Someone made a game about taxes. Well, it was three people. Darrell Wagner, a former Internal Revenue Service employee; Todd Clark Holm, an investment advisor; and John Simonds. These three men came up with the idea and the design for Tax Avoiders on the Atari 2600.
Dunhill Electronics programmed the game, and the extremely short-lived company American Videogame published it. Tax Avoiders is the only game they published. Next to US Games, they have the most annoyingly generic name to try and google.
The game is exactly what you should expect from people like this: visually appalling, dumb gameplay, and arguably the worst game on the console. I know someone will bring up E.T. However, Tax Avoiders is worse.
US Games and American Videogame
Looking up information on American Videogame and Tax Avoiders has been very frustrating. The only thing that points to the company’s existence is the game. American Videogame didn’t release a second game.
Every source I could find has little to no information on the company. It is also a nightmare to search for this company. It reminds me of trying to find information on US Games.
While there is information on US Games because it is tied to other companies, and they released a bunch of games, it has a very generic name. American Videogame is just as generic. Unfortunately, this appears to be an independent company, and there isn’t much information on it.
Even in Ian Bogost’s 2007 book, Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Video Games, there isn’t much information on Tax Avoiders or American Videogames. Unlike US Games and many other companies, American Videogame has been lost to time.
Creators
Dunhill Electronics is listed as doing the programming. I’m guessing they were the developers, and the three people listed worked for them. This company is so poorly archived that I couldn’t find any information about them. The only game they developed is Tax Avoiders.
American Videogame is just as much a mystery as Dunhill Electronics. The only game that is credited to them is Tax Avoiders. This is going to be rough.
Of the three people listed on the cartridge, John Simonds is the only one who has a second game attributed to them. He worked on Porky’s for the Atari 2600. This means he worked for 20th Century Fox at some point. I guess this means I can compare the two games.
Darrell Wagner and Todd Clark Holm are only credited on Tax Avoiders. I can’t find another game they worked on; it isn’t clear how involved they were with it. Both worked in finance, which points to their involvement in the creative process.
I wondered what their goal was besides making money in the video game market. Tax Avoiders was released in 1982, so the market hadn’t fallen apart yet. At this point, it isn’t clear if other games were planned.
Dunhill Electronics and American Videogame seem to have disappeared after publishing Tax Avoiders in 1982. They probably wouldn’t have lasted through 1983 anyway, which adds some mystery to this whole thing. I’m at a dead end, and I have no idea where to go or if there is any place to go.
I am unsure what happened to the three people named on the cartridge. They probably went on to live happy lives; that is what I hope happened. It seems like they all exited the video game industry by 1984, as they have no further credits on games, as far as I can tell.
I can only assume that American Videogame was a one-off company. It was created to release Tax Avoiders, and then it disappeared. Maybe the game sales weren’t what they expected, and perhaps that was the deciding factor. It is a mystery that might not have an answer.
Tax Avoiders and Porky’s
Tax Avoiders was released in 1982, and Porky’s was released in 1983. Porky’s has a few names attached to it. One screen looks similar to Tax Avoiders but with better graphics. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that each person who worked on the game focused on their section.
There are a number of similarities between the two games. It seems clear to me that the developer used what he learned on Tax Avoiders when making Porky’s. It is an interesting connection.
After Porky’s, John Simonds would disappear from the gaming industry. His work could’ve gone uncredited, or he could’ve moved on to something else. This one connection adds to the mystery of this game.
Lost to Time
I did something I don’t usually do when researching these companies: I looked up the people associated with Tax Avoiders and American Videogame. While this did point me to Porky’s, it turned up some harsh realities of trying to write about the history of these games. It looks like two of the three people involved with Tax Avoiders have passed away.
It is sad to see this. Whatever story they might have told about this game is gone. It is one of the things that we’re going to run into more and more as we try to uncover the stories of these games.
I wish I could end this happily, but there isn’t much to this story. I’ll keep looking, and if I find more information, I’ll put out an update. For now, we’ll have to leave this story where it is.