The Atari 2600 was not without software. The first mainstream videogame console sold over 30 million units on the strength of both its newness and the breadth of its game library, which numbered in the hundreds... as in, several hundreds. But the rush to publish games for the Atari 2600 was also the system's greatest weakness, as consumer confidence in the Atari 2600 -- and the entire industry -- was severely damaged by scores of high-profile bad games.

Still, many Atari 2600 games catapulted to the top of sales charts via strong word-of-mouth or smart advertising, moving over a million copies. The best-selling Atari 2600 cartridge sold approximately 7 million copies, something many modern bestsellers cannot even accomplish. This list details the top 10 Atari 2600 bestsellers, going by available market research from the early eighties. There was no NPD back then, so many of these game sales are based on internal figures recalled by figures within the industry or on the few published figures, such as two of the most high-profile flops in the history of videogames.

Space Invaders needs zero introduction. The arcade classic caused a yen shortage in Japan and tore up nascent arcades here in America. The 1980 port for the Atari 2600 was surprisingly faithful, earned it approximately one million sales and jumpstarting the console's popularity in American homes. Space Invaders remains not only a landmark videogame, but also a cultural touchstone. If you ever get to travel internationally, keep your eyes peeled in major cities for tile mosaics of the invaders in very surprising places.



Activision's Kaboom is another of the third-party publisher's million-sellers (an honor also bestowed on Megamania). Released in 1981 and designed by Larry Kaplan, Kaboom! used the paddle controller to capture explosives dropped by the mad bomber at the top of the screen. The game's frenzied pace made it quite addicting, as you control buckets both large and small to catch the endless waves of bombs.



Developed for Activision by Carol Shaw, River Raid is considered one of the first scrolling top-down shooters. Selling just over 1 million copies on the Atari 2600 (the game was also ported elsewhere, such as the Intellivision and Colecovision), River Raid remains a real challenge. Swooping over the rivers, blasting ships and choppers, and seizing fuel supplies to keep aloft took real twitch skills and concentration after the first ten or so minutes. The game is also exceedingly colorful, a real Activision trademark on the 2600.



Largely considered to be the very first action-adventure game, Atari's Adventure sold over one million units, making it one of the 2600's earliest successes. Designed by Warren Robinett, Adventure tasks the gamer with roaming mazes to find a chalice while avoiding three dragons. The dragons look a little like ducks, which earns the game a light ribbing now, but respect is usually given where it's due. Adventure is a landmark game for a handful of reasons, including the very first Easter Egg. Robinett hid his name in the game since Atari did not allow designers to claim credit for their games. This policy actually lead to the creation of third-party publishers like Activision and Imagic, staffed by exiled programmers wanting their creativity to be noted.



Imagic's Atlantis is a clever twitch shooter blessed with sharp graphics (for the time -- although, it still looks cool) that rightfully racked up its million sales. Players control three cannons and must time their shots to take down the Gorgon invaders trying to sink the mythical city of Atlantis. What was so cool about the game was that you were destined to lose -- the goal is just to keep disaster outside the gates as long as possible. And if you paid close attention, the little ship that escaped Atlantis at the fall of the city showed up in Imagic's Cosmic Ark, another top seller for the 2600.



Picking on E.T. for the Atari 2600 is almost a passé sport by now, what with the urban legends about buried cartridges and the fact the game is positively awful. But this game caused Atari and the whole industry such financial ruin it's impossible not to heap scorn on it. Designed by Howard Scott Warshaw (who was given an impossibly tight schedule of less than 5 weeks, thus absolving him of any real blame), E.T. debuted in 1982 to critical assassination. The number of unsold cartridges was an enormous burden on Atari and further pushed the company into the red. But still, E.T. sold approximately 1.5 million units, making it one of the better sellers on the console. Do the math, though: 1.5 million x 2 (the number of eyes on a child) = 3 million tears. That's a lot of crying, Atari.



Imagic's Demon Attack -- programmed by Rob Fulop in 1982 -- is a classic shooter pitting the player against wave after wave of incoming aliens from the heavens above. The colorful alien sprites, great audio, and tight control turned Demon Attack into a major hit, selling over 2 million units. The success of Demon Attack drew a legal complaint from Atari, claiming the game was derivative of Phoenix. (To be fair, they are remarkably similar.) And who can forget the game's silver box with those awesome painted rubber dinosaurs?



Missile Command, originally released into arcades in 1980, captured the attention of gamers with its zeitgeist gameplay -- protecting cities from incoming barrages of ballistic missiles. The Atari 2600 port, spearheaded by Rob Fulop (a key figure at Imagic), is a solid translation of the arcade hit that does not suffer much due to the jump from trackball to joystick. The popularity of the Reagan Era arcade game coupled with the solid porting job lead to over 2.5 million sales.



David Crane's Pitfall! is largely believed to have launched the platformer genre in 1982. The game, in case you blanked at its mention, is a timed run-and-jump adventure through colorful jungles in search of precious treasure like gold bars and diamonds. Along the way, the heroic Harry must swing across tar pits, jump over scorpions, and hop on the heads of hungry crocs. Pitfall! is rightly recognized as a masterpiece of gameplay, but it also deserves respect for its technical achievements in the face of such sub-par 2600 efforts even on this list. Pitfall! sold over 4 million copies on the 2600 -- and it deserved each and every ring at the cash register.



The Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man is one of those sterling examples of sales figures (7 million, with 12 million cartridges produced) often being completely unrelated to quality. This disastrous port, rumored to be more of a cribbed together prototype rushed out in time for the 1981 holiday season, is considered one of the contributing factors to the great videogame crash. The game looked almost entirely unlike the original. Orange mazes with blue backdrops? Flickering ghosts due to sprite limitations? The replacement of Pac's famous "wakka-wakka" with some odd boink-bork as tablets -- not pellets -- are consumed by a distorted Pac-Man. Good will toward Atari was shattered by the one-two punch of Pac-Man and E.T., sending the company is a dangerous spiral that laid low videogames until the arrival of Nintendo's little plumber in 1985.

