . I made a video on the Sesame Street Games and the Kids Controller last year . They were actually pretty cool games .

  • @brothersly8294
    @brothersly82945 ай бұрын

    That trak and Feild controller was needed for that game... it killed so, so many joysticks that game

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    I couldn't imagine playing with a regular joystick, that's gotta be rough lol. But I could see it being fun with the track and field controller.

  • @frankchiappetta6600
    @frankchiappetta66005 ай бұрын

    Fun fact: The joy board was one of the first products made by Hi-Toro/Amiga Corporation. Apparently this was to raise money and serve as a front to throw off any corporate spies as to what they were really making which was what became the (Commodore) Amiga 1000.

  • @retrojoe85
    @retrojoe855 ай бұрын

    Most of these Disney unreleased games were often available as pirate multigame cartridges, at least here in some parts of Europe. Today we know that these have never been officially released, but back in the day we saw them just as weird, badly controllable games without knowing the truth about them. Times changes everything, even culture and technology!

  • @LodgeMemphis23
    @LodgeMemphis235 ай бұрын

    Excellent vid. Keep em coming

  • @StarRightStarTight
    @StarRightStarTight5 ай бұрын

    Omg that Sesame Street Oscar’s Trash Race game on Atari scared the living $%#@ out of me as a kid when the loud thunder happened.

  • @TheDarkThunder
    @TheDarkThunder5 ай бұрын

    Was there some sort of “push” to make children’s entertainment more educational and kid friendly, similar to what happened to Saturday morning cartoons in the 80’s? Where there kick backs to companies making these “children positive” titles?

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    This is a good point, and not something I considered.

  • @owllymannstein7113
    @owllymannstein71135 ай бұрын

    I never knew Track & Field had its own controller. Trying to play it with a joystick was nearly impossible, though I did find you could get superhuman results if you used the trackball.

  • @c6jones720
    @c6jones7205 ай бұрын

    I remember having star raiders on the 2600, and the keypad (the single version), but no overlay, so it was anyones guess what the buttons were supposed to be doing.

  • @btr3k
    @btr3k5 ай бұрын

    Not to be too picky, but there's actually another screen to the Sorcerer's Apprentice game... adds a bit to the gameplay? As far as all the canceled games, these licensed games really came at the end of the Atari 2600's (first) life. Shortly afterwards, discount bins of 2600 games for $1 were showing up and then everything being worked on was scrapped.

  • @blarghblargh
    @blarghblargh5 ай бұрын

    I had all of them except the muppets ones as a kid. I remember all of them pretty well, except alpha beam. I remember playing sorcerer's apprentice several times. I don't see you mentioning the second screen at all in this video, with the brooms. I had to look it up on youtube to see if I was just imagining that the other screen existed.

  • @thedinobros1218
    @thedinobros12183 ай бұрын

    You really need more Atari videos!

  • @zabustifu
    @zabustifu5 ай бұрын

    9:41 looks vertical to me. :)

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    Yeah I messed that up lol

  • @jackofallgamesTV
    @jackofallgamesTV5 ай бұрын

    I noticed you're missing 1 controller, but in all fairness to you, it's not an Atari one. It's the CBS Booster Grip. Is uses the 2 paddle pots to add 2 extra buttons to a standard Atari Joystick. It was only used for CBS's Omega Race. Also, the 3 different keypad controllers are all electronically equal. Use could use the Keypad. Touchpad. And Kids Controller with all Keypad. Touchpad and Kids Controller games. The only thing that won't fit is the overlays. Try it. It works. If I can have a suggestion for another topic, the crazy cross-pollenation days where Atari had Atarisoft, Mattel had M Network, and Coleco had red and blue label games for the 2600 and INTV. Also Coleco had an interesting 2600 kids lineup with Smurf and Berinstain Bears on the Kid Vid. A cassette adapter that's different from the Starpath Supercharger. It mixes audio on a cassette with 2600 gameplay logic.

  • @MengoOfficial
    @MengoOfficial5 ай бұрын

    How would a game console designed for young kids look like today? This is assuming this is on a console with retro hardware and the console was initially designed for older audiences.

  • @MorreskiBear
    @MorreskiBear5 ай бұрын

    Chick at 1:41 was trying to nuke Seattle

  • @JasperTedVidalTale
    @JasperTedVidalTale5 ай бұрын

    Nice catchy kid's egg game

  • @ChaossX77
    @ChaossX775 ай бұрын

    I've never seen sponsor blocks skips like this in a video before. And it's in your others too. Possibly why you don't have more subs?

  • @KrunchyTheClown78
    @KrunchyTheClown785 ай бұрын

    I never had any of the weirder controllers. I want that big number pad!

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    It's a very interesting controller. If I planned the video better, I could have purchased one and actually played the games.

  • @dennissmith5017
    @dennissmith50175 ай бұрын

    I clearly remember playing the Big Bird Egg Game with a regular controller. Am I being Mandala Effected?

  • @MobiBit645
    @MobiBit6455 ай бұрын

    I liked as soon as I heard the pac-man arrangement music, goated

  • @MrClawt
    @MrClawt5 ай бұрын

    Its a bummer I missed out on the Snoopy game as a kid. Also the Charlie Brown game looks interesting.

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    Yeah I wonder what would have happened if the Charlie Brown game were released. It did seem cool, although very early in development.

  • @MrClawt

    @MrClawt

    5 ай бұрын

    @@pojr It looks like your goal was to keep your kite flying and avoid the stuff in the air. I could see maybe harder difficulties the wind would change direction or cause the kite to go up or down on its own. The presentation did a good job presenting a common Charlie Brown trope as a game.

  • @nevets0007
    @nevets00075 ай бұрын

    there is a keyboard add on for the 2600 i have one the start up plays twinkle twinkle little star

  • @jetfrog4574
    @jetfrog45745 ай бұрын

    Atari tries to appeal to kids with Sesame Street. What really appealed to them, Custer's Revenge, Beat 'Em & Eat 'Em.

  • @ajackson1451
    @ajackson14515 ай бұрын

    Very interesting, never seen those kid’s games before.

  • @CommunistHash
    @CommunistHash5 ай бұрын

    i swear i see number on controller/gamepad ima lose it xDD

  • @Justin-Hill-1987
    @Justin-Hill-19875 ай бұрын

    Sunny day...playin' video...games today... Can you tell me how to get...past this level on Sesame Street?

  • @LenCrockett
    @LenCrockett5 ай бұрын

    @pojr how do I DM you? I’m trying to send you a gift for making such awesome content. I think you mentioned you had a Discord but I have no clue how to join.

  • @ChristopherSobieniak
    @ChristopherSobieniak5 ай бұрын

    This was my crappy childhood.

  • @jamesburke2759
    @jamesburke27595 ай бұрын

    Never lose the smile :D

  • @skRapKlan
    @skRapKlan5 ай бұрын

    Whow - you left out so much stuff...

  • @MarquisDeSang
    @MarquisDeSang5 ай бұрын

    Now Atari appeal to old men like me

  • @tron.44

    @tron.44

    5 ай бұрын

    And me.

  • @MarquisDeSang

    @MarquisDeSang

    5 ай бұрын

    @@tron.44how old are you?

  • @VEGANVANIA
    @VEGANVANIA5 ай бұрын

    When you've got 33 million consoles in circulation, you can throw just about any idea at the free market, and expect a few hundred thousand in sales: a console that only sells one million units puts creative teams and venture capitalists in a much more precarious position.

  • @josepha3805
    @josepha38055 ай бұрын

    Atari kids are the only games I play in 2024

  • @gaeshows1938
    @gaeshows19385 ай бұрын

    Dos and donuts?

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    I would also subscribe to a newsletter about dos and donuts

  • @mr.pavone9719
    @mr.pavone97195 ай бұрын

    The content worth watching (the stuff you clicked ont he thumbnail for) starts at about 6:00

  • @cinestubborn
    @cinestubborn5 ай бұрын

    FIRST❤

  • @catsaregovernmentspies

    @catsaregovernmentspies

    5 ай бұрын

    Noice

  • @MrJgsmith
    @MrJgsmith5 ай бұрын

    Your definition of computer and video game is very off. Not every computer has an os.

  • @blarghblargh

    @blarghblargh

    5 ай бұрын

    I personally think he's describing it in terms of how companies were trying to contrast consoles against consumer home computers in their marketing back then, since the buyer's previous experience with consoles might have been things like pong set top boxes. journalists with a tiny bit of technical acumen might have been confused since the underlying base hardware and architecture was very similar between all of them, and consumers might have just said "thing that plugs into my TV and plays games? I already have one of those...". but yeah, there were plenty of examples of computers that didn't come with an OS at the time. a lot of them were much more expensive or more obscure, so wouldn't necessarily appeal to the less technical customer.

  • @stephaneauger1036
    @stephaneauger10365 ай бұрын

    no commentgreat videovery well explain

  • @pojr

    @pojr

    5 ай бұрын

    Thank you!

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