Racing the Beam : the Atari Video Computer System - Index of

7.1 Merlin, from Parker Brothers, was the most popular of the handheld electronic
games.
had sales of only $238 million during that same year—and that was after
the Atari VCS had been on the market for more than twelve months. (Furthermore,
the Atari fi gure overstates the home market by including the
company’s lucrative sales of arcade games.) Toy companies that were
fi xated on handhelds were jolted from their game in 1981, however, when
the handheld gaming crash hit. By that time, the once-paltry home videogame
market had grown to a respectable $1.2 billion, the Atari VCS was
clearly a huge success, and Activision was a successful third-party publisher
of VCS cartridges. Activision had even been joined by other VCS
cartridge developers: Apollo and Imagic. The VCS cartridge market had
been dismissed only two years before, but now seemed to be a land of
opportunity.
So in 1981, Parker Brothers fi nally turned to the VCS and other home
consoles. Its games would not reach shelves until 1982, the year that
ended with the crash. Although the company was not experienced with
videogame development, there were plans to create titles for several
platforms. This, at least, made the company look better as a licensee
than Atari would have. It must have been enough, anyway. No one
managed to invalidate Parker Brothers’ claim that its toy and game license
included video games.
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