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User:Atlas851997/Video game crash of 1983

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Famicom

(Adding a paragraph to the 'Long Term' section)

After the crash occurred some changes were made to the North American model (Famicom) of the NES. The console itself was engineered to look like anything but a game system. Nintendo wanted it to look more so as a regular home tech item such as a VCR rather than a gaming console. Nintendo's thought process was that with the crash just ending and having a toll on the gaming industry and also it's consumers that it would go for a look that was opposite of what it is made to be. Nintendo was afraid that people would be a bit wiry after the events and would not want a console in their homes. The company even went as fair as avoiding the words ``video game" and "software" when referring to the console. The NES's design helps people make the association between 8-bit gaming and classic gaming[1].

In 1984 is when some of the longer term effects started to take a toll on the video game console. Companies Magnavox and Coleco had both decided to pull out of the video game console industry. With the sales being so little and businesses not getting a good enough return on their sales they also started to abandon the video game industry. The general concise was that video games were just a fad that came as quickly as it left. But outside of North America the video game industry was doing very well. Popularity was growing with home consoles in Japan while home computers were surging across Europe. Also In 1984 Warner Communications brought a struggling company that they ended up selling 18 months later to Jack Tramiel[2]. Not long after he went on to renaming the company Atari Corp.

The United States sales fell from $3 Billion to around $100 million in 1985. Despite the decline in sales, new gaming companies started to make their way onto the scene such as Westwood Studios, Code Masters, and Square All which all started in 1985. All of these companies would go on to create numerous genres defining titles in the future[3]. During the holiday season of 1985 Hiroshi Yamauchi decided to go to New York small markets about putting their products in their stores. Minoru Arakawa offered a money back guarantee from nintendo that any stock that was left unsold they would pay back. In total Nintendo sold 50,000 units which was about half of the units they shipped to the US[4].



Loss of publishing control[edit] (Original)

[edit]

Prior to 1979, there were no third-party developers; console manufacturers like Atari made their own games for their own systems. This changed with the formation of Activision in 1979. Activision was founded by four Atari programmers who left the company because Atari did not allow credits to appear on their games and did not pay employees a royalty based on sales. At the time, Atari was owned by Warner Communications, and the developers felt that they ought to receive the same recognition that musicians, directors, and actors did from Warner's other divisions. The four programmers, having knowledge of the Atari VCS system already, were able to build on that to develop their own games and cartridge manufacturing processes. After Activision went into business, Atari quickly sued to block sales of Activision's products, but failed to secure a restraining order and ultimately settled the case in 1982, with Activision agreeing to pay royalties to Atari but otherwise legitimizing the third-party model. Activision games were as popular as Atari's, with Pitfall! in 1982 drawing over four million units sold.

Prior to 1982, only a few third-party developers besides Activision were making games for the Atari VCS. These included Imagic, Games by Apollo, Coleco, Parker Brothers, CBS Video Games, and Mattel. By 1982, Activision's success led numerous other companies to join them. However, Activision's founder David Crane observed that several of these companies were supported by venture capitalists attempting to emulate the success of Activision, not only for the Atari VCS but other consoles, and relied on inexperienced computer programmers. Without the experience that Crane and his team had, many of these games were of poor quality, with Crane describing them as "the worst games you can imagine". Companies lured away each other's programmers or used reverse engineering to learn how to make games for proprietary systems. Atari even hired several programmers from Mattel's Intellivision development studio, prompting a lawsuit by Mattel against Atari that included charges of industrial espionage.

The rapid growth of the third-party game industry was evident by the number of vendors present at the semi-annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Crane recalled that during the six months between two consecutive CES events, the number of third-party developers jumped from 3 to 30. At the Summer 1982 CES there were 17 companies, including MCA Inc., and Fox Video Games announced 90 new Atari games. By 1983, an estimated 100 companies were vying to get a foothold in the video game market via the CES. AtariAge documented 158 different vendors that had developed for the Atari VCS. In the second half of 1982 the number of cartridges grew from 100 in June to more than 400 in December.

Experts predicted a glut in 1983, with 10% of games producing 75% of sales. BYTE stated in December that "in 1982 few games broke new ground in either design or format ... If the public really likes an idea, it is milked for all it's worth, and numerous clones of a different color soon crowd the shelves. That is, until the public stops buying or something better comes along. Companies who believe that microcomputer games are the hula hoop of the 1980s only want to play Quick Profit." Bill Kunkel said in January 1983 that companies had "licensed everything that moves, walks, crawls, or tunnels beneath the earth. You have to wonder how tenuous the connection will be between the game and the movie Marathon Man. What are you going to do, present a video game root canal?" By September 1983 the Phoenix stated that 2600 cartridges "is no longer a growth industry". Activision, Atari, and Mattel all had experienced programmers, but many of the new companies rushing to join the market did not have the expertise or talent to create quality games. Titles such as Ralston Purina's dog food-themed Chase the Chuckwagon, the Kaboom!-like Lost Luggage, rock band tie-in Journey Escape, and plate-spinning game Dishaster, were examples of games made in the hopes of taking advantage of the video-game boom, but later proved unsuccessful with retailers and potential customers.

Loss of publishing control[edit] (My edits)

Prior to 1979, there were no third-party developers; console manufacturers like Atari made their own games for their (deleted 'own') systems. This changed with the formation of Activision in 1979. Activision was founded by four Atari programmers who left the company because Atari did not allow credits to appear on their games and did not pay employees a royalty based on sales. At the time, Atari was owned by Warner Communications, and the developers felt that they ought to receive the same recognition that musicians, directors, and actors did from Warner's other divisions. The four programmers, already knowing the Atari VCS system (deleted already), were able to build and develop their own games and cartridge manufacturing processes. After Activision went into business, Atari quickly sued to block sales of Activision's products, but failed to secure a restraining order and ultimately settled the case in 1982, with Activision agreeing to pay royalties to Atari but otherwise legitimizing the third-party model. Activision games were as popular as Atari's, with Pitfall! in 1982 drawing over four million units sold.

Previous to 1982, only a few third-party developers besides Activision were making games for the Atari VCS. These included Imagic, Games by Apollo, Coleco, Parker Brothers, CBS Video Games, and Mattel. By 1982, Activision's success led numerous other companies to join them. However, Activision's founder David Crane observed that several of these companies were supported by venture capitalists attempting to emulate the success of Activision, not only for the Atari VCS but other consoles, and relied on inexperienced computer programmers. Without the experience that Crane and his team had, many of these games were of poor quality,[5] with Crane describing them as "the worst games you can imagine"[6]. Companies lured away each other's programmers or used reverse engineering to learn how to make games for proprietary systems. Atari even went as far as hiring several programmers from Mattel's Intellivision development studio, which prompted a lawsuit by Mattel against Atari that included charges of industrial espionage.

The rapid growth of the third-party game industry was evident by the number of vendors present at the semi-annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Crane recalled that during the six months between two consecutive CES events, the number of third-party developers jumped from 3 to 30.[7] At the Summer 1982 CES,[8] there were 17 companies, including MCA Inc., and Fox Video Games that announced 90 new Atari games.[9] By 1983, an estimated 100 companies were dying to get a foothold in the video game market via the CES. AtariAge documented 158 different vendors that had developed for the Atari VCS.[10] In the second half of 1982, the number of cartridges grew from 100 in June to more than 400 by December.

Experts predicted a glut in 1983, with only 10% of games producing 75% of sales.[11]

BYTE stated in December that "in 1982 few games broke new ground in either design or format ... If the public really likes an idea, it is milked for all it's worth, and numerous clones of a different color soon crowd the shelves. That is, until the public stops buying or something better comes along. Companies who believe that microcomputer games are the hula hoop of the 1980s only want to play Quick Profit."[12] Bill Kunkel said in January 1983 that companies had "licensed everything that moves, walks, crawls, or tunnels beneath the earth. You have to wonder how tenuous the connection will be between the game and the movie Marathon Man. What are you going to do, present a video game root canal?"[13] By September 1983 the Phoenix stated that 2600 cartridges "is no longer a growth industry".[14] Activision, Atari, and Mattel all had experienced programmers, but many of the new companies rushing to join the market did not have the expertise or talent to create quality games. Titles such as Ralston Purina's dog food-themed Chase the Chuckwagon, the Kaboom!-like Lost Luggage, rock band tie-in Journey Escape, and plate-spinning game Dishaster, were examples of games made in the hopes of taking advantage of the video-game boom, but later proved unsuccessful with retailers and potential customers.

  • Ten Facts about the Great Video Game Crash of 83[1]
  • The Video Game Crash of 1983[3]
  • History of Computer & Video Games[15]
  • Before the Crash: Early Video Game History[16]
  • History of Video Games: Changing of the Guard (1983-1988) [17]
  1. ^ a b Ten Facts about the Great Video Game Crash of '83 - IGN, retrieved 2020-10-11
  2. ^ Senger, Emily. "The ODE: Atari (1972-2013)". Canadian Business.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ a b Boyd, Andy. "No. 3038: The Video Game Crash of 1983". www.uh.edu. Retrieved 2020-09-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ Wardyga, Brian (2018). The Video Games Textbook. New York: A K Peters/ CRC Press. p. 113. ISBN 9781351172363.
  5. ^ Flemming, Jeffrey. "The History Of Activision". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved December 30, 2016.
  6. ^ Adrian (May 9, 2016). "INTERVIEW – DAVID CRANE (ATARI/ACTIVISION/SKYWORKS)". Arcade Attack. Archived from the original on May 9, 2016. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
  7. ^ Adrian (May 9, 2016). "INTERVIEW – DAVID CRANE (ATARI/ACTIVISION/SKYWORKS)". Arcade Attack. Archived from the original on May 9, 2016. Retrieved May 10, 2016.
  8. ^ Kleinfield, N.R. (October 17, 1983). "Video Games Industry Comes Down To Earth". The New York Times. Retrieved September 21, 2018.
  9. ^ Goodman, Danny (Spring 1983). "Home Video Games: Video Games Update". Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games. p. 32. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017.
  10. ^ Ernkvist, Mirko (2006). Down Many Times, but Still Playing the Game: Creative Destruction and Industry Crashes in the Early Video Game Industry 1971-1986 (PDF). XIV International Economic History Congress. Helsinki. Retrieved September 11, 2020.
  11. ^ "Stream of video games is endless". Milwaukee Journal. December 26, 1982. pp. Business 1. Retrieved January 10, 2015.
  12. ^ Clark, Pamela (December 1982). "The Play's the Thing". BYTE. p. 6. Retrieved October 19, 2013.
  13. ^ Harmetz, Aljean (January 15, 1983). "New Faces, More Profits For Video Games". Times-Union. p. 18. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  14. ^ Cite error: The named reference mitchell19830906 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  15. ^ Fritts, Jason. "History of Computer & Video Games" (PDF).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  16. ^ Wolf, Mark J. P. (2012-06-15). Before the Crash: Early Video Game History. Wayne State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8143-3722-6.
  17. ^ Palola, Taneli (2016-02-17). "History of Video Games: Changing of the Guard (1983-1988)". VGChartz. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
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