Third-party games are Atari 2600 cartridges made by companies other than Atari itself. That seems normal today, but in the late 1970s nobody outside a console maker published games for its machine. The change came from Atari’s own staff. In 1979 a group of its programmers, including David Crane, Alan Miller and Bob Whitehead, left to found Activision, the first independent console game developer. Atari sued, but the case was settled by 1982, with Activision paying royalties and the idea of third-party publishing left standing. Activision also printed its designers’ names on boxes and manuals, something Atari did not do.
Other companies followed quickly. Imagic, co-founded by former Atari programmer Rob Fulop, brought out games such as Riddle of the Sphinx (1982). Toy and film companies joined in too: Parker Brothers with Tutankham, Coleco with Zaxxon, and Mattel’s M Network with BurgerTime. Starpath went further with its Supercharger add-on, which loaded games such as Communist Mutants from Space from audio cassette and raised the console’s memory from 128 bytes to over 6 KB.
Activision’s own hits remain the best-known third-party games, including David Crane’s Pitfall! (1982) and Frostbite (1983). By 1983 so many publishers had flooded shops with cartridges, of very mixed quality, that the glut is often named as one cause of that year’s video game crash.
Browse the full list below and play games from dozens of publishers right here in your browser.
Mountain King is a platform game for the Atari 2600, where the player assumes the role of an explorer in search of a diamond mine and the temple of an ancient civilization. The objective is to discover and collect the Golden Crown and take it to the summit of the mountain. The mountain environment is … Read more
Mr. Do! is Coleco’s 1983 Atari 2600 version of Universal’s arcade maze game from 1982. You play a clown who digs tunnels through an orchard, picks cherries and fights off the creatures chasing him with falling apples and a bouncing Power Ball. The 2600 cartridge was developed by Individeo and programmed by Ed English. It leaves out some details of the arcade game, but the digging, apple-dropping and ball-throwing that make Mr. Do! fun are all still there. You can play it here in your browser, with nothing to install.
Mr. Postman is a 1983 action game from the Taiwanese company Bit Corporation, and this page has its European PAL cartridge. A mail carrier has to deliver a message to the City of Silence: he climbs a tree, swaps a swinging rope for the back of a hawk, flies through a storm and finally threads his way through narrow city streets. You can play it here in your browser.
Mr. Postman is a 1983 action game from the Taiwanese company Bit Corporation. A mail carrier has to deliver an important message deep inside the City of Silence, and getting there means climbing a tree, riding a hawk through a hailstorm and squeezing through narrow streets. This page has the NTSC version, made for American televisions. You can play it here in your browser.
The Music Machine is a 1983 Christian children’s game for the Atari 2600, based on the 1977 children’s record of the same name. It was designed by Dan Shafer, programmed by Glenn Stohel, and brought out by the Christian record company Sparrow together with HomeComputer Software. It was sold only in Christian bookstores, and the cartridge is now extremely rare. It is often named as one of the first Christian video games. You can play it here in your browser.
Missile Control is a city-defence shooter for the Atari 2600, released in Europe in 1983 by Video Gems, a Hong Kong label. Alien ships bomb your six cities, and you aim a laser gun with a cursor to shoot down the bombs and then the ships. Unlike Missile Command, the later waves can only be won with bank shots off your own defence missiles. This page runs the PAL cartridge. You can play it here in your browser.
Mission 3,000 A.D. is a space shooter for the Atari 2600 from Bit Corporation of Taiwan. This page runs the European PAL cartridge, whose manual is dated 1983. You fly the Thunderhawk, using a radar to hunt down enemy starbases while waves of starfighters attack. You can play it here in your browser.
Mission 3,000 A.D. is a space shooter for the Atari 2600 from Bit Corporation of Taiwan. You fly the Thunderhawk, use a radar to find the hidden starbases of the planet G.T., and fight off wave after wave of starfighters. This page runs the NTSC version, made for the 60 Hz TV sets used in North America. You can play it here in your browser.
Mission Survive is a one-player action game released in 1983 by Video Gems, a small label whose cartridges were sold in Europe. It was only made for PAL televisions and never came out in North America. Very little is documented about it: AtariAge has no manual for it, and no programmer is credited in the sources we checked. You can play it here in your browser.
Mogul Maniac is a 1983 slalom skiing game for the Atari 2600, published by the Amiga Corporation. It was sold together with the Joyboard, a board you stood on and leaned to steer, and it was the only game ever released for that controller. You race down nine courses through red and blue gates, and the score is simply your time. The Joyboard was wired just like a joystick, so you can play it here in your browser with the keyboard.