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IGN: Revising History: The Crash of '83


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what i cant stand is the idea that 1985 is when things turned around

 

the NES didn't really start to hit the big time until 1987. I got my NES over the summer of 1988 and there were still plenty of kids that did not have one. it was only test marketed at the end of 1985

I remember Xmas 1986 was the big push for the NES which meant that 1987 was the first year for most of those families. That year was also when classics like Metroid and Zelda came out here and pushed the system to further heights.

 

I'm in full agreement. Yes, I know the NES was around in '85 and '86, but it didn't really become a mover and a shaker until 1987. It took a good two years to shake off the "video games are a dying fad" stigma and prove to customers that it wasn't going away and was worth investing money into.

 

From my (admittedly dim) memories, it seems like 1987 was the year that the NES was a hot item only the lucky people had, and 1989 was the year everyone and their dog had one.

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Back in the good ol' days of the crash I was either 14 or 15 years old, owned an Intellivision 1 for a few years and was begging my parents for a C64 for Xmas. So for me that time was about saying goodbye to the Intellivision era and hello to the PC (Commodore 64) gaming era. My change over to C64 had nothing to with the so called "crash". I was absolutely blown away with the graphics and sound capabilities that a C64 could produce when compared to the consoles from that period. I just knew that I had to have it. It also helped that I could use the excuse that I would be able to do homework on the Commodre and not just play games as a selling point to my parents.

 

While I remember there being good deals around me during the "crash" period I guess it didn't matter that I could pick up Intv carts for $10. I knew that I wanted to move forward in terms of graphics so the old systems and their deals didn't matter. One thing that I do recall from that period is my friend picking up an Intv 2 with Burgertime brand new for around $50. I remember thinking of how much the original Intellivision cost ($300) and the all of those games ($35-$40)that I bought when compared to my friends deal. Oh well.

 

I also remember buying the C64 games at Toys'R'US and every few months that I would look at the C64 section it kept getting bigger and bigger in terms of floor space. At that same time the Atari/Intellivison/Colecovision section kept shrinking while the C64 grew like crazy. Boy, right before the Intellivision died I still remember Toys'R'US having a huge supply of the Intellivision music keyboard stockpiled on the very top of the shelf for around $50. I never bought one but looking back I wish I did and kept it until now. I'd put it on Ebay.

 

Fun time period to be around 13-18 years old in my opinion.

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the avalanche started rolling in 83, check out the sears xmas catalog thread with all the price cuts

 

Right, but to a lot of naive kids like me, that was a gold rush. There were plenty of good 3rd party games to sift through on those tables being sold for pennies on the dollar. So I think if you added up the number of carts sold, it must have been huge in 83 and 84, but the market was still so oversaturated that nobody could make a profit. Too much supply, not that much of a dropoff in demand.

 

Now, if games continued to sell at $19-30 a pop, then maybe the total number of carts sold would have started to dip because people were starting to get home computers, but I think there were still plenty of kids like me who kept playing both their 2600 and their computer.

 

Really, games for home computers (Atari in particular) were kind of hard to come by unless you went mailorder or there was a specialty shop around. I remember how angry I'd always be walking through Lechmere and seeing games for the Apple ][ or C=64 and barely anything for the A8. I knew the A8 versions were probably out there, but distribution was a big problem. I didn't get into the BBS thing or usergroups until I graduated from college so the entire A8 scene was kind of happening off to the side, not on the shelves of Toys R Us.

Edited by mos6507
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They've already got it wrong... The crash happened in 84!!!

Actually it happened around 1995. There hasn't been a real game made since then.

Hah, I did literally laugh out loud at that one. Nice...

I find I'm saying that sort of thing more and more lately. I think, after two years now of fighting it, that I have to admit I hate modern gaming (by which I mean everything since Atari stopped making systems).

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The Crash of '83 is usually debated in this forum, and I'm always intrigued by it. Since I didn't live through it, I have no personal experience to go on, but the official stories of how games like Pac-Man and ET sunk a whole industry always sounded like a stretch to me, so it's nice to see this article that offers a more balanced approach. Of course, I'd love to hear what the experts in this forum think. :cool: Enjoy!

 

IGN: Revising History: The Crash of '83

 

While the author does make some good points in his article, I think that he takes his argument the complete opposite of all the other depictions of this event when he doesn't really need to. The main thing that struck out to me was that he kept trying to say that the crash was completely blown out of proportion. However, what happened to Imagic (as well as Activision) is, to me, a very clear indicator of how bad the crash actually was:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983

"A massive industry shakeout resulted. Magnavox and Coleco abandoned the video game business entirely, and Imagic withdrew its IPO the day before its stock was to go public, and later collapsed. While the largest of the third-party cartridge makers, Activision, survived for several more years[4] on personal-computer platforms (thanks to its then-legal ability to average its income and recover millions of dollars in past tax payments from the IRS), most of the smaller software development houses supporting the Atari 2600 closed."

 

I think that if it weren't for the crash that Imagic would still be around and would be just as big as Activision. I mean, c'mon, Imagic was one of the best developers around who consistently put out huge hit after huge hit.

 

Anyway, another thing is that Atari did take down the industry that it built. While Atari did hurt consumer confidence in itself (and the game industry as a whole) with the horrible Pac-man port, it seems that there were many other things as well that contributed to that bad image (when is something NEW coming out; we're tired of the 2600!). After that time Atari was never able to recover its image (something it tried and failed with the 5200, 7800, and Jaguar). The way I look at it is this: What would happen if right now the only big game company around was Nintendo and then they started making bad Mario and Zelda games? If this continued for an extended amount of time it wouldn't matter how much good Nintendo had done in the past, people would start to get fed up with them and stop buying their products. Since they would be the only big game company people buy from then people would just lose confidence in the game industry as a whole. I think that Atari basically was perceived as being the entity that was the game industry, and when Atari started going downhill then people saw the whole game industry as going downhill.

 

To recap: I think that the crash may be blown out of proportion a little bit (it definitely isn't all E.T. or Pac-man's fault), but it still was very real and took down the whole industry for a while. Had Atari released the 5200 when it could have, things would be very different (Or, alternatively, had Bushnell never sold Atari things would be VERY different in the game industry, but that's a whole nother story).

 

-Adam

Edited by KIWASABI
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They've already got it wrong... The crash happened in 84!!!

Actually it happened around 1995. There hasn't been a real game made since then.

Hah, I did literally laugh out loud at that one. Nice...

I find I'm saying that sort of thing more and more lately. I think, after two years now of fighting it, that I have to admit I hate modern gaming (by which I mean everything since Atari stopped making systems).

 

Wow, not even any love for the SNES or Genesis? To me those were the golden days of video games, and not just for nostalgic purposes. It was a great balance between old school gameplay and balanced difficulty. NES games didn't age very well because they weren't very well balanced (look at Metroid vs Super Metroid). But I suppose that those games are still very different from the arcade style "pick up and play" games that Atari made.

 

Anyway, I've decided I don't like modern gaming either, which to me means that I don't like the last couple generations of console games.

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The Crash of '83 is usually debated in this forum, and I'm always intrigued by it. Since I didn't live through it, I have no personal experience to go on, but the official stories of how games like Pac-Man and ET sunk a whole industry always sounded like a stretch to me, so it's nice to see this article that offers a more balanced approach. Of course, I'd love to hear what the experts in this forum think. :cool: Enjoy!

 

IGN: Revising History: The Crash of '83

 

Its an interesting opinion piece, but just that - an opinion piece. The author doesn't offer any real research or facts, and presents his arguments based on his own logic and understanding (or lack thereof) of the market at the time.

 

The simple fact is that Atari had been 80% of the video game industry when the problems started, and when 80% of the industry starts having severe financial problems, the other 20% are going to start having them as well - hence the rest of the market starting to crash because of Atari's problems. Atari's problems were self-inflicted, and not because the market caused them - they caused the market.

 

I do agree with the point that E.T. alone did not cause Atari's problems, but more or less became a symbol of it all. In 1982, Atari was producing more than half of Warner's $4 billion in revenues and over 65 percent of its profits, and the problems in Atari actually started that year (coming to a head in August), and they did their best to hide it. Warner even looked for a partner for Atari over Winter '82-'83 to offset the problems, but couldn't find one. By the second quarter of 1983, Atari had lost $310.5 million, and I believe at one point in '83 they were loosing a million a day. So by the Spring of '83, Warner was already looking for someone to buy the company outright.

 

Also regarding his claim of "oversaturation" being a myth, that's just patently false. There are plenty of financial pieces from '83-'84 talking about shoppers cutting back and being more selective because of to many choices, both in amount of consoles or the amount of games on a console for which they already owned.

 

Regarding his views on sales sucesses at Atari, he's obviously not aware on the internal numbers games Atari routinely played at the time that got them in trouble with their financial reports, or the fact that while they had x amount of sales for a game they actually posted y amount of overall losses around it because of production costs including overproduction of games.

 

By the way, IGN retro is the best thing done by any of the major "modern gaming press." I am constantly surprised by how good it is.

 

 

Sorry you feel that way. This article certainly does not demonstrate that. :P

Edited by wgungfu
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Okay this article is dumb. They just want to do a census and get our racial, age, and state of mind. You gotta join to respond to IGN. that article is short and gives no information what so ever.

 

1. ET did not cause any crash it was Atari trying to get people buy there stuff. E.T. on atari was a joke to begin with.

 

2. There was no creative support from the west. Just a bunch of niave business people who was living in the seventies.

Japan had many things going on like. Duck Hunt Alley, Game and Watch, MSX, MarkIII, and various of other computer game systems. The Brits had the Commendore at least.

 

3. There is no perfect port of anything. There is never sappose to be a perfect port of anything. People of today whin and cry about House of the Dead on the Saturn and even compare it to the Wii and 360 game. I own DK and DKC for the 2600 and it plays just fine. While I could understand the hardware ability was there a big diffrence? I even own Congo Bongo for the MarkIII ( a DK clone ) and even that game is fun.

 

4. Pac-Man is Pac-Man. I mean what would anybody really want out of Pac-man? I play the game no diffrent then I played it at the arcades. I might add the game is better on the system then the arcade.

 

5. When you get down to it. The first real game system from America to be successfull is the X-box. With PC support and the ability to run Windows 2000 it even made PC games from the past popular. The Atari was a success then the X-box is the first to gain respected fan base. Even if that fan base is over flowing with FPS players and Everquest(DAD) fans.

 

6. Lastly like I mentioned in my previous post. During 1985 present day everything was a okay. Videogames was barely developed and yet during that time there was a balance in the world that had nothing to do with computers. then 1995 rolled around and we had that balance of reality. A balance where all those things talked about in 1985 was comming true.

 

However when you get down to it, having things undeveloped and loose was the best way to go. However the view of videogames never changed in the west. No matter how much we try to make it look like a type of media we never really accomplished anything. We hold videogame expo's when the real expo's are in Japan and the E3Expo before that is practically gone. When we do have them in USA it feels like a gay rights parade. Parents, goverment officials, and even advertising has used videogames like a crutch allways affecting game releases.

 

7. Oh yeah also Videogames was just something that everybody was trying on at that moment. They never took it seriously and companies was prepared to back out of the bussiness from the start.

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There are so many things wrong with that article, it's not even funny. For example, his statement about Computers vs. Consoles not being a separate market has a grain of truth to it, but ignores the reality of the situation. The reality is that retailers and consumers saw them as different. Not just because of the pseudo-seriousness of "computers" over "video games", but also because computers used inexpensive media that meant cheaper manufacturing costs, cheaper stocking costs, and ultimately a cheaper end-product. (How many cartridges were made for the C64? I rest my case.)

 

This difference in the minds of retailers and consumers lead to stores wiping out their inventory of "video games" to make room for the "computers" which had suddenly gotten cheap thanks to Tramiel's little price war. Without that price war, it's quite likely that "computers" and "video games" would have continued to co-exist, albeit with a variety of bankruptcies and market corrections. But when Tramiel took a match to an already beleaguered market, he set off a chain reaction that caused the entire market for "video games" to disappear overnight.

 

@ddaniels - To your point, you're seeing the invisible hand of the market at work. Yes, the Commodore was better and more powerful and less expensive to own. But did you consider if you still would have owned it if it cost ~$1000 to get the system, the floppy drive, and a joystick? Sure, it would still have been superior. But that superiority would probably have been outside your price range!

 

Imagine for a minute that the PS3 suddenly started selling for $150 and you'll have a pretty good idea of what happened.

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There are so many things wrong with that article, it's not even funny. For example, his statement about Computers vs. Consoles not being a separate market has a grain of truth to it, but ignores the reality of the situation. The reality is that retailers and consumers saw them as different. Not just because of the pseudo-seriousness of "computers" over "video games", but also because computers used inexpensive media that meant cheaper manufacturing costs, cheaper stocking costs, and ultimately a cheaper end-product. (How many cartridges were made for the C64? I rest my case.)

 

This difference in the minds of retailers and consumers lead to stores wiping out their inventory of "video games" to make room for the "computers" which had suddenly gotten cheap thanks to Tramiel's little price war. Without that price war, it's quite likely that "computers" and "video games" would have continued to co-exist, albeit with a variety of bankruptcies and market corrections. But when Tramiel took a match to an already beleaguered market, he set off a chain reaction that caused the entire market for "video games" to disappear overnight.

 

@ddaniels - To your point, you're seeing the invisible hand of the market at work. Yes, the Commodore was better and more powerful and less expensive to own. But did you consider if you still would have owned it if it cost ~$1000 to get the system, the floppy drive, and a joystick? Sure, it would still have been superior. But that superiority would probably have been outside your price range!

 

Imagine for a minute that the PS3 suddenly started selling for $150 and you'll have a pretty good idea of what happened.

 

I would agree with your price point but one other thing to take into consideration. When I had my Intellivision and I wanted a new game (cartridge) it was time to save up some cash ($35-$40). With my new Commodore 64 and floppy disk drive when I decided it was time for a new game (floppy) did I need to save $35-$40 or could I borrow my friends and make a copy? I don't mean to imply piracy is ok but back in the day I had my share of copied C64 games. Who didn't? Now that I think about it I wonder how much piracy may have also contributed to the decline of the "crash". Think about it, back in the day (early 80's) how in the world did the average guy copy an Intellivision cartridge or Atari 2600 cartridge for that matter? Now along comes the C64 and disk based games and we know what direction that went in terms of piracy. In the early Commodre days it wasn't too difficult to copy games until later on from what I recall. Since I'm on this subject was it possible to copy cartridges back in the day?

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With my new Commodore 64 and floppy disk drive when I decided it was time for a new game (floppy) did I need to save $35-$40 or could I borrow my friends and make a copy?

Well, that and the fact that many games could be purchased for under $10.

 

Since I'm on this subject was it possible to copy cartridges back in the day?

There was a company that made a cartridge copy device, but Atari sued them out of existence. It was the only time the courts ever decided that media backups were unnecessary. (The reasoning being that ROM cartridges were not prone to failure in the same way magnetic media was.) That's why Nintendo still prints those stupid, "Copies of this game are not authorized and are illegal!" warning on their games. Despite the fact that no judge is ever going to take a company to task for providing backup media for optical discs. (Hello scratches, bye, bye video game!)

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When I had my Intellivision and I wanted a new game (cartridge) it was time to save up some cash ($35-$40).

 

How is that different than today really?

 

With my new Commodore 64 and floppy disk drive when I decided it was time for a new game (floppy) did I need to save $35-$40 or could I borrow my friends and make a copy? I don't mean to imply piracy is ok but back in the day I had my share of copied C64 games. Who didn't?

 

While for many after buying a computer that may have been true, for the general public that was hardly a deciding factor in purchasing a computer.

 

Now that I think about it I wonder how much piracy may have also contributed to the decline of the "crash".

 

Piracy contributing to a crash ending? Heh, that's the most novel theory I've heard in a while, but not likely. There's just as much piracy now as there ever was, and I don't think I've ever heard of it helping the sales of anything or market value.

 

Likewise there were several market "crashes" or fluctuations going on at once (overlapping), and as I was explained by someone working in the coin-op industry at the time, the coin-op industry (Pinball, video, mech, etc.) had its own cycles not directly relevant to the home industry at the time or later. Coin had actually been in a "crash" from '82 - '84.

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what i cant stand is the idea that 1985 is when things turned around

 

the NES didn't really start to hit the big time until 1987. I got my NES over the summer of 1988 and there were still plenty of kids that did not have one. it was only test marketed at the end of 1985

That is true, thats what we saw at the retail store.

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The story is heavily Atari biased in nature as that is all it seems to talk about beyond a few in passing comments about the others around at the time. Also, don't aggree with a lot of their logic for calling many of the reasons myths.

 

Myth: Over-saturation of consoles and games killed the market. This argument seems counter-intuitive right from the start. The downfall of the market leader would create an opening for competitors, not close it, right? That is, of course if any of them worthy.

Uh, yeah, sure. The problem is when you've already invested your money in one, and they go under. What am I supposed to do, just chuck it all and reinvest in a competitor? People wern't rich back then. They also seem to miss the fundamental concept that different platforms appealed to different people for different reasons. They are looking at it in such a general "gaming machines" concept that they forget/ignore one doesn't/can't replace another.

 

Myth: Competition from computers helped to crash the industry. This is probably the truest of all the popular arguments about the crash, but there's one very big problem with it: The computer and console business were not separate industries. The same companies frequently made games for computers and consoles, often ports of the same titles.

Yes, they were seperate industries. That's just flat out ignorant right there. Further, sure, many companies made software for consoles and computers, and? Computers and software wasn't impacted by the crash like the consoles were. They were still selling.

 

Can pretty much rip apart everything they said in one way or other. It is what it is, trying to rewrite history. The only novel thing about this article is that it doesn't bash ET & Pac-Man. But again, the whole article was Atari biased from the start.

Got to agree with you there ArtLover,

We sold both Game machines and carts as well as Home PC's(Atari,Commodore,Adm etc). Almost uniformly they were different customers, We could have run 2 different store in the same location.

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Speculation: Suppose Atari never made ET or Pac-Man for the 2600. What happens? The crash still happens. It was inevitable because the console market was too fragmented at a time that the public interest was shifting more toward other markets. The end effect wasn't the result of anything that anybody did wrong (everybody doing everything right would have the same effect...no single console producer/division made enough to stay in the black).

 

Now let's suppose that you are one of the companies involved. What could you do? Not much, except what they actually did do. Either fold completely (and/or focus on other tech), or eliminate overhead so that existing product isn't eating away at your bottom line.

Sadly it could have all been restarted in 85 or so, 7800 was ready, too bad Warner didn't take the risk. Just think what games we would have seen and what the market could have been with Atari. Probably would never have been a Famicon in the US, Nintendo might have just ended up as a software maker here...

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People also forget in '83/'84/'85 the economy was shit. Double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates, double digit inflation. Buying expensive electronic toys was not a priority to many families. Granted this was by no means the main reason but no question it was a biggie.

83/84/85 the economy was well on the mend, you are thinking of the Carter years. 77/78/79 those were the really bad years. Yes, in those years electronic toys were a luxury, by 82 it was becoming more common, Kmart, Sears, and most retailers had the stuff all the time.

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what i cant stand is the idea that 1985 is when things turned around

 

the NES didn't really start to hit the big time until 1987. I got my NES over the summer of 1988 and there were still plenty of kids that did not have one. it was only test marketed at the end of 1985

I remember Xmas 1986 was the big push for the NES which meant that 1987 was the first year for most of those families. That year was also when classics like Metroid and Zelda came out here and pushed the system to further heights.

 

I'm in full agreement. Yes, I know the NES was around in '85 and '86, but it didn't really become a mover and a shaker until 1987. It took a good two years to shake off the "video games are a dying fad" stigma and prove to customers that it wasn't going away and was worth investing money into.

 

From my (admittedly dim) memories, it seems like 1987 was the year that the NES was a hot item only the lucky people had, and 1989 was the year everyone and their dog had one.

Even in 86 the NES had the robot etc package and was stupid expensive for the time. In early 86 people balked at it,we sold very few till later in the year.

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There are so many things wrong with that article, it's not even funny. For example, his statement about Computers vs. Consoles not being a separate market has a grain of truth to it, but ignores the reality of the situation. The reality is that retailers and consumers saw them as different. Not just because of the pseudo-seriousness of "computers" over "video games", but also because computers used inexpensive media that meant cheaper manufacturing costs, cheaper stocking costs, and ultimately a cheaper end-product. (How many cartridges were made for the C64? I rest my case.)

 

This difference in the minds of retailers and consumers lead to stores wiping out their inventory of "video games" to make room for the "computers" which had suddenly gotten cheap thanks to Tramiel's little price war. Without that price war, it's quite likely that "computers" and "video games" would have continued to co-exist, albeit with a variety of bankruptcies and market corrections. But when Tramiel took a match to an already beleaguered market, he set off a chain reaction that caused the entire market for "video games" to disappear overnight.

 

@ddaniels - To your point, you're seeing the invisible hand of the market at work. Yes, the Commodore was better and more powerful and less expensive to own. But did you consider if you still would have owned it if it cost ~$1000 to get the system, the floppy drive, and a joystick? Sure, it would still have been superior. But that superiority would probably have been outside your price range!

 

Imagine for a minute that the PS3 suddenly started selling for $150 and you'll have a pretty good idea of what happened.

 

I would agree with your price point but one other thing to take into consideration. When I had my Intellivision and I wanted a new game (cartridge) it was time to save up some cash ($35-$40). With my new Commodore 64 and floppy disk drive when I decided it was time for a new game (floppy) did I need to save $35-$40 or could I borrow my friends and make a copy? I don't mean to imply piracy is ok but back in the day I had my share of copied C64 games. Who didn't? Now that I think about it I wonder how much piracy may have also contributed to the decline of the "crash". Think about it, back in the day (early 80's) how in the world did the average guy copy an Intellivision cartridge or Atari 2600 cartridge for that matter? Now along comes the C64 and disk based games and we know what direction that went in terms of piracy. In the early Commodre days it wasn't too difficult to copy games until later on from what I recall. Since I'm on this subject was it possible to copy cartridges back in the day?

The reason you give for the C64 is the reason we nearly stopped carrying anything but the hardware and hardware add ons for it. Super levels of piracy even compared to 8bit Atari. Ea rep used to say that they thought they were only getting 30% potential sales due to piracy on C64. That was what drove sales of the C64, buy the box and get you software for free... :(

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When I had my Intellivision and I wanted a new game (cartridge) it was time to save up some cash ($35-$40).

 

How is that different than today really?

 

With my new Commodore 64 and floppy disk drive when I decided it was time for a new game (floppy) did I need to save $35-$40 or could I borrow my friends and make a copy? I don't mean to imply piracy is ok but back in the day I had my share of copied C64 games. Who didn't?

 

While for many after buying a computer that may have been true, for the general public that was hardly a deciding factor in purchasing a computer.

 

Now that I think about it I wonder how much piracy may have also contributed to the decline of the "crash".

 

Piracy contributing to a crash ending? Heh, that's the most novel theory I've heard in a while, but not likely. There's just as much piracy now as there ever was, and I don't think I've ever heard of it helping the sales of anything or market value.

 

Likewise there were several market "crashes" or fluctuations going on at once (overlapping), and as I was explained by someone working in the coin-op industry at the time, the coin-op industry (Pinball, video, mech, etc.) had its own cycles not directly relevant to the home industry at the time or later. Coin had actually been in a "crash" from '82 - '84.

I was trying to make the point that as an Intellivision owner in '81, '82 if I wanted a new game it was going to cost money. Now, fastforward a year or two I'm a C64 owner and if I wanted a new game it was going to cost me money or I had a second option, pay nothing by means of a copy. Piracy couldn't be used in the same sentence with Intellivision as there was no way back then to copy cartridges (that I can recall).

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There are so many things wrong with that article, it's not even funny. For example, his statement about Computers vs. Consoles not being a separate market has a grain of truth to it, but ignores the reality of the situation. The reality is that retailers and consumers saw them as different. Not just because of the pseudo-seriousness of "computers" over "video games", but also because computers used inexpensive media that meant cheaper manufacturing costs, cheaper stocking costs, and ultimately a cheaper end-product. (How many cartridges were made for the C64? I rest my case.)

 

This difference in the minds of retailers and consumers lead to stores wiping out their inventory of "video games" to make room for the "computers" which had suddenly gotten cheap thanks to Tramiel's little price war. Without that price war, it's quite likely that "computers" and "video games" would have continued to co-exist, albeit with a variety of bankruptcies and market corrections. But when Tramiel took a match to an already beleaguered market, he set off a chain reaction that caused the entire market for "video games" to disappear overnight.

 

@ddaniels - To your point, you're seeing the invisible hand of the market at work. Yes, the Commodore was better and more powerful and less expensive to own. But did you consider if you still would have owned it if it cost ~$1000 to get the system, the floppy drive, and a joystick? Sure, it would still have been superior. But that superiority would probably have been outside your price range!

 

Imagine for a minute that the PS3 suddenly started selling for $150 and you'll have a pretty good idea of what happened.

 

I would agree with your price point but one other thing to take into consideration. When I had my Intellivision and I wanted a new game (cartridge) it was time to save up some cash ($35-$40). With my new Commodore 64 and floppy disk drive when I decided it was time for a new game (floppy) did I need to save $35-$40 or could I borrow my friends and make a copy? I don't mean to imply piracy is ok but back in the day I had my share of copied C64 games. Who didn't? Now that I think about it I wonder how much piracy may have also contributed to the decline of the "crash". Think about it, back in the day (early 80's) how in the world did the average guy copy an Intellivision cartridge or Atari 2600 cartridge for that matter? Now along comes the C64 and disk based games and we know what direction that went in terms of piracy. In the early Commodre days it wasn't too difficult to copy games until later on from what I recall. Since I'm on this subject was it possible to copy cartridges back in the day?

The reason you give for the C64 is the reason we nearly stopped carrying anything but the hardware and hardware add ons for it. Super levels of piracy even compared to 8bit Atari. Ea rep used to say that they thought they were only getting 30% potential sales due to piracy on C64. That was what drove sales of the C64, buy the box and get you software for free... :(

 

Back when I was in high school ('85) I recall a student who openly advertised how for a fee he would provide you with a copy of just about any C64 game that he had. He actually typed up a list of every game that he had and would hand out this list to anyone interested. I think he charged something like $2.00 a game and you had to provide him a floppy disk. Yes, looking back it was pretty stupid but that's how I would summarize those C64 days.

I honestly don't understand how todays video game stores actually stay in business with the way piracy is today.

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I honestly don't understand how todays video game stores actually stay in business with the way piracy is today.

 

Piracy isn't that widespread in console games really. Piracy requires a mod chip these days, which is something that I'm guessing less than 1% of all next gen consoles have. Of course this is a different story for PC games.

 

On a related note, the reason Nintendo decided to go with cartridges for the N64 rather than cds (and lost Final Fantasy 7, Metal Gear Solid, etc) was due to fear of piracy. It turned out that piracy wasn't that much of a problem for the Playstation, which went on to sell over 100 million units while the N64 only sold around 30-35 million. One of Nintendo's biggest mistakes ever (the Virtual Boy being another of course). I wish this never happened because this is when Nintendo started losing all of its third party support, which is still something it's trying to recover from.

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