$1.75 million game
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Nov 11th 2006 at 10:55PM }
With all this talk of people willing to pay crazy sums of money for a new system on eBay, what about paying crazy sums of money for a 25 year old game? One eBay auctioneer is hoping someone will pay $1,750,000.00 for a very rare copy of the game Atlantis II for the Atari 2600. The auctioneer, who has an extreme propensity to use exclamation marks, states, "The only way you could have obtained an original copy of this game is by entering the Defend Atlantis Contest and scoring over two million points on the original Atlantis cartridge." Our gaming history is good around here but, when it comes to gaming ancient history, we get a little fuzzy. Do we have a gaming archaeologist in the house?
We have heard a lot of crazy things around here. Over launch week we expect to see a lot more; however, $1.75 million for a game? PS3 auctioneers haven't even mustered that level of greed. It's all good though, in the words of the great 20th century wordsmith Ice T, "Don't hate the playa, hate the game."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
scoobydiesel @ Nov 11th 2006 11:02PM
Holy crap...guess he wants to buy a few PS3,360,Wii's this holiday season...along with a few others things 0_0 Id lmao if some one bid....
brad drac @ Nov 11th 2006 11:04PM
'E's 'avin' a giraffe. Atlantis 2 is basically exactly the same game as atlantis 1, but with a slightly different scoring system, due to several players maxing out the original in said competition. True it's rare and pretty damn valuable, but $1.75 mil? Hahahahahah. No.
PhoenixJ @ Nov 11th 2006 11:08PM
Try $14, might get a bid or two
Cody S. @ Nov 11th 2006 11:12PM
What an idiot. The most I see that going for is a couple thousand. 1 & 3/4 million? Yeah right.
Pulse @ Nov 11th 2006 11:16PM
OMG, I always wanted that game! I think I'll go bit 2 million, no wait 5 million, thats how much I want it!
;) I love being rich!
sintekk @ Nov 11th 2006 11:15PM
Damn, at least it's free shipping.
ele©tro @ Nov 11th 2006 11:16PM
What a douche.
Kefka @ Nov 11th 2006 11:20PM
I hope it gets stolen. That's outrageous.
Matt @ Nov 11th 2006 11:21PM
For collectors, this is a very good find for a very interesting part of gaming history. Atlantis is also a very good game, along with most of IMAGIC's games. That said, he's smoking something if he thinks he's getting anywhere near that price for that.
emmzee @ Nov 11th 2006 11:26PM
His reply to the question asking about the box for the game is to tell the person "if you want a box make one yourself! I probably have the original box but I know I riped off the celephane to the box so the little generic Atlantis II Mailing label to the box is gone!" ... Wow. $1.75 million and he "probably" has the box around somewhere that he might look around for if the winning bidder is lucky? He's either a regular idiot, or an attention-seeking idiot.
brainpann @ Nov 11th 2006 11:29PM
I do not see what proof there is of this thing being real. The starting price is is so high but he wants you to take his word on everything. WTF. He is also very snappy with the answers to questions given him. He also refuses to give close shots of the games and the documentation. Also, would'nt their be yellow of the documents if they were over 20 years old? (I am genuinely asking) He also refuses to provide pics of the game being played. Again, WTF? This whole thing seems fishy to me. Maybe I'm wrong though.
just Al @ Nov 11th 2006 11:36PM
Goddamn bullshit,I tell ya! Poor homeless people sleeping in dumpsters in dangerous rat infested alleys... and I still can't get a Ps3...hafta try Ebay I guess....woops! sorry! I thought this was Engadget...o.m.g.!
guises @ Nov 11th 2006 11:46PM
So, let's suppose that I have some obscure collector's item of unknown value. I could:
1) put it up on ebay for a low/reasonable starting price and hope that enough of the people who might like to buy it notice it. Maybe I could get something close to it's actual value this way.
2) ask around on message boards for an estimate on what this thing might be worth in the hopes that someone out there might have seen one of these sold one time in a back alley somewhere. Maybe. From this, I try to come up with an asking price that someone out there will take and that isn't ripping myself off.
3) put it up for some absurd price on ebay and hope that it garners some attention. A mention on joystiq, for example, would be ideal. People start talking about it and I get a feel for what people would be willing to pay. Maybe even a few offers.
In order to get that kind of attention I'd have to put it up for not just more than it's worth, but way way more than it's worth. No big deal though - ebay lets you re-list unsold items for free.
Rowd149 @ Nov 11th 2006 11:48PM
Maybe he's just tired of selling Digimon World 4 strategy guides for 3 bucks :P http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250035180799
Cronotrigger913 @ Nov 12th 2006 12:00AM
I love how the guy puts the thing on the floor when taking its picture. Yeah, it's definitely in the right hands. Especially when asking for the low-low price of 1.75 million dollars. Douchebagaroo.
Matt @ Nov 12th 2006 12:01AM
*Also, would'nt their be yellow of the documents if they were over 20 years old? (I am genuinely asking)*
Not really. In fact IMAGIC's game were packaged, at least for the Intellivision, with some of the best materials. The manuals were nice full color stapled booklets. The print quality was quite nice for the times. Here's a pic I took of some of my IMAGIC games for your study...Atrai on the left, Intellivision on the right.
http://www.spiffyneato.com/joystiq/imagic.jpg
PhantomVI @ Nov 12th 2006 12:14AM
If this guy was around to win the game way back then he's got to be around 40 years old. So why does he have the writing skills of a sixth grader?
DeeboStoker @ Nov 12th 2006 1:05AM
This poor sod only seeks to draw attention to his other auctions w/ a listing this high. Ebay's listing price tops out at $4.80 which isn't too bad for the advertising he's getting... 1418 views so far.
dig this:
"I wont split it up without the docs the cart is valueless to me as a company in europe makes reproduction carts from original atlantis 1 cases and yes they use mask roms in the case so you can't tell the diffrence between an original and a fake!"
-indeed.
Better move fast, his Vince Neil cd's auction ends in 16 hours!
Splinter @ Nov 12th 2006 2:32AM
With all the PS3 shortages, you'd be lucky 2 a PS3 for double that.
Dave Silva @ Nov 12th 2006 3:16AM
This guy took advantage of the 10 cent BIN listing day on eBay that happened this week.
In other words, there's no way the guy put that on eBay to sell. He just put it there to brag. (That is, if it's even LEGIT.)
James @ Nov 12th 2006 3:03AM
He should just go and ask Bill Gates to buy it from him.
ackmondual @ Nov 12th 2006 5:21AM
When the guy asked if he could put up a video of the the game being played, I'm sure he wanted that preview for frere. In another Response, the seller wanted a retainer of $250K just try out the game at his house, so both those responses were relatively worthless
Maxathon @ Nov 12th 2006 8:10AM
I'm not an expert, but I am an insatiable consumer of video game historicity. I do believe the auction douchebag's correct about the origins of Atlantis II carts. Apparently, the developer was not expecting people to top out the score system on the original Atlantis during their competition, and they threw together this special competition cart billed as a sequel to up the difficulty. It was mailed directly to the tied competitors, which may account for the lack of packaging.
Erik Hunt @ Nov 12th 2006 11:32AM
Someone should set up an account on Ebay and buy the product- doesn't the seller get stuck with charges even if buyer doesn't pay?
delldude420 @ Nov 12th 2006 12:44PM
GOD!! whats wrong with you people? ... for once look at the positives.. FREE SHIPPING !!!!!!!!!!!!!! AS IN SHIPPINGS FREE BITCH!!! :) lol
jlouis @ Nov 12th 2006 1:15PM
Bidders, enjoy your scam! He's refusing to let anyone see the documents or a close-up of the cartridge. He's pulling something, and he knows it. Either that, or it's a joke, and he just wants to prolong the magic.
Rawnblade @ Nov 12th 2006 1:25PM
Who cares? I'm an eccentric millionaire!
John @ Nov 12th 2006 3:21PM
im tempted to rune my ebay rating and buy it just to get him excited lol
Melophonist @ Nov 14th 2006 12:51AM
I think you may be only slightly wrong when you say that the greedy PS3 whores aren't that greedy. the day that you had the "It begins!" article, I checked online and saw a buy it now for 1 million.
Benz @ Nov 13th 2006 1:57PM
I wonder what kind of drugs this guy has been using or if he's just plain crazy or stupid! One thing for sure, he wasted allot of money in listing this auction. This site lists the value of the game at $6,000. He could quite possibly sell it for that amount if he ever snaps back to reality.
http://www.stageselect.com/games/game.aspx?gameid=3262