ask thread What was the crash of 1983 like?

[Retro Rogue]

It was horrible. Cannibalism was rampant everywhere and the only safe spots were walled off nation cities like New Chicago and New New York.

[Army Of 2600]

Discounted games at stores across the nation. All the titles my mom said were too expensive at the time suddenly became affordable. It was quite blissful.

[jetset]

Meh. It was good if you were still collecting since prices plummetted. For me and my friends though, we were in high school, so our interests were naturally turning away from videogames and onto girls and saving for a car. I don't think it was all that apocalyptic or anything. Keep in mind though the economy in the early 80's was in the shitter. unemployment through the roof, double digit inflation...I think the "crash" had more to do with people having a hard enough time paying their bills to worry about buying video games.

[Nebulon]

In 1983, I clearly recall the arcades doing very well. There were lots of great new games released that year. This is easily verifiable by just looking up a complete list of arcade titles from that year. I think that's sort of the irony of any crash... people usually don't notice it while it's happening (unless they're directly plugged into the industry that's crashing).

 

The beginning of 1984 was still not too bad. I recall the debut of Marble Madness. The arcade that displayed it looked nice and healthy. However, other arcades seemed to be stagnating a bit.

 

Then as 1984 blended into 1985, I started to see vacancy signs go up for a number of arcades. It started to be a quest to find the remaining games that were scattered here and there (grocery stores, corner stores, etc...). Gauntlet was an important last injection of life into the coin-op industry. After that, the decline started to really show. 1984 was the the year I recall home console games showing up in bargain bins. I was happy to see ColecoVision games come down in price, but a bit puzzled at the same time.

 

There was a gap that was filled by computer games. Games for computers were hit and miss (even more so than on consoles). One issue with computers was that the cost of the machines was very high. Plus, other than a few exceptions, it took a while for developers to really squeeze the power out of the C64 and Atari 8-bit machines. And the PC and Apple II computers were really primitive compared to consoles. King's Quest was the beginning of something 'impressive' on PCs, but scrolling games, platformers, and shooters were pretty crappy on that platform back in the mid to late 80s. So it was that the 'character' of games began to change (for better or for worse, depending on the kind of games you liked). Looking back, the best alternatives to consoles in the mid-80s would have been either an Atari 800(XL) or a C64. Sadly, I had neither of those.

 

There was a noticeable gap before the NES made its presence known in North America. And when it arrived, I thought it was pretty neat but not terribly impressive. At least not enough to get me back into consoles again.

 

The TG-16 was the first console of the newer generation that I felt had re-captured the feel of proper arcade gaming.

 

I stayed the course with computer gaming until around the time the Sega Genesis was released. Then (for me) it became a mix of Amiga, PC, and SEGA gaming. By that time arcades were generally smaller, brighter and -- different. Long gone were the huge dark labyrinths of arcade machines. There definitely had been some serious down-scaling of arcades in favor of home entertainment.

 

And the rest is history, I guess.

[WildBillTX]

I just remember being totally infatuated (LOL) with my Commodore 64 in the mid-late 80's. Most of my money I sunk into it buying a new monitor, printer, modem etc for it and downloading games from BBS's. While my brother had an Amiga 1000 in 1987, which impressed the hell out of me. I wasn't impressed with the NES at all. Had someone shown me a good shooter or a great arcade port like the NES version of Galaga instead of Mario or Zelda I might have bought one sooner. I didn't buy a NES until I bought a used one in the early 90's.

 

I did pick up a 2600 jr cheap in 1987 when Federated Electronics closed up because our old one had died. And also I bought couple cartridges at Kay Bee cheap (wish I had kept the boxes). I remember one mall toy store in the early 90's that had a bunch of Games by Apollo and U.S. Games cartridges they were trying to get rid of for a dollar.

Edited March 12, 2015 by WildBillTX

[evilevoix]

This had a profound effect on my gaming life. I was only a baby when this happend and we had a Colecovision and the Atari addon thingy. Afterwards when I was growing up I was not allowed to have a video game console, as my dad simply thought that they were junk there to rip you off. Now I was still allowed to have a Gameboy and had computers, but no console gaming.

[Philflound]

I actually don't remember a crash at all. In 1983, I had my Colecovision and bought some more games through 1984 as I remember correctly. In either late 1984 to early 1985, my father brought home a C64, and I never looked back at a console until the mid-1990s when I got my first Atari 7800 at a garage sale with 20 games and got into collecting vintage stuff from there.

 

Phil

[+frankodragon]

Makes me wonder why the hell I bought recordings of rabid rodents singing in a record store in a mall when I could of bought games at a nearby Woolworths?

[78001987]

I remember it feeling like Home Computers were taking over for a while, and you could get tons of older 2600 games for cheap at places like KayBee Toys, CVS/Osco drug stores, and supermarkets because they wanted to dump inventory. But the arcade games were getting better, but instead of big arcades, there were just 3 or 4 machines at the local pizza places.

 

To me, I also thought there were too many systems on the market, and that's why they all went belly up. You had 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, 5200, Home Computer lines from Atari, Apple, Commodore, IBM, Amiga, - there was just too many systems.

[+SpiceWare]

Basically, years later, my reaction to learning about the video game crash was "crash, what crash?!?!?"

 

This was when home computers became affordable. My friends and I all put away (or handed down to younger siblings) our Atari, Coleco, Intellivision, etc. systems and played games on our new computers instead.

 

In '82 I remember going over to a friend's house and seeing his kid brother playing Centipede:

 

My reaction upon seeing it was "yuck" as I'd been playing Video Vermin on my Vic 20.

 

 

[wolfy62]

I remember it feeling like Home Computers were taking over for a while, and you could get tons of older 2600 games for cheap at places like KayBee Toys, CVS/Osco drug stores, and supermarkets because they wanted to dump inventory. But the arcade games were getting better, but instead of big arcades, there were just 3 or 4 machines at the local pizza places.

 

To me, I also thought there were too many systems on the market, and that's why they all went belly up. You had 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, 5200, Home Computer lines from Atari, Apple, Commodore, IBM, Amiga, - there was just too many systems.

That......is exactly what happened!

[+Random Terrain]

My reaction upon seeing it was "yuck" as I'd been playing Video Vermin on my Vic 20.

 

Too bad the Atari 2600 can't do that.

[WildBillTX]

Basically, years later, my reaction to learning about the video game crash was "crash, what crash?!?!?"

 

This was when home computers became affordable. My friends and I all put away (or handed down to younger siblings) our Atari, Coleco, Intellivision, etc. systems and played games on our new computers instead.

That's what happened to me. My dad bought my brother a Vic-20 with datacassette in 1982 "to learn computing on" and it became the center of our attention. I also remember we had a different Centipede clone on cassette called "Night Crawler". (I also found out I could copy computer cassettes using two cassette decks on my home stereo).

[VectorGamer]

All I remember was the cheap games at Kay Bee that could be had for only a few dollars and the mall arcade downsized and moved into a smaller space.

 

I discovered marijuana a couple of years later and I found getting stoned was more fun that playing video games.

[78001987]

All I remember was the cheap games at Kay Bee that could be had for only a few dollars and the mall arcade downsized and moved into a smaller space.

 

I discovered marijuana a couple of years later and I found getting stoned was more fun that playing video games.

Don't you mean playing video games while stoned makes them more fun?

[VectorGamer]

Don't you mean playing video games while stoned makes them more fun?

 

I wasn't into video games during my stoner period.

[neotokeo2001]

I remember it feeling like Home Computers were taking over for a while, and you could get tons of older 2600 games for cheap at places like KayBee Toys, CVS/Osco drug stores, and supermarkets because they wanted to dump inventory. But the arcade games were getting better, but instead of big arcades, there were just 3 or 4 machines at the local pizza places.

 

To me, I also thought there were too many systems on the market, and that's why they all went belly up. You had 2600, Intellivision, Colecovision, 5200, Home Computer lines from Atari, Apple, Commodore, IBM, Amiga, - there was just too many systems.

 

 

Basically, years later, my reaction to learning about the video game crash was "crash, what crash?!?!?"

 

This was when home computers became affordable. My friends and I all put away (or handed down to younger siblings) our Atari, Coleco, Intellivision, etc. systems and played games on our new computers instead.

 

This is basically how it happened for me. I moved on to the Commodore 64 and Amiga computers for years. During "The Crash" I noticed a lot of bargain bins in Kay Bee and Lionel stores loaded with games and even remember a pallet full of brand new Vectrex systems for $40 each, there had to be at least 20 there and I bought two. I have every game that I ever bought and did buy any games that I did not already have. Looking back I wished I had bought almost everything since most games were $5 or less. It was weird seeing games appear for a few dollars in Groceries and Pharmacies.

 

I really did not get back into console gaming until the Super Nintendo/Genesis and Turbografx years. Since then I have gone back and collected almost all NES games.

[Philflound]

My friend took advantage somewhere along the line of the crash. He had picked up 5 sealed copies of SW ESB at TRU for only 20 cents each. I wound up getting 4 of them like 15 years ago. I only have my personal copy left.

 

Phil

[+Cafeman]

Yeah, '83 wasn't bad at all from my perspective. I was done with 2600 and loved my 5200, and there was tons of coin-ops and great music. Pyromania! It was later, maybe 84-85 where it all seemed to dry up yet there were bargain bins everywhere.

[ianoid]

I was 12 and I wasn't exactly following the stock prices for Warner Communications. Games got cheaper, as they were bound to, but recall that they were available inexpensively for maybe a decade past that. Like all good gamers, I was after better faster gaming, and I got an Apple IIe, so I was gaming hard on that, probably before 'the crash'.

 

We talk about it with such drama, but to Joe Consumer, it was the typical cycle of boom and blowout. People might say video games were dead, but they remained popular, just not to the extent that they were.

 

"The crash" is more of a retrospective economic term for the then video game industry. Every kid who wasn't chasing pussy full time was still loving those games.

Edited March 14, 2015 by ianoid

[Byte Knight]

To me, there was no video game crash in the early 80's - it seemed like a natural progression of video gaming. I had already moved on to the Apple IIe computer. Here I had great games like Karateka, Prince of Persia, Choplifter, AutoDuel, and Hardball in beautiful high-resolution graphics. Why would I want to go back to those blocky graphics? And, some games even allowed you to save your progress! You certainly couldn't do that with the early cartridges. Not to mention that you could hook up a modem and download games for free. Even when my little sister bought an NES I found little reason to go back to consoles (until I was much older and nostalgia set in). The NES games seemed cartoony compared to my Apple II games and only targeted at little kids...

[Atari-Collector]

I never heard of the crash until I bought my 2600 a couple years ago just to have one again and then started a small collection of games for it, I guess I have about 60 now.. I just assumed Atari and games like it had faded out and wear replaced by new platforms and computer based games.

 

I would have been about 16 or so back then, and I can't really recall what I was doing game wise at the time due to a head injury in 95, a lot of stuff before in is a jumble or blank...

[jhd]

I sold my 2600 and bought a Coco in about June 1983, so I was not paying much attention to console games anymore. Most of my friends and classmates had a Vic 20 or C64. I remember visiting one friend's house in Summer 1985, and being shocked to see that he still had a 2600; I had mostly forgotten about it.

 

While consumers (and kids) may not have realised that an industry crash was happening, the business press shows that it was a real event. There was lots of coverage of home video games (and computers and even arcade games) in business magazines in the early 1980s. This coverage ended very abruptly in early-1984: http://retrogamingtimes.com/magazine/?issue=101&page=203&theme=Halloween

[Zwackery]

I could get games cheaper for my 2600 and Colecovision - really got to acquire many titles for the CV that way - but I could only find one title (Scramble) in the discount bins for my Vectrex, so between that and Minestorm, that's all I had for the ol' Vec for many years.

 

Like many other people, I got more interested in computer gaming, and I moved away from consoles. No interest in the NES or anything. I did play more tabletop RPGs, trying out systems other than D&D. Video games were still there, just existing with a bunch of other stuff like school and movies and parties and the ladies.

 

Aaaaaaand pretty much nothing has changed.

[littleman jack]

I didn't notice a video game crash in 1983. I missed it completely.

My friends and I were still gaming on the Atari 800, and every now and then we would go back and play the 2600 or Intellivision as well. The arcades in my town seemed to hang on for a few more years. But by then, high school ushered in a new bunch of interests and we didn't mind the loss of the arcades (until after college). And then the Sega Genesis caught our attention and there didn't seem to be a crash at all. We missed it. There seemed to be a seemless transition from Atari to Nintendo to Sega to Sony. But I was never very fond of Nintendo (save for the Donkey Kong games) or Sony. And then I found Atari Age and got back into the Atari systems.