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Go For The Gold Prototype Box

A recent Ebay auction of an unreleased prototype game box 'Go For The Gold' has sole for $1,525.00. This is most likely a one of a kind item. It is safe in an established Intellivision collectors hands. Here are the details of the box from the auction: 

Offered here is an 16 1/2 inch X 15 inch (aprox) Prototype Go For The Gold Video Game Box Uncut Sheet that was designed for the Mattel Intellevision Game. (No Game included) It was the "Official Video Game for the 1984 Olympics"

This item comes from a larger Portfolio of a Commercial Artist who it seems was heavily involved with Toy Design and Toy Packaging Design as well as other Commercial and Animation Art in the 1980's and 90's.
This thin cardboard printed piece seems to be the finished Design for the Mattel version of Go for the Gold Video Game and is dated 1983. It is in great condition with just a little yellowing on the back and a small corner bend.

Go For The Gold development history courtesy of IntellivisionLives!

 

INTELLIVISION CARTRIDGE

#5393/UNRELEASED
Used under license from OCOG Sarajevo '84
Working Title: Olympics Album
Includes modified versions of the previously released Boxing, U.S. Ski Team Skiing, NHL Hockey and NBA Basketball produced by APH Technology Consultants for Mattel Electronics
Title screen & menu program: Keith Robinson
Title screen graphics: Monique Lujan-Bakerink
Title screen & menu music: David Warhol




CATALOG DESCRIPTION
Four Intellivision sports hits in a single cartridge makes the "Official videogame of the 1984 Winter Olympics" a winner -- play Skiing, Hockey, Basketball and Boxing.

DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
After Chris Markle, who was working on the official Winter Olympics  cartridge, left Mattel Electronics, no one was assigned to continue it. Midway through 1983, Marketing suddenly realized they had spent millions of dollars to obtain the Winter Olympics license, but didn't have a Winter Olympics cartridge.

Salvation came in the form of the multi-game album concept that Design & Development had demonstrated with Happy Holidays. Keith Robinson (TRON Solar Sailer) was assigned the task of slapping together some old sports titles and calling it an Olympics cartridge.

Of the previously released Intellivision Sports Network cartridges, six -- Boxing, NBA Basketball, NASL Soccer, Tennis, U.S. Ski Skiing, NHL Hockey -- were, in their amateur form, Olympic sports, so those were chosen to be in the album. Keith modified their code to remove designations such as HOME and VISITOR from the scores to make them look more like Olympic events.

Monique Lujan-Bakerink animated a runner lighting the Olympic torch for the title screen, and David Warhol  composed a fanfare that sounded very close to the familiar Olympic theme.

The game went together very quickly and Marketing was delighted, even though it meant that six sets of hand controllers and an especially thick instruction book would have to go into the package. The boxes were already printed and ROMs were just about to be manufactured when the legal department threw a wrench into the works: Mattel had purchased a license for the 1984 Winter Olympics. They didn't have the rights to the Summer Olympics. Including summer sports on the Go For The Gold cartridge could open Mattel to a lawsuit. Legal demanded the summer sports be removed from the cartridge.

Keith pointed out that would leave only Skiing and Hockey. Two games made for a pretty poor album. Marketing agreed that the cartridge couldn't be released that way. Keith, his boss Mike Minkoff (Snafu)  and Marketing worked out a compromise that Legal thought they might be able to get away with: in addition to Skiing and Hockey, Boxing and Basketball would also be included. That would make half the cartridge winter sports (as opposed to before when it was mostly summer sports) and, since Boxing and Basketball are played indoors, they could be played in winter. (Yes, that was stretching it.)

Keith reworked the cartridge to remove Soccer and Tennis, and new packaging was designed (only a black and white mockup was finished), but Mattel Electronics closed before the game went into manufacturing.

  As a bonus, each cartridge was to come with an embroidered 1984 Winter Olympics patch. Mattel Electronics purchased tens of thousands of these, with little "GO FOR THE GOLD WITH MATTEL ELECTRONICS" ribbons attached. Mattel employees kept maybe a hundred or so as souvenirs; the rest are probably in a landfill somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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