When I start these projects, I ask myself a few questions. Usually, they are “What is this?” and “Who made it?” Those normally get me started and lead to other questions or let me know that what I’m looking at isn’t interesting.
This time, I fell down a rabbit hole where I kept finding mysterious and confusing things. I thought this was going to be simple, like many of the other publishers and developers. Then, I started to unravel the bizarre mystery of Froggo Games.
Froggo Games published and possibly developed video games for the Atari 2600 and 7800. Then, they made controllers for the NES and possibly the Atari 7800. It was either a one-man operation or a small team of people.
The company did market its games in magazines and might have marketed the controllers, but I haven’t confirmed that. It accomplished a lot for a company that was only around for two years, 1987-1989.
Let’s go over what I found and talk about the holes I still have in the story of Froggo Games. Like always, I won’t claim to have all the answers. I’m just going to present what I have and make some educated guesses.
The Games They Released
This one was easy. Every source I found mentioned the six games Froggo released on the Atari 2600 and the two games on the Atari 7800. Something is interesting about the Atari 2600 games.
These games were most likely licensed from other companies or cloned and hacked. I would like to believe that Froggo licensed them. I might be naive, but I would like to think that they didn’t do something wrong, even if it is a bunch of Atari 2600 games that were largely abandoned by 1988.
Here are a few of the companies that Froggo either licensed or hacked games from:
- Parker Bros
- Panda
- Spectravision
- Ultravision
Others might be, but I haven’t seen where they came from. If I find more, I’ll update the list.
Let me back up a bit before I get too far ahead of myself. The six games Froggo released seem to have all been released in 1988. This felt odd to me, but it is what my sources said. This feels strange, especially when the two Atari 7800 games are also listed for 1988.
If this were a one-man operation, that person would probably be extremely busy with manufacturing, managing the developers, and marketing. I’m assuming he had developers because this seems like too much for one person to do in a year.
Here is a list of the games that Froggo published for the Atari 2600:
- Task Force
- Karate
- Sea Hawk
- Sea Hunt
- Spiderdroid
- Cruise Missile
It looks like Froggo used the same manufacturer as Activision when they made their cartridges. The only difference is the back. The Activision name was removed and replaced with a blank rectangle. What would be interesting to know is who manufacturing and packaging for Froggo. I’m sure that is out there somewhere.
There were six planned games for the Atari 78oo. Two of those games were released (Tank Command and Water Ski). Here is a list of the games that weren’t released:
- Night of the Ninja
- Pyromania
- UFO
- Scorpion Squad
These games were advertised in the May/June 1989 issue of Atarian Magazine. Depending on the PDF you’re looking at, the advertisement is on page 19 or page 21. I want to take this opportunity to discuss their advertising further.
Advertising
There were lots of places to advertise video games in the 1980s. When I looked up Xonox a while back, I found advertisements in the Boy Scouts’ official magazine. That isn’t the norm, but it shows that ads can be placed in odd places.
I checked some of the bigger places where I would expect to see advertisements, namely the Sear’s Christmas Wishbooks for 1988 and 1989. The Atari 7800 is in both books, but I didn’t see Froggo. The books are almost 700 pages, so there is a chance I missed them, but I doubt it.
When I checked the 1988 Toys ‘r’ Us catalog, I didn’t see anything, and I could not find the 1989 circular in English. I have a limited window of time to look at when it comes to the circulars, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t miss something.
There were no advertisements for Froggo in JC Penny’s Christmas Catalogs for 1988, 1989, or 1990. The Atari 7800 was in these magazines but had a much smaller presence than Nintendo. I didn’t see their controllers either.
The controllers didn’t show up during this window of time. I could be looking in the wrong places, or they were released outside of my window of time. I asked for more information on Froggo controllers on Twitter (I don’t care that they were renamed X) but never got a response.
Froggo did advertise in some places, which suggests that they are a small operation. The company didn’t get into the larger magazines or Christmas books, which suggests they didn’t have the money for a more extensive advertising campaign outside of enthusiasts’ magazines.
At this point, I was getting tired of looking through magazines. I could not find any other place where Froggo advertised for the three to four years I was expecting to see an advertisement from them. This is probably a good time to talk about the controllers that Froggo made, or at least slapped their name on.
The Controller Mystery
Froggo released two controllers for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). One is a wireless controller, and the other is a standard wired controller. Both had turbo buttons.
I could not find an advertisement for either of these controllers. This isn’t unheard of, as many controllers didn’t get advertisements. A ton of these were made for the NES over the years.
It seemed like every company would develop a controller or copy someone else’s design. The wireless controllers look like they use the same technology as the SNES Super Scope, which many companies used. I tried to look up reviews of the controllers. I didn’t find anything, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there.
Things like this would be lost to time if it weren’t for the internet. The Froggo controllers aren’t historically significant but are a cool oddity. I wonder if Froggo would have released games for the NES if their controllers were successful.
They Just Disappeared
In 1989, Froggo appears to have ceased operation. Some speculate that Atari would help fund the development of more games, but they pulled the plug. I couldn’t find a source for the information aside from a short article on Everything2.
This post was from 2005 and doesn’t provide a source for the information. It could be true, but I don’t know. There is some other stuff on Atari Age about Froggo, which I’m inclined to believe.
I haven’t been able to find more information on who owned the company or who worked there. Froggo was incorporated in California, and the documents are available online. If you’re so inclined, you can create an account with opencorporates.com to see when the company was dissolved and the two names attached to the company. That was further than I was willing to go.
Final Thoughts
Froggo is a weird company. It seems like one of the zombie brands that slapped its name on things. That doesn’t tell the whole story, though.
They tried to advertise their games, might have employed programmers, and manufactured several products. Those products weren’t very good, but they were still released. I think they were an underfunded company, which might’ve been something if they had licensed better games.
The controllers didn’t help Froggo. I couldn’t find an advertisement for them, and information on them is scarce. They exist, but from what I can see, Nintendo didn’t license them.
This is one of the companies that is a mystery. If you look through the threads on Atari Age about Froggo, you will find some fascinating stories about the company. Unfortunately, that is where this story ends. For more, check out my post about Wizard Video Games.