Courtesy of Goodwill North Central Texas
You never really know what you'll find at your local Goodwill.
That's what Alex Juarez, an e-commerce item processor at Fort Worth-based Goodwill North Central Texas, discovered when he was sifting through a donation bin filled with old video games.
In early June, he happened upon a copy of Air Raid, a game published for the Atari 2600 in 1982 by Men-A-Vision. As Men-A-Vision's only title distributed on a very limited scale, Air Raid is widely considered one of the rarest Atari games in the world, with only 13 copies known to exist.
"I was just doing my job and pulled a bin out, and it was full of old Atari games. When I was younger, me and my dad used to watch these 'top 10 most expensive video games' and stuff like that, and this would pop up all the time on those," Juarez said in a video produced by Goodwill.
Gameplay is rather simple — Air Raid, noted for its blue, T-shaped cartridge design, is a classic shoot-em-up in which players control an airship and fire at aliens attacking the Earth. Despite its simplicity, retro video game collectors have been keen on copies, with one complete edition selling for $33,433.30 in 2012 and a previous cartridge-only copy selling for $3,575 on eBay in 2011.
On June 10, Goodwill North Central Texas placed its copy of Air Raid up for auction on shopgoodwill.com/nct and saw the game added to 235 watch lists over the course of a week. In the end, the game sold for $10,590.79.
The game hence becomes the organization's highest-selling single piece item, said Rosemary Cruz, vice president of donated goods and retail. According to Goodwill North Central Texas, the sum is enough to provide day habilitation services for a year for one adult with disabilities, provide 20 homeless individuals with job placement services and community resources, or help 10 at-risk youth earn their GED and a paycheck at the same time.
"It's kind of surreal. It's more of a piece of history rather than an expensive game to me," Juarez said. "It's weird, knowing this will be the only time you get to hold something like this."
