Atari Club Magazin was the magazine Atari sent to members of its club in West Germany. Its editorials were signed by a cartoon superhero, Captain ATARI, and addressed to liebe Clubmitglieder, “dear club members”, from the Clubzentrale in Hamburg. The issues that survive cover two very different Christmases. In December 1982 the magazine sold E.T. to its readers as the film opened in German cinemas. Two years later Atari had a new owner, and a reader wrote in to ask whether the club had any future for people who owned a VCS.
Fast facts
- Publisher: Atari Elektronik GmbH, Bebelallee 10, Hamburg 60, “A Warner Communications Company”. Club post went to Postfach 60 01 68, Hamburg 60.
- Frequency: quarterly, “erscheint vierteljährlich”, from 1983.
- Price: the 1984 covers carry a price of DM 2.50.
- Run: a 2003 retrospective dates the first issue to the end of 1980 and the last to 1985. The issues in public archives run from Christmas 1982 to Christmas 1984.
- Editors: Captain ATARI signed the editorials in 1982 and 1983. The 1984 issues name Wolfgang Blödorn as publisher and editor responsible.
- Sister clubs: Atari clubs in Austria and Switzerland, run through the local distributors, and in other countries with their own magazines: Atari Age in the United States and L’Atarien in France.
A sheet that became a magazine
According to Guido Frank’s 2003 history of the magazine for the German site Videospielgeschichten, the first Atari Club Magazin appeared at the end of 1980 as a single A4 sheet printed in black and white on both sides, and came out irregularly, up to four times a year. The first colour issue was the Christmas special of 1982, and from 1983 the magazine appeared every three months with about twenty pages and a game poster. The magazine itself bears this out. Its first 1983 issue opened with Captain ATARI announcing a relaunch: “Zum neuen Jahr kommt Euer Clubmagazin mit neuem Gesicht, mit jeder Menge Farbe und noch mehr Lesestoff” (“For the new year your club magazine comes with a new look, lots of colour and even more to read”), and every 1983 issue carried the same Impressum, naming Atari Elektronik GmbH as publisher and saying it appeared quarterly.
Christmas 1982: E.T.
The Weihnachts-Sonderausgabe, the Christmas special of 1982, is eight pages printed on black. Its cover promises “E.T. Zu Weihnachten im Kino. Und als ProgrammCassette auch zu Hause” (“E.T. in the cinema for Christmas, and at home as a program cassette”), and the inside tells readers to remember a date: from 10 December 1982 the film would run in 200 German cinemas, “Gleichzeitig veröffentlicht Atari die neue Video-ProgrammCassette E.T.” (“At the same time Atari is releasing the new E.T. video program cassette”), cartridge CX 2674, “natürlich wieder exclusiv”. The page reminded readers that Spielberg had made Der weiße Hai (Jaws), Unheimliche Begegnung der dritten Art (Close Encounters) and Jäger des verlorenen Schatzes (Raiders of the Lost Ark), whose Atari cartridge was due in early 1983, and called E.T. “schon jetzt der erfolgreichste Film in der Filmgeschichte”, having broken every American record “in nur wenigen Wochen”. Captain ATARI was giving away 50 E.T. surprise packages to readers who could say how many light years E.T. was from home.
The page’s interest now is its date. In America, Howard Scott Warshaw had written the game in about five weeks to be ready for Christmas, and within months it would become the best-known symbol of the 1983 crash. Nothing in the German magazine hints at trouble. The same issue boasted that Atari was running “die größte Werbekampagne, die Deutschland je für Video-Computer-Spiele gesehen hat” (“the biggest advertising campaign Germany has ever seen for video games”), with films on ZDF and ARD, one showing a grandfather playing Pac-Man with his granddaughter, and advertisements soon to appear “im Stern, in der Hör Zu und in anderen Illustrierten”.
The rest of the special is club life. Johann Beiderbeck, the German Pac-Man champion, had won the international championship in Paris on 18 September, against players from Britain, Hong Kong, Kuwait, South Africa and thirteen other countries, and his fellow German finalist Klaus Wolf had come fourth. A photograph shows them with Gerald Mann, who sang the song “PAC-MAN-Fieber”, and Klaus Ollmann, Atari’s managing director in Germany; the first thousand readers to send their opinion of the issue would receive the record. A fourteen-year-old reader, Silke, answered an earlier article, “Was ist mit den Mädchen los?” (“What’s up with the girls?”): when her brother and his friends played, she wrote, she had to wait until they had had enough, “und das kommt kaum vor” (“and that hardly ever happens”). Christian Wirth, president of a members’ club called The Adventurers in Neu-Isenburg, sent in the house rules for his club’s championships, such as allowing only 20 shots per screen in Missile Command.
1983: a club at full stretch
The first issue of 1983 passed on a finding that suited its publisher. Staff of the B.A.T.-Freizeit-Forschungsinstitut in Hamburg, it reported, had surveyed a representative sample of the population in autumn 1982 and found that video games “fördern die Kommunikation und bauen Aggressionen ab” (“encourage communication and reduce aggression”), and that 96% of video-game owners liked best to play with their family or friends. The same page announced that demand had been too great: the cartridge rack given to members who recruited a friend had sold out, and so had the club shirts and pullovers. It also warned that the warranty on the VCS applied only if Atari cartridges were played on it, because Atari could not vouch for other makers’ cartridges. The magazine’s writers had been shown the new Real Sports games “gerade in Amerika vorab” (“in America, just now, in advance”).
The club’s big event that year was Centipede. National qualifying rounds were run by age group, a record of 84,996 points led the seniors at the third issue’s press date, and the world final was held in Munich on 16 September, with national champions from 22 countries. By the autumn the magazine was also serving computer owners. Its third issue reported that the roughly thirty Atari user clubs in West Germany had over 2,000 members, and that their first joint meeting, at a hotel in the Sauerland on 2 and 3 July, had been dominated by software copying. For many dealers, it said, importing programs had become unattractive: of 100 imported games perhaps ten could be sold, because within two days copies were circulating all over Germany.
1984: a new owner
In the 1984 issues Captain ATARI has gone. The editorials were now signed by Wolfgang Blödorn and addressed readers with the formal Sie instead of Ihr, and the cover carried a price of DM 2.50. Issue 3/84 addressed “den Inhaberwechsel bei ATARI”, the change of owner that had caused a stir in public. The takeover by “the computer pioneer Jack Tramiel”, Blödorn wrote, had “ausschließlich positive Folgen” (“exclusively positive consequences”): lower prices for computers and peripherals, and a new label, UserSoft, selling programs for 29 marks. The issue presented a new VCS 2600, but most of its pages were about computer software.
The Christmas 1984 issue printed a reader’s letter that put the question directly. Ulrich Schick of Wiesbaden had read in the paper that the new owner had decided largely to withdraw from video games and would bring out no new cartridges. What would become of the club, “der mir in dieser Form übrigens gut gefällt” (“which, by the way, I like as it is”)? The club would carry on, the magazine answered. A survey had found that 60% of members owned Atari computers and 40% played the VCS, and the magazine would be weighted accordingly. Requests for new VCS software were piling up, but because many things were being changed at Atari in the USA, supplies would have to wait until the licensing questions for the new owner were settled. The same issue’s editorial held up Christian Schulte-Venbuhr, a Hamburg programmer, as proof that computers created jobs instead of destroying them, and invited members to write the program of the year.
One club, several magazines
Atari ran its clubs country by country, and the magazines were made locally. The Christmas 1982 special gave addresses for an Atari-Club in Austria, run through Warren Ges.mbH in Vienna, and in Switzerland, through Phonag AG in Winterthur. In the United States the Atari Club published Atari Age every two months from Philadelphia from 1982, and in France L’Atarien was “le magazine des membres du Club Atari”, with its own editorial board, from 1983. The German magazine’s contents were its own: German championships, German television and magazine advertising, and German readers’ letters. This is the opposite of Club Nintendo, whose first issues in 1989 were one magazine made in England and translated. The difference is discussed in Magazines across borders.
Sources
- Atari Club Magazin, Weihnachts-Sonderausgabe (Christmas special), 1982: cover; p. 2 (E.T., 10 December 1982, 200 cinemas, CX 2674, the competition); p. 3 (advertising campaign, ZDF and ARD, Stern and Hör Zu); p. 5 (the cartridge rack as the reward for recruiting a friend); p. 7 (letters, Silke, The Adventurers); p. 8 (Pac-Man championship, Klaus Ollmann, club addresses in Germany, Austria and Switzerland).
- Atari Club Magazin 1/83: cover (“A Warner Communications Company”); p. 3 (contents, Impressum, Captain ATARI’s editorial and the relaunch); p. 4 (the B.A.T. survey, sold-out merchandise, cartridge warranty, letters); p. 5 (Real Sports seen in America).
- Atari Club Magazin 2/83, p. 3: Impressum; Centipede championships and the world final in Munich on 16 September.
- Atari Club Magazin 3/83: p. 2 (Impressum); p. 3 (editorial, the seniors’ record); p. 9 (the user clubs and their July meeting).
- Atari Club Magazin 4/83: p. 2 (photograph captioned “Klaus Ollmann (Managing Director Atari Elektronik GmbH)”); p. 3 (Impressum; the Munich final with champions from 22 countries).
- Atari Club Magazin 3/84: cover (DM 2.50); p. 3 (Impressum, Blödorn’s editorial on the change of owner, UserSoft).
- Atari Club Magazin 4/84: p. 2 (Ulrich Schick’s letter and the reply); p. 3 (Impressum, editorial).
- Atari Age, 1982: masthead (“published bimonthly by The Atari Club”, Philadelphia).
- L’Atarien, October 1983: masthead (“Le magazine des membres du Club Atari”, Créteil).
- Guido Frank, “Rückschau: Atari Club Magazin”, Videospielgeschichten, 18 March 2003 (web, secondary): the first issue at the end of 1980, the black-and-white sheet, the first colour issue, the last issue in 1985. https://videospielgeschichten.de/rueckschau-atari-club-magazin/
- Kultboy, “Atari Club Magazin” (web, secondary): first issue 1/80, last issue 1985. https://www.kultboy.com/Atari-Club-Magazin-Zeitschrift/69/
- For Warshaw’s five weeks and the American release of E.T., see the E.T. entry; for the sale to Tramiel in July 1984, see the Atari entry.