The Tired Debate of The Game Crash by the Uninformed

[TVs Hasselhoff]

Here is another article and thread by someone looking to make himself seem smarter than the average bear by claiming there was no industry crash in the past. This all stemmed from people claiming ET was the worst game ever and it leading to the fall of the game economy. This author states that there wasn't a bad time because games and systems were always available. By that logic, the Jaguar was a success because, for quite a while, I could pick one up at KB Toys (for $19.99).

My posting deals more with the nitpicking and fact twisting of people like this just to make a weak point, or to interpret a past that they have no recollection of. Its like watching 'That 70's Show' and seeing everyone get high, wear bell bottoms, and drive a van. Sure, to someone that is 20 years old, that would seem to be the accurate assessment of th 70's. Only recently has this rewriting of that period in gaming taken place, and it seems more to do with writing to make a name for one's self than writing for analysis or review.

Anyway, here's a link, although I'm sure there are several links out there to this topic and article. The body politic of this forum should be more than capable of punching a few holes in his argument or to those that are responding in agreement to 'the myth.'

Its important to have a clear idea of what HAS happened with gaming history, not just a few facts about this game sucking or that game getting burried in the desert. The cause and events are important, not the trivia.

http://www.gametab.com/news/474538/

[Leo_A]

He's kind of right, gaming shifted heavily to PC's around the time. Development and sales never really stopped, they just heavily shifted toward computers for a few years.

[TVs Hasselhoff]

No, i can agree with the shift to computers, but this isn't really addressing moves like Atari stashing 7800 systems in warehouses, or the fact that you could find a lot of games was because of the flood of junk license games and that people weren't buying them.

Abundance of these games doesn't mean market security, and I think he doesn't address that difference.

[Ed Oscuro]

Can't really get into it, but I noticed an interesting post:

I was there too, in fact more so than most of you I'm sure. I worked for such a company that to deal with said crash. The company I worked for also dealt with Arcades. There was indeed a crash, and it hurt all of us. Yes some companies din't make it, but some stood, but not to well. To anyone that said there wasn't a crash...I'm not very wealthy now as proof of it.

[Kid Ice]

This is a lie. I was around then, and although Atari, Magnavox, Mattel, and Coleco dropped out of the video game biz,

Dropped out? I guess they just got tired of making so much darn money.

the arcades were still jumping, the Commodore 64 hand THOUSANDS of games, and the PC was just coming into its own.

The arcades in my town closed down around 84/85.

Commodore 64 had thousands of games...that everyone stole.

The PC was not a viable gaming platform at the time.

Gamers were not without games. Stores were not without product to sell.

Correct on both counts. Stores had tons of five dollar games.

Just because the CONSOLES hit a wall doesn't mean that there was a gaming crash.

If everyone stops going to the movies, it will be a movie industry crash, regardless of DVD sales, cable, etc.

Besides, everybody who was there knows that the Commodore 64 was more gaming console than computer. Who seriously got any work done on the C64?

/me raises hand

The 'crash' is a myth. There was no crash. A big video game company died (Atari, and only the first of many times) and the other companies willingly pulled out of the console business because the computers and arcades were kicking their butts. This does not constitute a crash. This is a SHIFT.

Maybe "the great videogame crash of 1984" just sounds better than "the great videogame SHIFT of 1984".

And when did Atari "die"?

I'm so sick of this lie being turned into some sort of legend.

Yeah, it's really worth getting sick over. It's one of the worst things going on in the world.

It's false. We were playing games EVERY YEAR during the '80s. There wasn't any span of time when you couldn't find any games in stores. There wasn't any span of time when Epyx, Electronic Arts, and Capcom (among others) didn't have a platform to publish for.

Yeah because the C64 was around for about 10 years.

There wasn't a period of time in the 80s when you couldn't find an Atari 2600/5200/7800 on which to play the hundreds of games, even if the company was dead their consoles were still in stores longer than any other console in history.

Right again...you could get any one of those at a flea market for eleven dollars.

And Nintendo/Sega came along real soon after the supposed crash.

Nintendo didn't become popular until a couple years after the crash. Sega really didn't show up to the party until Sonic.

We didn't have some horrible desert gulch of gamelessness. It didn't happen the way they say it did.

E.T. didn't kill gaming. It only killed Atari.

ooo, it wasn't the planes....

[googlefest1]

im glad someone said it

sure, barels of money wasnt being made but i always saw games

and had a C64 - oh and i didnt get any work done ( i was to young for work) but i know a small company that used C64s to do acounting and run some molding machines

[Haoie]

Well, I still believe in Steve Kent's history on the VG crash. Everyone should so read that chapter in the Ultimate History of VG, I believe it's right after A Case of Two Gorillas.

[davepesc]

I agree that "crash" is a bit over dramatic. E.T. didn't kill gaming, but it shook people's faith in Atari. Add to that the possibility that Atari produced more E.T. carts than there were 2600 consoles in existance at the time (?) and you can see a financial failure coming.
They bet the farm on a lame horse.

I never knew there was a "crash" in 1983-84. All I knew is that my mom came home with a Tandy and the Atari was forgotten. A few years later, the SMS brought me back to "TV" games.

Consumers went with the best product at the time, which they often do. Atari couldn't adapt, so they fell by the wayside.
Remember also that Atari didn't really want to adapt. They were more interested in the computer end of things at the time.

[Ed Oscuro]

Well put, Kid Ice!

[KingCobra]

I was 16-17 durring the soo-called "CRASH" of the video game era and gamming like a madman, I really don't remember any crash outside of Atari and Coleco crashing. Back in those day's you really didn't move on to every new console, ya' pretty much beat the tar outta watcha had years after it's prime, by then NES and Sega were rolling out their big guns in home consoles.

Though, I do remember some coin-op arcades/dealers bailing ASAP in a panic. When Atari bail'd? I think word of mouth caused a huge panic, that's all.

[w3ace]

This discussion leads into a question I've been curious about ever since the 'CRASH' ... Will Game Consoles eventually fall by the wayside when PCs become integrated with TV? I think Atari was correct in moving to Computers and away from the console, they were just about 30 years to early.

[NeoZeedeater]

The main point of that article is correct: video games never died off. Yes, the console industry did crash in North America and it was a big deal but that should never be equated with the death of gaming in its entirety.

Too many kids who started playing games with the NES and later systems have been misled into thinking gaming somehow didn't exist in 1984/1985 despite the fact the number of games made in that period was huge and, more importantly, it was a really innovative and fun time for game design in general. It shouldn't matter that the majority of good games from that time weren't technically on consoles.

[Kid Ice]

Nintendo and Mario brought the console world back from the brink of total destruction. Period.

[ozyr]

I was around during the so-called 'crash' too, and as I see it, it never was really a crash. Sure, lots of companies went under, but I kept on buying and playing game - and they weren't discount junk on the shelves.

The crash to me was more of a time when games were not as abundent. Plus it was the time when some of my favorite consoles bit the dust. But some things made it through, and that's all that matters to me.

[calthaer]

Nintendo and Mario brought the console world back from the brink of total destruction. Period.

And the point that these guys are trying to make is that the console world is not the whole world. Or, even if it comprises a fairly good portion of it (as it does today), that it may not even contain the best parts of it.

[Kid Ice]

I was around during the so-called 'crash' too, and as I see it, it never was really a crash. Sure, lots of companies went under, but I kept on buying and playing game - and they weren't discount junk on the shelves.

So I'm to believe that the crash never happened because *you personally* were still playing game?

This over-generalization of DP forum dwellers to the population at large seems to pop up quite often.

EXAMPLE:
A) Rez has a huge fanbase on DP
there fore
B) Rez has a huge fanbase in the real world
therefore
C) Sega should re-release Rez!

Of course WE were all still playing games. But in the minds of your average American, videogaming was a fad that had run its course by the mid-80s.

[Kid Ice]

Nintendo and Mario brought the console world back from the brink of total destruction. Period.

And the point that these guys are trying to make is that the console world is not the whole world. Or, even if it comprises a fairly good portion of it (as it does today), that it may not even contain the best parts of it.

Yeah but the assertion that arcades were thriving is pretty shaky too. No, arcades weren't stone cold dead the way the console market was, but there appeared to be a significant decline in the popularity of arcades as well.

[Jorpho]

This discussion leads into a question I've been curious about ever since the 'CRASH' ... Will Game Consoles eventually fall by the wayside when PCs become integrated with TV? I think Atari was correct in moving to Computers and away from the console, they were just about 30 years to early.

People have been waiting for years for PCs to become integrated with TV. WebTV sure didn't take off, though, people are still buying TiVos instead of using MythTV, and for some reason not even the XBox 360's various multimedia capabilities don't get mentioned as much as the games.

Maybe it'll happen eventually, but it's a ways off yet.

[googlefest1]

i gues its me but i never got why ET was so bad

i rember as a kid trying it out at my cousins house -- my cousin imediately said " don't play that it stinks" i played it and i liked it - I didnt understand how to play it - but i had fun making ETs head rise and float out of the pits - i have to someday sit down read the manual, discover how to play the game and find out why it has this stigmata

[Slimedog]

The crash actually got me more into gaming. Generally, I only got a new game on either Christmas or my birthday. But when stores started dumping 2600 carts for $5 or less, my dad was grabbing them all over the place. Pre-crash we had maybe 8-10 games, post-crash was just shy of 100. And I was a kid so everything was fun. I played ET for hours along with lots of other shovelware. I did a lot of C64 gaming too, but that was mostly copied games.