The Great Video Game Crash

[thompson9980]

And those who had the cash to afford one had an Amiga (majority) or ST (minority)

Not really, the ST outsold the Amiga through most of the 80s. The Amiga only took over towards the very end of the decade and early 90s.

I find this hard to believe (I'm not saying its untrue). I always thought the Amiga was a lot more popular
Is this statement based on fact?

[Antiriad2097]

Yes, its based on fact. The ST beat the Amiga to market by a significant margin. Do you not recall all those lazy Amiga ports from tne ST as Atari had the lead platform? Amiga didn't take the lead for a few years, not until the end of the 80s/early 90s, then it absolutely dominated. But we didn't notice, as we were still playing our C64s and Speccys until the late 80s.

[ootini]

I’m open to correction here, but I the Amiga was primarily a full PC style desktop unit till the A500 which first came out in 1987, but I think it only really took off with the Batman pack which must have been about 1989 to coincide with the film? The 520st which had it's debut in 1985 would have been competing with the Amiga 1000 right? I’d hazard a guess that the 520 ST was more than likely considerably cheaper?

[ToxieDogg]

The videogame crash didn't affect anybody in the UK (or even Europe AFAIK) thanks to the rise of the 8 bit (and later the 16 bit) home computers....I didn't even know there had been a crash until I was older and read up about it. I have thought myself in more recent years that we might possibly head into another one as I agree with Nakamura (that software quality is at an all time low at the moment), developers and even some big publishers are going out of business all the time, there's much less variety of big AAA games around, the indie scene is getting really swamped and bogged down with a lot of crappy cheap games, clones and freemium rubbish (a shame, as there's still loads of genuinely great indie games out there) but whatever happens is still a while off as despite the problems, there's still a fair amount of money being made too....the likes of Minecraft is testament to that. And whilst sales across the board may be down on what they where a few years back, it's nowhere near as bad as back in the days of the Atari 2600 in the US.

Nobody is forced to buy DLC, but that doesn't stop a good moan. DLC on the disc? Guess everyone has forgot why that happened? Gamers complained that it took too long to download DLC so the solution developers came up with was to put already complete assets on the disc. And yet all people do is moan some more.

Nonsense. If there are assets already on the disc, then it's from content created during the development period, and then deliberately cut from the main game to make an extra buck selling them as DLC and the customer is quite within their rights to complain about it. I understand you're looking at the situation from the eyes of a developer, but you're not entitled to do crap like that and then blame the customer when there's a backlash.

[koopa42]

On disc DLC is worth it just for the response on this forum IMO.

[gunbladelad]

On-disc DLC just reeks of a blatant con. I'm not a fan of content being locked out to players who only play offline (due to personal preference or circumstance) - such as happens with quite a few games. Monster Hunter Tri was one of the worst offenders, with offline gamers being locked out from about 33% of the game content. At least MH3U redeemed that by putting up free DLC released over the first year after the game came out - and all the content being available to offline gamers.

I do have to agree that the "Great Videogame Crash" of the 1980s was very much an American issue as those of us in the UK were too busy playing our home computers to be bothered with consoles. I don't forsee it happening again though - despite all the shovelware that gets released on various formats. The reason why? The internet allows people to get on board with fun games - meaning quite often it's stuff that isn't coming out of corporate sweat-shops that gets the public attention. All they need is a bit of recommendation through word of mouth online, and those teeny companies can quickly become overnight successes for very little outlay.

[ToxieDogg]

On disc DLC is worth it just for the response on this forum IMO.

I don't visit this forum much nowadays, I just don't like it.

[martyg]

It's something that seems to be enshrined in video game law - over saturated market led to a collapse, Nintendo come along and save it with the NES. I was only a few years old when it happened so have no direct experience, but given the popularity of home computers in the UK and Europe did it have the same sort of effect here? The NES was popular but didn't dominate the market in the same way it did in the US so was it really that much of a saviour?

You might want to check out the article I did on the "crash" in Retro Gramer 100. It seems some of the common hearsay is popping up in this thread, so without repeating the entire article here's a few key points:

- The "Crash" was not a "video game industry" crash. There was no such beast at that time. Rather you had separate industries (consumer, coin, computer) that had video games in them. Each is a separate industry with it's own resources, logistics, markets, needs, etc. I think what confuses the issue for some is that you had some companies, such as Atari, who operated in all three. The "crash" was a North American consumer industry crash. Coin had already going through it's own industry crash earlier and was just coming out of it when the consumer crash was hitting it's worst, and the low end computer industry (Vic20, C64, TI99, Atari 400/800, etc.) was at the peak of it's own shakeout and just coming out of it by '84 as well.

- Pac-Man and ET in no way, shape, or form caused the consumer crash. They were symptoms, not the problem. What caused it was already well underway at Atari before ET was even started.

- Too many competitors was certainly a part of it, but what caused it and the chain reaction that occurred in the consumer industry was for more complicated.

- The crash was a North American consumer industry crash, not a market crash. The market existed the entire time, product was still being actively sold and purchased during that time, it's just that the companies behind the products still being sold were no longer there or supporting them.

- While Nintendo takes credit for being a major factor in a revitalization of the consumer industry in North America, it was not an instantaneous thing and they weren't solely responsible. The 1985 "instant revitalization" is not accurate, they only test marketed in New York and it went poorly according to the Consumer Electronics industry and retailer coverage (and Nintendo themselves, they only sold about half of the conservatively allotted number of console for the test). Nintendo decided to see it as a positive and go ahead with the Los Angeles test marketing in February which went better. Atari Corp. launched the 7800 in January nationally, and as Nintendo slowly expanded nationally then SEGA through their hat in the ring by the June '86 CES. The press and industry was seeing all three being involved as a sign the consumer video game industry was being revitalized. Nintendo didn't come out as the clear leader of the revitalized industry until after the Christmas '86 season was over.

[paranoid marvin]

I’m open to correction here, but I the Amiga was primarily a full PC style desktop unit till the A500 which first came out in 1987, but I think it only really took off with the Batman pack which must have been about 1989 to coincide with the film? The 520st which had it's debut in 1985 would have been competing with the Amiga 1000 right? I’d hazard a guess that the 520 ST was more than likely considerably cheaper?

The Amiga if I recall was initially about £200 more expensive - a real deal clincher back then. Also Amiga games tended to be a bit more expensive. Also (again if I recall rightly) the ST was seen more as a games machine and Commodore were still intent on plugging their business machines. It seemed at the time that ST games were more prevalent, cheaper, for a machine that was cheaper - and in most cases the ST versions were just as good as the Amiga - if not better. It's also arguable that there was still the Speccy/C64 divide and the Amiga was seen as a Commodore upgrade (indeed ZZzap! covered Amiga and C64 games) whilst the ST was therefore the Spec-chums choice.

But tbh I think the main reason that the ST was more popular is because it was cheaper to buy, simple as that.

The Batman pack definately sold a lot of 'miggys but it was the Simpsons bundle that got a lot of people on board. Also around that time the Amiga was really starting to do it's stuff and showing how much more powerful it was ; compare DOTC on the Amiga and ST, then compare Rocket Ranger a couple of years later - massive differences. The Amiga was now down to £399, only about £100 more than the ST, so much more affordable and the £100 now got you noticeably better games. Also there were now a number of Amiga exclusive titles becoming available, so it was definately the 'must have' machine. About this time the ST reduced to (I think) £250 with a big bundle of games, but the writing was on the wall. Whilst most ST games looked like Speccy games with more colours and higher resolution, Amiga games were looking arcade-like in sound and graphics.

[gman72]

On disc DLC is worth it just for the response on this forum IMO.

I don't visit this forum much nowadays, I just don't like it.

I dont like mushrooms but I dont eat one every few weeks just to see if i've changed my mind.