Atari "Special Edition" games

[Griking]

I found a large lot of complete Atari 2600 games at a thrift store today (Pic in the finds thread) and noticed something that I never really thought about before. A few of the older games have a "Special Edition" banner that goes down the front of the box. What makes these copies of the games special? I'm pretty sure that all copies say this but I was just curious why? Are there non special edition varients of these boxes? The games in my lot that have this banner on them are Casino, Backgammon, Superman and Video Chess but I suppose there are others as well. Anyone?

[Arcade Antics]

Are there non special edition varients of these boxes?
Yes.


The games in my lot that have this banner on them are Casino, Backgammon, Superman and Video Chess but I suppose there are others as well. Anyone?
Superman: the "Special Edition" is a bugfix. In the original version, you can keep the bridge from blowing up (thus saving you many valuable seconds) by holding the button down (X-Ray vision) for the first few seconds before Superman changes to Clark.

Basic Programming also had a "Special Edition" version. In this case, I think it was just a cost cutting measure, it didn't have the overlays for the keyboard controllers.

It's sort of the old-school equivalent of the "Hot! New!" stickers on the Dreamcast Midway launch titles.

[Kid Ice]

The 'Special Edition' label was used for the first 4K games:

Basic Programming
Backgammon
Championship Soccer
Superman
Video Chess

Did both versions of Championship Soccer have the fireworks display when you score? I mentioned this to Al Backiel and he was like "what fireworks?"

[Griking]

The 'Special Edition' label was used for the first 4K games:

Basic Programming
Backgammon
Championship Soccer
Superman
Video Chess

Ok, dumb question. What's a "4k" game?

Also, you missed Casino in your list.