Overview

This archive aims to preserve catalog and circular ads for electronic games. The way games are seen and the language used to talk about them has changed significantly over the years, and how stores have tried to entice sales is a good example. These ads show how much games cost when they were new, and how quickly or slowly that price changed as they became older. We can compare prices of games across stores and see how different stores pushed different games, and we can directly compare disc and cartridge based game prices. Some of these have beta or mockup cover art that is not well preserved. This can also be fun nostalgia trip back to a time when you used to daydream about what games you hoped you would get for your birthday or Christmas.

To be included the advertisement has to be from a retail store and it has to feature an electronic game or an accessory for such. Electronic game for our purposes includes consoles and games that are played on a television, handhelds with or without interchangeable media, computer games, and some miscellaneous gadgets that you can play games on, such as watches. All ads are from American stores and prices are in United States Dollars. Magazine ads and catalogs made by game publishers or hardware makers aimed at retail stores are not included. Eventually I would like to include newspaper ads.

The quality of these images will vary considerably. Some have many watermarks, some are small, some were not scanned well, and some are not scans, but pictures of a page. I am not withholding any particularly poor images in the name of preservation.

I currently have images from 1975 to 2023 including more than 35 different stores. The ads are organized by alphabetically by store on each year page and by page number when applicable. When there are multiple catalogs or weeks of circular ads featured within a store section I have ordered them chronologically when possible. Sometimes I have had to guess what year the ad was published based on the games featured, please let me know if I have made a mistake.

You can click the images in the galleries to make them full size, either press the left or right arrow keys or click near the left or right edge to go to the previous or next image, and press escape or click outside of the lightbox to close it.

I typically update every year with the new Black Friday ads during December. For a few years in the late 2010s I was looking through every weekly circular ad but that became too much, especially for GameStop.

If you can find or scan any ads that aren’t on these pages, please send me an e-mail at thespritecell@gmail.com, or message me on twitter at SpriteCell.

Current total images: 3,252

1970s

1975 – 2 images – Montgomery Ward, Sears

1976 – 12 images – Child World, JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, Rich’s, Sears

1977 – 23 images – JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, RadioShack, Sears, Spiegel, True Value

1978 – 12 images – JCPenney, RadioShack, Sears, Unknown

1979 – 19 images – JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1980s

1980 – 18 images – JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1981 – 30 images – Child World, JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, RadioShack, Sears, Skaggs Drug Centers/Alpha Beta Food & Drugs, Toys “R” Us

1982 – 42 images – JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1983 – 77 images – JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, RadioShack, Sears

1984 – 29 images – JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, RadioShack, Sears

1985 – 10 images – Child World, JCPenney, Montgomery Ward, RadioShack, Sears

1986 – 10 images – Hills, JCPenney, RadioShack, Sears

1987 – 25 images – Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, RadioShack, Toys “R” Us

1988 – 51 images – Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1989 – 32 images – Child World, JCPenneyKB Toys, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1990s

1990 – 79 images – Electronics Boutique, Hills, JCPenney, Lechmere, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1991 – 176 images – Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, KB Toys, RadioShack, Sears, Target, Toys “R” Us

1992 – 260 images – Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, KB Toys, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1993 – 176 images – Captron, Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, RadioShack, Software Etc, Toys “R” Us

1994 – 107 images – Best Buy, Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, KB Toys, RadioShack, Sears, Software Etc, Toys “R” Us, Unknown

1995 – 117 images – Best Buy, Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us, Unknown

1996 – 73 images – Best Buy, Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, KB Toys, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1997 – 159 images – Best Buy, Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, KB Toys, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1998 – 38 images – Ames, Electronics Boutique, Hills, JCPenney, RadioShack, Sears, Toys “R” Us

1999 – 48 images – CompUSA, Electronics Boutique, FuncoLand, JCPenney, KB Toys, KMart, RadioShack, Sears, Target, Toys “R” Us

2000s

2000 – 20 images – JCPenney, RadioShack, Sears

2001 – 94 images – Circuit City, Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, RadioShack, Sears

2002 – 19 images – Electronics Boutique, JCPenney, RadioShack, Sears

2003 – 15 images – JCPenney, RadioShack, Sears

2004 – 21 images – Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Fry’s Electronics, JCPenney, KMart, Kohl’s, Sears, Target, Walmart

2005 – 22 images – Best Buy, Circuit City, JCPenney, KMart, Kohl’s, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2006 – 57 images – Best Buy, Circuit City, Fry’s Electronics, GameStop, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2007 – 40 images – Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, FYE, JCPenney, KMart, Kohl’s, Microcenter, RadioShack, Sears, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2008 – 61 images – Best Buy, Circuit City, FYE, GameStop, KMart, Kohl’s, RadioShack, Sam’s Club, Sears, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2009 – 102 images – AJWright, Best Buy, Fry’s Electronics, GameStop, JCPenney, KMart, Kohl’s, OfficeMax, RadioShack, Sears, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2010s

2010 – 42 images – AJWright, Best Buy, Fred’s, GameStop, Hastings, KMart, Kohl’s, OfficeMax, RadioShack, Sam’s Club, Sears, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2011 – 44 images – Best Buy, Fry’s Electronics, GameStop, Hastings, KMart, Kohl’s, RadioShack, Sam’s Club, Sears, Shopko, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2012 – 35 images – Best Buy, GameStop, Hastings, KMart, Kohl’s, Microcenter, RadioShack, Sam’s Club, Shopko, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2013 – 49 images – Best Buy, eBay, Fred Meyer, Fry’s Electronics, GameStop, Hastings, KMart, Kohl’s, Sam’s Club, Sears, Shopko, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2014 – 46 images – Best Buy, eBay, Fred Meyer, Fry’s Electronics, Gordman’s, Hastings, KMart, Microcenter, Newegg, Sam’s Club, Sears, Shopko, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2015 – 37 images – Best Buy, Five Below, Fred Meyer, GameStop, Hastings, HHGregg, Kohl’s, Micro Center, Rakuten, Sam’s Club, Shopko, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2016 – 40 images – Best Buy, BJ’s, Circuit City, Fred Meyer, Gordman’s, HHGregg, Kohl’s, Rakuten, Sam’s Club, Target, Toys “R” Us, Walmart

2017 – 79 images – Best Buy, BJ’s, Fred Meyer, Fry’s Electronics, GameStop, Kohl’s, Newegg, Sam’s Club, Shopko, Target, Walmart

2018 – 230 images – Best Buy, BJ’s, eBay, Fry’s Electronics, GameStop, Kohl’s, Newegg, Shopko, Target, Walmart

2019 Part 1 – 215 images – Army & Air Force Exchange Service, Best Buy, BJ’s, Fred Meyer, GameStop

2019 Part 2 – 213 images – Gamestop, Kohl’s, Newegg, Sam’s Club, Target, Walmart

2020s

2020 – 63 images – Best Buy, BJ’s, Dell, Five Below, GameStop, Kohl’s, Newegg, Sam’s Club, Target, Walmart

2021 – 22 images – Best Buy, Newegg, Staples, Target, Walmart

2022 – 61 images – Best Buy, BJ’s, BrandsMart, Costco, Fred Meyer, GameStop, Kohl’s, Microsoft Store, Navy Exchange, Newegg, QVC, Sam’s Club, Staples, Target, Walmart

Sources

Christmas Catalogs & Holiday Wishbooks has hundreds of text searchable catalogs.

Hughes Johnson has personally scanned a number of catalogs for his site and blog. His scans are available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license . No changes were made to his scans.

WishBookWeb has a number of Christmas catalogs.

Video Game Art & Tidbits has personally scanned a number of catalogs, as well as other art & tidbits. The individual tweets are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Black Friday Archive has many ads from many stores from late November.

Weekly Ads has many weekly circular ads from many stores.

RadioShackCatalogs specializes in RadioShack catalogs. Some of their scans credit AlliedCatalogs.com.

Totally Target has many Target weekly ads.

Archive.org has all sorts of miscellaneous items. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 , 9

GottaDEAL has a lot of ads, especially for Black Friday.

BFAds has a lot of ads, especially for Black Friday.

Plaid Stallions has scans of catalogs from the 70s and 80s.

Kotaku by way of reddit user Sketchbreaker.

BassGuitari from AtariAge contributed the Spiegel 1977 scans.

Bored Panda

Retro Junk

AusRetroGamer

imgur user trolling4soup

imgur user ProfessorPancakes

imgur user kylakurai365

imgur user zadoc

Reddit user m08inthem08 (same as previous, this particular catalog is easily the most commonly posted)

Reddit user isaynonowords

Reddit user Dedennecheese

Reddit user ThomDenick

Reddit user StuffyUnicorn

Reddit user JaredLJohnson

ResetEra user Deleted member 3321

Nintendo Times

Mental Floss

Tumblr user lenimph

BuzzFeed News

Twisted Sifter

Brad’s Deals

Consumerist

Warosu’s archive of a 4chan thread.

TecheBlog

Mother to Earth on Twitter thinks that this image is from Earthbound Central, but I couldn’t find it there.

Earthbound Central via “a fellow by the name of Mother_fan”

Vintage Computing took credit for scanning a Toys “R” Us ad which I got from somewhere else.

Reddit user cyber_electronics

Vintage Ads from Target’s Holiday History

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjiEAHjsOZ8/ Instagram user 90s_the_best_decade

https://www.instagram.com/p/CASiKuHnjyt/ Instagram user dadcangame

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-KUVTeHtLA/ Instagram user audio_video_retro_geek

https://www.instagram.com/p/ChUaswruC0t/ Instagram user justinmsalvato

https://www.instagram.com/remembering_hills_dept._stores/ Instagram user remembering_hills_dept_stores

https://www.instagram.com/ecto_core/ Instagram user ecto_core

https://www.instagram.com/vintage_80s_icon/ Instagram user vintage_80s_icon

https://www.instagram.com/frys_electronics_ads/ Instagram user frys_electronics_ads

https://twitter.com/thehauntedvcr/status/1591564825049825280 Twitter user thehauntedvcr