Atari 2600 Video Chess lawsuit

[TB Tabby]

Found this one on the Covers Always Lie page on TVTropes. Standard TVTropes warnings apply.

An urban legend had it that Atari 2600's Video Chess was the end result of a false-advertising lawsuit: Original Atari 2600 box art had a picture of a chess piece, and someone sued Atari because there was no chess game available for the 2600. However, according to Bob Whitehead, the programmer of the game, there was no lawsuit.

[GenYus234]

Regarding the covers of video games vs the contents. Growing up on Atari 2600, I always seemed to know that the cover didn't represent the inside. But the same is true for movies. How often does a movie feature three floating disembodied heads in it?

[overyonder]

Not the best of pics, but I see checkers and not chess...

OY

[Beachlife!]

There were several different boxes the 2600 was sold in. I seem to recall seeing a chess piece, I'm thinking it was a bishop or a king, on a box, but I can't seem to find anything that looks like what I am remembering.

[diddy]

Originally Posted by GenYus234

Regarding the covers of video games vs the contents. Growing up on Atari 2600, I always seemed to know that the cover didn't represent the inside. But the same is true for movies. How often does a movie feature three floating disembodied heads in it?

Indeed - The type of graphics on game boxes back then was probably deliberately exaggerated back then simply due to the lack of detail that the Atari 2600 was capable of. They in no way represented what the graphics showed on screen.

[Psihala]

Video Chess Box art for the Atari 2600.

~Psihala

[overyonder]

Originally Posted by Psihala

Video Chess Box art for the Atari 2600.

~Psihala

That's the cart before the horse thing. We've been trying to find the Atari console box that led to the alleged "they were forced to produce Chess because of the console box".

[Unless of course I misread you].

OY

[videoguy]

Originally Posted by GenYus234

Regarding the covers of video games vs the contents. Growing up on Atari 2600, I always seemed to know that the cover didn't represent the inside. But the same is true for movies. How often does a movie feature three floating disembodied heads in it?

Are you talking about a movie poster? If so, if one of the heads on a movie poster is Angelina Jolie's, then you would probably expect her to be in the movie, right? It's not worthy of a lawsuit (IMO), but if there's a chess piece on the Atari box, I would think there would be an Atari chess game available.

[Psihala]

Originally Posted by overyonder

That's the cart before the horse thing. We've been trying to find the Atari console box that led to the alleged "they were forced to produce Chess because of the console box".

[Unless of course I misread you].

OY

You'll have to find a picture of the box from either the original 1977 release (The "Sunnyvale" console, which was only in production for one year) or the 1978 "second run" version. "Video Chess" was released in 1979, and "Video Checkers" in 1980.

The picture you posted, which includes a screenshot from "Video Checkers", was the "CX2600A" console, released in 1980. The Atari Museum has a rather small picture of the 1977 release box. I don't see anything that resembles a chess board on it, and I have yet to find a picture of the 1978 box.

~Psihala

(*ETA: Which brings up another question... assuming the the 1978 box DOES have a chess picture on it - is that enough time to bring about and resolve a lawsuit (allowing for the lead time to program and produce a title that would be released the following year?)

[overyonder]

Originally Posted by videoguy

Are you talking about a movie poster? If so, if one of the heads on a movie poster is Angelina Jolie's, then you would probably expect her to be in the movie, right? It's not worthy of a lawsuit (IMO), but if there's a chess piece on the Atari box, I would think there would be an Atari chess game available.

Personally if I saw a chess piece (real world, not video), I'd make an association to games (in general) but not to a video game chess. But that's just me.

That being said, if there was a screen shot of the video chess game, I'd fully expect that game to be available as a game title.

OY

[FullMetal]

Even if they did show a chess piece (or as appears to be the standard in the atari box art, a man playing chess) to me, that would indicate either a game in development or a game in production.

In much the same way that at the end of Quest for Glory 2 was an ad for Quest for Glory 3 Shadows of Darkness. QFG3 was actually wages of war set in Tarna, not Mordavia where Shadows of Darkness took place, and QFG 4 was shadows of darkness. They decided it was too big a shift to go directly from Shapeir to Mordavia. and added Wages of War in between them. Is it false advertising to advertise a product not yet in production? but scheduled to come out? Then Space Quest 4 should have been sued out of production what with claiming Space quest 12... (we're still waiting on 7!)