"Life After the Video Game Crash"

[NeoZeedeater]

There never was a "crash" in the '80s. There was never a point when the developers simply stopped making games. Gaming continued on PC and 8-bit family computer platforms, and in the arcades. And of course, the Famicom saw release in 1983, so just how long did this putative "crash" last?

Just as there never was a crash in the '80s, there won't be one anytime soon.

Anyway, when the NES was coming out here, Nintendo made a lot of press releases, speeches, public demonstrations, whatever, to try to tell people why their system was gonna be so rad compared to Intellivision and 2600. it was there they formulated lists about how shitty the games were, how there was a flood of crap games, how ET was the work of Satan, etc. Of course they didnt mention that probably the greatest gaming platform of all time, the Commodore 64, was still alive and well at that point.

Of course, because the NES was so wildly successful, people bought Nintendo's story, and now it is supposedly common knowledge.

Thank you. Whenever I read shit like "Video games died off and we owe everything we have today to the NES", it makes me want to hurl.

[Videodrone]

No doubt. They should just refer to it as the "Mainstream Videogame crash of the early 80's"

[gamevet]

Just like sleeveboy said, there was no crash in the 1980s.

I actually think a lot of the talk today about the amazing bone-chilling crash comes from... Nintendo.

Now now, I know what youre gonna say, but hear me out.

I think I read all this in Game Over, by the way. One of those stupid books.

Anyway, when the NES was coming out here, Nintendo made a lot of press releases, speeches, public demonstrations, whatever, to try to tell people why their system was gonna be so rad compared to Intellivision and 2600. it was there they formulated lists about how shitty the games were, how there was a flood of crap games, how ET was the work of Satan, etc. Of course they didnt mention that probably the greatest gaming platform of all time, the Commodore 64, was still alive and well at that point.

Of course, because the NES was so wildly successful, people bought Nintendo's story, and now it is supposedly common knowledge that the industry "crashed" because of Atari "flooding the market with bad games".

Bah.

Console gaming did crash. Home computers became affordable and offered games that were on par with what was offered in the arcades. The Atari 2600 had been around for far too long. It came out in the early 70's and lasted almost 10 years. Everyone from Rolsten Purina (Chuckwagon) to Parker Bros. was releasing games for the system.


Updated machines like the Colecovision, Vectrex and Atari's own 5200 were greated with luke warm reception. The most succesful of the 3 (Colecovision) only sold around 4 million units.


Gamers that grew up with Atari 2600 and Intellevision, had enough of the same old, same old and when affordable home computers like the C-64 arrived, they ditched those lame consoles, in favor of a platform that actually offered something new.


Just look at movies released in those days. War Games became a shout out, for computer users of the day and TRON had a cult following as well.


Computers became the next fad and it was'nt until after 1986 that the NES even made an impact on American gamers. I would'nt have bought an NES, except for one of the greatest games of it's time being released shortly there after (Super Mario).


The NES did'nt revitalize the stagnant console market, Mario did and shortly after that, Tetris. Everything else was just icing on the cake.


Back to what the author had to say

I have a feeling, that the guy may be on to something. Unless the next console becomes a permanent fixture within the living room ( Set top box). Just how much, can the next generation of consoles, advance graphically, beyond what we have today? I'm not tired of what is currently being offered today. Just like most seem to think that 2-d had it's best days in the 16-bit era, I have a feeling that 3-d graphics, may of had their best days in the 128/ current generation of hardware. What's left beyond characters that look like the real thing?

[NeoZeedeater]

Console gaming did crash.

True. It's the notion that that the video game industry as whole crashed and died out that is false.

As for the future of the industry, I say there's almost no chance that we're heading for a crash. The current first-party hardware industry model will likely one day be replaced but gaming isn't going away.

[gamevet]

True. It's the notion that that the video game industry as whole crashed and died out that is false.

Correct, but for some people to say that Nintendo was talking about the whole industry as crashing, is'nt true. As the book Game Over pointed out, but Diffusion-X seemed to miss, was that retail had enough of the console industry and was very happy with what home computers were doing at the time. Rob the Robot was introduced, as a way of persuading the US market to come back to home consoles. Nintendo had to pretty much back every console and game sold, with a no risk clause for the retailers. It was'nt until the NES became a big item, that Nintendo started on thier evil ways.

[Johnny]

Anyone remember the great movie crash of '72? Thank god MGM came in and saved the day!

[Changeling]

There never was a "crash" in the '80s. There was never a point when the developers simply stopped making games. Gaming continued on PC and 8-bit family computer platforms, and in the arcades. And of course, the Famicom saw release in 1983, so just how long did this putative "crash" last?

Just as there never was a crash in the '80s, there won't be one anytime soon.

I agree with you to an extent. I wouldn't consider what happened in the 80's to be a "CRASH" as much as a shift of momentum and perhaps a re-grouping.
If anyone "CRASHED" it was Atari.

But Atari symbolized mainstream gaming to Americans in the early 80's and when a company like that goes down, its not hard to see why retailers didn't want to carry videogames anymore.

Thank God for Rob the useless robot, eh

[gamevet]

I agree with you to an extent. I wouldn't consider what happened in the 80's to be a "CRASH" as much as a shift of momentum and perhaps a re-grouping.
If anyone "CRASHED" it was Atari.

But Atari symbolized mainstream gaming to Americans in the early 80's and when a company like that goes down, its not hard to see why retailers didn't want to carry videogames anymore.

It was'nt just Atari that went down though. Coleco, nearly lost thier ass in the whole thing as well. Considering that they had a huge cash flow from Cabbage Patch kids, they still nearly went bankrupt when the bottom fell out. Retailers were practically giving away the games at the time the console market went flat. Nobody was buying the shit.

[Spent]

He says how people flock to more and more newer shooters in regards to goldeneye versus red faction 2, but truth be told CS has much more players than Bf and its fuckloads more limited and ugly.

[Agent X]

Agent X has been telling me there's gonna be a crash for a good five or six years.

Hasn't happened yet. Isn't gonna happen.

While I thought that it might happen a few years ago, I've sort of backed away from it now. I do think some of the small to medium-sized publishers could go down in flames soon if things don't improve, but I don't think it'll negatively impact the entire industry.

Of course, because the NES was so wildly successful, people bought Nintendo's story, and now it is supposedly common knowledge that the industry "crashed" because of Atari "flooding the market with bad games".

Agreed.

You know, every time I hear people saying that the crash was caused by an alleged "glut of poor-quality games for the Atari 2600," I have to ask, "Where was this glut?"

People (usually those who adore Nintendo and despise Atari) hold up games like Chase the Chuck Wagon and Custer's Revenge as their examples of how Atari 2600 game quality was in the toilet. Truth is, Chase the Chuck Wagon was only available from the company through a mail-in offer (hence its rarity), and Custer's Revenge was intended to be sold in adult bookstores. You never saw those games in Sears or K-Mart or other mainstream stores. Most of the "really bad" games from companies like Mystique and Mythicon had such poor distribution that the big stores never carried them--I never even knew about them other than seeing the occasional mention in magazines.

In 1983, most of the big companies (Atari, Activision, Imagic, Parker Bros.) were putting out some of the best 2600 games ever. Games like Centipede, Joust, Dig Dug, Keystone Kapers, Enduro, Pitfall II, Atlantis, Cosmic Ark, Dragonfire, Q-Bert, and Gyruss were the ones most visible on shelves--not the obscure garage-produced examples that are usually given in the Atari-bashing articles.

What really happened in late 1983 was that consumers suddenly became interested in cheap home computers like the Commodore 64, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, and Atari's own 600XL and 800XL. All of those computers offered games with better graphics, better sound, and more depth than most of the games offered on any of the dedicated game consoles of the day. They were also easy to use (most of the arcade-style action games came on cartridges, just like with consoles), and were about the same price as the high-end consoles.

The home video games weren't bad at all--as I said, most of the high-profile games were excellent. It's just that the computers were offering more and better games, including improved versions of many of the same games that appeared on consoles. Who wanted to buy the four-year-old Intellivision for $249, when you could get the vastly superior Commodore 64 for $188? Why buy an Atari 5200 for $199, when you could get most of the same games--along with hundreds of others--on the Atari 800XL for the same price?

Like some have already said in this thread, it wasn't really so much of a "crash" as it was a "shift" of the video game market from "machines that only played video games" to "machines that could play really great games and also do a whole lot more." Anyone who actually lived during that period, and played video games during that period, could tell you that.