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Video Game crash of 1983

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Gray_Area:

--- Quote from: Rigby on June 10, 2013, 06:49:48 pm ---There is an excellent explanation of the crash in question at 54:02, here: http://youtu.be/MBT1OK6VAIU?t=54m2s

The entire video is excellent.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, some good and heavy stuff there. The crash part I knew, but the details of Pitfall development, and as well as the insight into the background of the time through it, was fascinating. Like he, some talented people there, including the audience, seemed to me.

RandyT:

--- Quote from: Rigby on June 10, 2013, 06:49:48 pm ---There is an excellent explanation of the crash in question at 54:02, here:

The entire video is excellent.

--- End quote ---


The one thing I don't really agree with in his assessment was his take that, paraphrased, "unfair competition from cut-rate titles destroyed Activision's ability to compete".  This kind of smacks of arrogance, in that he believes that Activisions titles were the only ones which were worth the prices they needed to charge in order to cover their operating expenses.  Activisions titles were usually good, but they had a few stinkers as well.    The fact is, many of the companies, like Imagic for example, were putting out some nice games and they all suffered the same fate.  In reality, consumers were able to get games, sometimes as good or better than what Activision was offering, for a better price, so they did.  This became worse as the market started to crumble, and many of those higher quality titles found their way into discount bins as the companies started to fail.

What they were battling was an unsophisticated, ravenous (at it's peak) consumer base, and a hardware platform that was at the end of the development cycle (2600).  The majority of consumers did not pay close attention to hobbyist mags, and saw a "video game as a video game".  This led to many rushed or poor titles making it to market.  Overall consumer confidence slumped, and with so many choices coupled with few ways to allow consumers to be informed, they no longer wanted to chance spending big money on a title.  When parents saw kids not playing the games as much as they used to, they figured the "fad" was over, and didn't upgrade to the newer systems when they became available.

If Activision's titles were so superior to everything else, they would have come out on top and survived the crash.  The reality is, however, there were limitations to what the 2600 could do, and the difference between a great Activision title and a very good $5 bargain bin title, just wasn't large enough to command the difference in price.  It was a house of cards, and Activision was just another card in the pile.

rpgposer:
I was 17 years old in 1983, a senior in high school.  It was SUCH a rich time for the home computer market that I hardly noticed the crash.  I didn't own any atari console, but somehow (don't ask) ended up with an atari xl series computer.  I had a friend with a 7800 and Food Fight, which was pretty cool.  I did, however, notice the atari shakedown when I was able to afford a brand new XE series computer for next to nothing.
I got out of the hobby for many years, and didn't own another computer until the windows 95/AOL boom.

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