The Great Video Game Crash: Personal Stories

[SoulBlazer]

When you combine my love of history with my love of video games, look out!

I'm interested in writing a article about the effects of actually being a gamer and going through the boom times of the early 80's, the Great Crash of 1983-1984, and the dead years of 85-86, and then the revival by Nintendo and Sega in 1987. Basicaly, people who can share stories, personal experiences, memories, pictures, stuff like that.

There's three main reasons I'd like to do this -- to provide extra evidence for what caused the Crash, to document and record the period, and for my own curiousty, as I was too young (born in the mid 70's) to personaly remember it.

I have vague memories of seeing games all over stores and then vanishing, of being able to buy tons of Atari games for a buck a pop (cart only), and of seeing the early Nintendo comercials, but since I was'nt actually old enough to go out and buy myself and was limited to my Atari 2600, I'm especily interested in hearing from people born 1970 or eariler.

The research I've done so far has led me to try to consolidate the many reasons and theories that people have on the cause of the Crash into three:

1) Oversupply of the market and REALLY bad games -- renting was'nt possible, games were bought full price with no prior knowledge, WAY too many 'me to' games. Plus there were MANY consoles on the market.
2) Competion from home computers -- with the Commodore 64, the Atari 800, and other systems, you could play games AND do a lot more for the same price or cheaper of a game system.
3) Confusion and lack of confidence from consumers -- as menioned, too many systems that were too similar, and the fear that video games were just a 'fad' and no real confidence in it as a hobby.

I have my primary sources. Now I need some secondary sources to support them.

Please feel free to link to articles, websites, etc. if they contain good information as well.

Thanks in advance.

[DigitalSpace]

That's a great idea for an article. Unfortunately, I was born in 1982, so I wouldn't be able to help you out. Good luck though!

[hu6800]

I never even noticed a "Videogame dark age" because arcades were everywhere .

[Red Warrior]

I never really noticed the dead years of 85 and 86 cuz my family had an Intellivision. During the times that home video games were scarce, we just mail ordered INTV games. Didn't have to go out and buy em anymore.

However, I do have distinct memories of our Atari 5200 game library remaining dormant... save for that super cheap copy of Missile Command my dad brought home one night. After buying 10 games in the 5200's first year, Missile Command would be the last game Dad would buy for the system. So, we relied on mail-order Intellivision games and arcades to get us through the hard times... until we got an NES in 1987.

I can remember asking my dad why we weren't getting any new 5200 games. And he told me that he just couldn't find them anymore. The local stores had stopped selling them. But we got through it. I remember us going out as a family practically every Friday night for years... and me, my brother, and my dad would always find an arcade to waste several hours in while my mom did her shopping. And of course, we still had tons of fun with our old 5200 games... so not having any new ones didn't phase us too much... not as long as we could still order Intellivision games from INTV and play arcade games on weekends.

[YoshiM]

First off, renting WAS possible. It seemed to be more of an independent thing than some nationwide chain renting games. In the Atari heydays my family rented from a little video store called Omni Video which I *think* was located in Las Vegas. Besides a large variety of Beta videos they had a pretty good selection of games behind a glass case.

As for the "Dead Years"-the NES was released in a test market in 1985 (if I'm not mistaken) followed by nationwide release in 1986. Can't say I can really call them "dead".

From a personal perspective I did notice that the availability of games dwindled somewhat rapidly. My family typically shopped at a Walgreens type store as it was close and their Atari game selection was meager anyway. I remember seeing Atari brand games being on sale for around $20 (I remember this because it netted me a Night Driver game). Later on I received money from my grandparents and was able to buy some G.I. Joe Cobra mini helicopter and an M-Network Space Battle (or whatever the Atari version was called) for that amount.

A story from my uncle with their Atari was he was in Sears one day and they announced over the intercom that "All Atari games (or all games, he wasn't sure) were 50% (or some other larger amount) off". He zoomed over to the department, fought his way past the crowds, scooped up some games and left. I think he was able to snag like 15 games as I don't think he bought anymore and that's about how many I had when he gave me the system.

Until the release of the NES the only place I could find any games were in the toy section in the local discount stores. At that time I bought most of my games all second hand at garage sales so it really didn't matter too much to me.

[Flack]

During those "dead years", I hung out in arcades, had birthday parties in arcades, and was heavy into computer games (Apple II and C64), as well as still playing Atari. I know there was a big "videogame" crash, but at the time I apparently missed it.

[farfel]

Atari Age stopped coming.



x_x



I quit Atari and got a Commodore.

[MarioAllStar2600]

I will tell you my stories when the next crash happens towards the end of this year. Don't doubt it!

[Packerfan66]

Was the NES out at the time of the crash? I remember wanting a NES so bad but then getting an Atari 2600 jr. for Christmas. I remember my parents hating buying me video games but one day they took me to Kay Bee Toys and let me pick out 15 Atari 2600 games. I remember thinking I had the coolest parents in the world at the time.

[IntvGene]

I never really felt the effects of the crash too much, I guess just due to lucky (or unlucky) timing, I had gotten into the Atari 800 and later the C64. Sure, we kept an interest in the consoles, but I didn't buy too many discount games for any of the systems, nor did I suffer from a lack of games because I was mostly pirating stuff on the computers. The NES piqued enough interest to get me buying console stuff again and the rest is history. It would have been awful though.. if it weren't for the computers.

[Antimind]

I was born in 80 but my memory is pretty clear when it comes to everything video game so here's my story

I spent a lot of time across town at my spoiled cousin's house cause they had Atari and Colecovision. I wanted one of my own so bad but it took a LOT of convincing. Anyone remember those $50 2600 commercials? My parents decided to get us one then. When they came home though they brought us a 7800. I was like whoa! Anyway we only had Moon Patrol (LOVE Moon Patrol), Target Fun, Stampede (oh yea!), and Raiders of the Lost Ark (still hate this game), and Pole Position II for a while. Not too long after that my cousins (who were in their early teens) found better things to do so my aunt gave us their games. They had a TON of games I remember going to Children's Palace and picking up Atari games for $1 not long after that. $1! That was great cause every time we visited our grandparents they'd give us each $1. To us it was a lot of money and to be able to buy a game with it, whoa...hehe I remember what my first pick was out of the bin too, Skate Boardin. I'd never played it but I loved to ride my board down the big ass hill behind me and loved reading mags so it was the natural choice. Somehow I got ET one day, wish that day never woulda happened...lmfao We always went to the arcade in the mall with our dad while our mum went shopping. We played Rampage constantly. I have no idea how many quarters were spent on Rampage and Cyclone (pinball).

Shortly thereafter the NES was released and here I was sitting in my kitchen playing Kaboom! while my cousins were playing SMB. I loved that game, played it constantly every time we went to the mall or the skating rink. I didn't get my NES for about a year I think. My grandfather bought us our first NES. I'll never forget that day either. We went out to lunch every Sunday after church but this time we stopped off at the mall first. We got our NES (total surprise) and dammit we still had to go eat before we could go home...lol Me an my lil bro sat in the grass in front of Bob Evan's petting the box and I kept reading it over and over and looking at the pictures. My brother was more interested in staring at Rampage (our first game). Eventually I played Punch-Out! at a Pizza Hut and fell in love with it. I read about Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! for NES and had to have it. Problem was it was $35 and my parents were all about renting. I cut lawns, did dishes, took out trash, even set up a fruit punch stand (which went over really well cause we stole and sold our dad's whiskey too). Next trip to the mall I only had $20 but me mum knew I worked hard for my money and kicked in the rest Eventually they bought us a ton of used games. I traded one of my prized skateboards (which was actually a piece of crap) for Paperboy. From there on out it was just natural progression. When a new system came out we got it but we never gave up any of them. I still play my 7800 as much as I play my Gamecube.

[Antimind]

Duh, forgot the whole point of my story...lol

The effects of the crash to me personally were wonderful. I was too young and too broke to get what was happening totally. I do know that a lot of the neighbors and my cousins and their friends just up and quit playing games. They GAVE us all their stuff and new games for $1! I didn't really understand it till about 5 years later but at the time I just thought christmas had come early.

[Epicenter]

This IS a video game crash, if you ask me.

[SoulBlazer]

Heh, not for ME.....I'm buying more new games in this period (1998-present) then I have ever before.

To add to my first note -- I used the term 'dead years' (I picked it up from someone) just to mean console games, not so much arcades and computers. Although arcades WERE in decline after 1983, and they never really came back save for some brief revivals.

The NES was test marketed in New York City in Late 1985 -- and it finally got a Nationwide release in mid 1986. The system really did'nt have anything aproaching coverage or major sales until mid 1987, though -- my research has shown this. So I just called 85-86, when sales of video games was awfull (about $4 million in 1985) the 'dead years'.

And there WERE some local video stores that rented? Very interesting -- I've found a couple refernces to that, but no real proof yet. I suspose thee opeartions, what few there were, were kept low key enough tha Atari or any of the gaming companies knew or heard about it. And renting video games had'nt been defined or defended by the law yet -- that would'nt happen till the Blockbluster Vs Nintendo case. If anyone remembers, I'd love to hear about how many games, how much to rent for how long, if they included instructions, etc.

[Mayhem]

And mid 87, strangely enough, is when the NES was released in Europe...

[Fatghost28]

I was playing Vectrex, arcade games, and Apple II and Commodore 64. I got a Master System for Christmas in 1986 and was hooked on consoles for life ever since.

[cbroddy]

I remember playing at many of the Atari/Intellivision/Colecovision displays in the stores. One of my cousins had a nice collection of Atari 2600 games. Many stores had huge sellouts of games. I remember wanting to build up an Atari 2600 collection.

The NES commercials made me want to buy the system. I was really happy when I received one in 1987. One store had about a dozen NES games to rent.