Pac-Man is the worst game!

[VectorGamer]

 

AND.. as you said, there's like 5 different factors which were headed in wrong direction and/or were dealt with poorly.

 

It was a perfect storm: the market was saturated, gamers were pissed with the junk that was being released, gamers were bored, computers were becoming affordable and companies were producing carts at a clip that were well in excess of demand.

 

The home market then affects coin-op (now with computers and NES et al): why go to the arcade and spend 25-50 cents per play when you can play the same game at home? The same holds true today with not only console games but people building their own MAME cabinets. Now you really only get people out to the arcade when they are on vacation or if you have a tourney going on like out at Funspot. Only the hardcore CAGers are going to the arcades nowadays.

 

What happened in the early 80s is relatively normal. What you saw were a bunch of upstarts hopping on the video game bandwagon and when it gets full it's time to weed out the weak ones. History repeated itself in the late 90s with Internet startups. The bubble burst in both cases.

[Cliff Friedel]

 

AND.. as you said, there's like 5 different factors which were headed in wrong direction and/or were dealt with poorly.

 

It was a perfect storm: the market was saturated, gamers were pissed with the junk that was being released, gamers were bored, computers were becoming affordable and companies were producing carts at a clip that were well in excess of demand.

 

The home market then affects coin-op (now with computers and NES et al): why go to the arcade and spend 25-50 cents per play when you can play the same game at home? The same holds true today with not only console games but people building their own MAME cabinets. Now you really only get people out to the arcade when they are on vacation or if you have a tourney going on like out at Funspot. Only the hardcore CAGers are going to the arcades nowadays.

 

What happened in the early 80s is relatively normal. What you saw were a bunch of upstarts hopping on the video game bandwagon and when it gets full it's time to weed out the weak ones. History repeated itself in the late 90s with Internet startups. The bubble burst in both cases.

 

That's a good analysis. It's amazing how many times this happens. You think people would learn, but the lure of easy money always seems to draw them in. One thing I will say though is the arcade market does still have a niche in things like Dave and Buster's and the classic market. It's not the old days of arcades, but it is a niche market that is keeping some on the market alive. With that said, it has never been like is was in the early 80s and I don't think it ever will be.

[Cliff Friedel]

I just find it funny that for games that supposedly led to the downfall of the console market (which of course is so untrue, it's laughable), they sold in such record numbers. No word of mouth could contain them? The stores put the games on display to try and they STILL don't know what they are getting? Maybe what the hate is about is not the game, but for being a bad consumer?

 

Well, you have to remember that games were largely sold at one time of the year back then, Christmas. Also, it wasn't like you got a lot of independent information back then and the only way you talked to people was in person or on the phone. That meant if you were a kid, you were getting it before you heard about it because your parents bought it for the holiday. If you did catch anything about it, it was Atari Age and the box hype. That is why the sales figures for January were so good for Pac-Man and ET, but the returns and bad sales in February were so bad.

 

With all that said, Pac-Man sucks for the 2600 and so does E.T. Had they been named something else, maybe you could have played them more, but with their context and expectations they garnered, they failed miserably. If they didn't, there wouldn't be a landfill out there full of them and Al wouldn't ask for the carts to make new ones =)

[Nukey Shay]

No. Once again, don't let modern myth cloud the facts. Both Pac-Man and ET were wildly popular at the time they were made (the millions of both out in the wild today is evidence of that...opened software is non-returnable). Had production not run amok, the landfill incedent would not have even (supposedly) happened - that was a last-ditch effort to reduce inventory cost overhead...a practice that is still in use today. Destroy finished goods to move them off the bottom line - thus saving the company money.

 

It's true that neither game lived up to the hype they were given. But even if they had, the crash was still inevitable...all due to the flawed business practice. If the games were really viewed as being so terrible, they would have died very quickly. Word-of-mouth worked back then too...even without the internet. There's a reason that the rarest of the rare games are generally the worst-programmed ones. Word got around and nobody bought.

[Herbarius]

With all that said, Pac-Man sucks for the 2600 and so does E.T.

 

Why E.T.? The game is above average for an 2600 game at the very least, maybe you could put it into an even higher "upper 20%" or something.

 

I thought by now most people (who are familiar with the 2600 themselves, and not just from hearsay) realized that. If anything, the problem was with target demographics... it was bought a lot for very young kids who couldn't understand the game, while the game is more suited for older kids and adults.

 

If you were into computer games in the 80s and early 90s, having to read a manual before attempting to play anything was pretty much something you had to take for granted. Only on game consoles there was this "plug in and start playing" mentality (which came over and infested the PC game market in the later 90s as well - which is why we don't have many complex games, like Simulation games or complex Strategy, anymore today...)

[Nukey Shay]

It's amazing how many times this happens.

Not so amazing. It almost always involves new products affecting old products.

 

Dedicated consoles, reprogrammable consoles, personal computers, video-cassette machines, CD players, you name it. It takes a bit of time for the market to shake the bugs out and discover what isn't working. Sometimes, the shakeout happens in time and there are few victims. Other times, it's a bloodbath. The latter WILL happen if the market was banking on the "must have" aspect of any product for too long.

[infaction]

Congratulations! You get +1 "I wanna be popular" points for parroting mindless statements that have been argued ad nauseum for the last 15 years on every classic gaming board known to man.

 

For the extra +5 bonus points please tell us how:

 

A. E.T. caused the gaming crash

B. Atari should have sold the NES when Nintendo offered it to them

C. The Jaguar was (or was not) a 64-Bit system.

 

+ 2K Monies if you can work some C-64 or Amiga bashing into your argument.

 

Tempest

 

WOW! Someone's underwear is too tight today. Here is a list of my own:

 

1) I only just joined your precious forum two days ago.

2) Was the Comic Book Guy on the Simpson's based on you? If you read your post with that voice, it sounds just like him.

3) I didn't post to be popular. I am popular enough with my newly found Air Raid cart. Which I now wear on a gold chain around my neck. Nerd Bling!

Air Raid is super common and is so much worse than Pac-Man... I recommend you destroy it with a hammer and post a video for us all to see

[JacobZu7zu7]

Pac-Man and ET did share part of the blame, however...since the licenses for those two games in particular were so costly. So, production had multipled forecast figures accordingly to offset the cost of the license (rather than pay 5 cents per unit to use the name on 1 million carts, pay 1 cent per unit and produce 5 million carts...that sort of thinking). Unmoving finished goods sitting at the factory was where all the money went.

 

Yes true. One main problem that many of us know, is far too many carts/copies were made of E.T. (more then actual Atari systems) but sales was good for the game E.T. (also Pac-man), and it wasn't the lack of people buying, and it wasn't the bad quality of the gameplay, (E.T. Pac-man sold in droves) but youtube youth seems to think it worked like a movie... the game bombed, so all the gaming businesses went under because of it. Not quite...!

 

Many people love a good (war) story in this case it's about a video game "world war"... and Pac-man was (Mussolini) and E.T. was (Hitler).

[JacobZu7zu7]

No. Once again, don't let modern myth cloud the facts. Both Pac-Man and ET were wildly popular at the time they were made (the millions of both out in the wild today is evidence of that...opened software is non-returnable).

 

This is TRUE... I think the only way you could get refunded (if), you still had the reciept and you claimed the game was BROKEN out of the box. Then you maybe could get an exchange for some other game or the exact same game, or maybe a refund... I am not sure I never returned a game, but once to Funcoland and they game me the same game in exchange for a faulty game.

[JacobZu7zu7]

True fact: The Berlin wall collapsed because of Pac-Man 2600. So some good came from the game.

 

True fact" The Berlin wall will be rebuilt!... By using copies of E.T. from that landfill.

Edited August 11, 2010 by JacobZu7zu7

[Nukey Shay]

Actually, the "more carts than consoles" strategy works on paper for the business model they were following...i.e. where public interest doesn't fade any time soon. VCS clones and "adapters" had already begun to appear...which the carts could also be played on. And Atari was still selling 5-year old games at the time. Producing a 5-year supply of a new game to cut license overhead is dynamite on paper.

[VectorGamer]

 

This is TRUE... I think the only way you could get refunded (if), you still had the reciept and you claimed the game was BROKEN out of the box. Then you maybe could get an exchange for some other game or the exact same game, or maybe a refund... I am not sure I never returned a game, but once to Funcoland and they game me the same game in exchange for a faulty game.

 

That's interesting because I don't ever recall returning a game and therefore couldn't even tell you if you could return a game if you "thought it sucked."

 

Maybe someone that worked in retail BITD can recall what their respective store's return policies were (which are much more lax than they are now).

[Cliff Friedel]

No. Once again, don't let modern myth cloud the facts. Both Pac-Man and ET were wildly popular at the time they were made (the millions of both out in the wild today is evidence of that...opened software is non-returnable). Had production not run amok, the landfill incedent would not have even (supposedly) happened - that was a last-ditch effort to reduce inventory cost overhead...a practice that is still in use today. Destroy finished goods to move them off the bottom line - thus saving the company money.

 

Actually, according to David Crane at CGE, that is exactly how it happened. They sold really well the first month, then, in ET's case, they started coming back as defective (easily understandable by all the glitches) and, for both, the sales dropped off. They had a bunch of carts come back into their hands and it wasn't worth trying to sell them as "refurbished", so they dumped them in the landfill. Now, I am not saying he is, or I am, the authority on the matter, but him, and some of the others on the panel, were either employed by Atari or in the industry at the time and talked about it extensively.

 

It's true that neither game lived up to the hype they were given. But even if they had, the crash was still inevitable...all due to the flawed business practice. If the games were really viewed as being so terrible, they would have died very quickly. Word-of-mouth worked back then too...even without the internet. There's a reason that the rarest of the rare games are generally the worst-programmed ones. Word got around and nobody bought.

 

The crash was inevitable, but it was more because of the "barrel games". With places having piles of cheap games in barrels at the door, there was no incentive to buy higher priced ones, good or bad, and the companies did die. Effectively, word of mouth killed the whole industry because the whole group got painted with the "barrel games" brush. As for the rareness thing, that was more a factor of them trying to pump games out and doing it in small batches to speed up the process and get money back into the company. Men-A-Vision is the prime example of this. Produce a few carts, make a buck, and get out (or repeat if you can get away with it). Off to the barrel they went.

[Cliff Friedel]

With all that said, Pac-Man sucks for the 2600 and so does E.T.

 

Why E.T.? The game is above average for an 2600 game at the very least, maybe you could put it into an even higher "upper 20%" or something.

 

I thought by now most people (who are familiar with the 2600 themselves, and not just from hearsay) realized that. If anything, the problem was with target demographics... it was bought a lot for very young kids who couldn't understand the game, while the game is more suited for older kids and adults.

 

If you were into computer games in the 80s and early 90s, having to read a manual before attempting to play anything was pretty much something you had to take for granted. Only on game consoles there was this "plug in and start playing" mentality (which came over and infested the PC game market in the later 90s as well - which is why we don't have many complex games, like Simulation games or complex Strategy, anymore today...)

 

It's really not a fun game. It's buggy. It's basically a repeat of Superman. It only basically follows the license. It was a lot worse than they could have done, even in the early 80s. I got tired of trying to get out of holes...

 

As for when I bought it, I originally had the game back when it first came out and hated it then. Pac-Man I put up with for a while, but it was bad too. What made it really bad for me is I had a friend with a ColecoVision. He had games that looked like arcade games. I had the crapfest that was Pac-Man and E.T. So, maybe my opinion is tainted by a childhood envy from 30 years ago, but I can live with that.

[Cliff Friedel]

No. Once again, don't let modern myth cloud the facts. Both Pac-Man and ET were wildly popular at the time they were made (the millions of both out in the wild today is evidence of that...opened software is non-returnable).

 

This is TRUE... I think the only way you could get refunded (if), you still had the reciept and you claimed the game was BROKEN out of the box. Then you maybe could get an exchange for some other game or the exact same game, or maybe a refund... I am not sure I never returned a game, but once to Funcoland and they game me the same game in exchange for a faulty game.

 

People weren't returning the game because "it sucked" though. They were returning it because it was defective and they were right. That game just didn't work right. Again, David Crane talked about this in the CGE panel and in an interview he did. It was really a fiasco.

[stvd]

It's true that neither game lived up to the hype they were given.

 

I'm not saying this isn't true but from a personal view, I can honestly say, I was completely unaware of any "hype" for any Atari game.

I can't remember any adverts etc. I can vaguely remember we had the magazine 'TV Gamer' but apart from that, nothing.

I can't even remember anybody (and I mean anybody) getting an Atari game, plugging it in and saying "this looks nothing like the arcade game".

I just think we were happy to get something regardless of what it looked like.

My favourite arcade game was Crystal Castles. I couldn't wait for the 2600 version. Box looked great.

I was only 10 or 11 years old but even then I knew I wasn't getting an arcade perfect copy, nor did I expect it.

I was happy, I had Crystal Castles in my house!

Nobody ever said to me "Pacman is awful".

It seems it's link with the past has made it cool to "put it down".

 

Pac-Man. The worst game?

 

No, not even close by a long shot!

[Cliff Friedel]

It's true that neither game lived up to the hype they were given.

 

I'm not saying this isn't true but from a personal view, I can honestly say, I was completely unaware of any "hype" for any Atari game.

I can't remember any adverts etc. I can vaguely remember we had the magazine 'TV Gamer' but apart from that, nothing.

I can't even remember anybody (and I mean anybody) getting an Atari game, plugging it in and saying "this looks nothing like the arcade game".

I just think we were happy to get something regardless of what it looked like.

My favourite arcade game was Crystal Castles. I couldn't wait for the 2600 version. Box looked great.

I was only 10 or 11 years old but even then I knew I wasn't getting an arcade perfect copy, nor did I expect it.

I was happy, I had Crystal Castles in my house!

Nobody ever said to me "Pacman is awful".

It seems it's link with the past has made it cool to "put it down".

 

Pac-Man. The worst game?

 

No, not even close by a long shot!

 

I used to get AtariAge back then and there was A LOT of press about Pac-Man. Also, it's not like you expected it to be arcade like, but you did expect it to be playable for more than 10 minutes. I played Space Invaders for the 2600 for years, almost daily. I still play it. I do not play Pac-Man for the 2600 anymore, even though I have 5 or 6 copies of it.

 

Pac-Man wasn't the worst game. Not even close. But it was bad. So was E.T. It's not a bad thing to say.

[Rik]

Hpye?I can tell you about the hype for 2600 Pac-Man!Back in the day the hype for this game was absolutely mind boggling.I heard about it on the radio,McDonalds was advertising it, all the department stores were holding Pac-Man contests, giving out stickers.I also remember the 20-30+ people long line ups to buy the game, including me.The game sold for $70.00 + cdn, and NO one complained, they Gladly shelled over the $$$.I have NEVER seen anything thing today that even comes close to the aggressive marketing campaign that i witnessed for this game, period!!!

Edited August 11, 2010 by Rik

[VectorGamer]

 

I'm not saying this isn't true but from a personal view, I can honestly say, I was completely unaware of any "hype" for any Atari game.

I can't remember any adverts etc. I can vaguely remember we had the magazine 'TV Gamer' but apart from that, nothing.

I can't even remember anybody (and I mean anybody) getting an Atari game, plugging it in and saying "this looks nothing like the arcade game".

I just think we were happy to get something regardless of what it looked like.

My favourite arcade game was Crystal Castles. I couldn't wait for the 2600 version. Box looked great.

I was only 10 or 11 years old but even then I knew I wasn't getting an arcade perfect copy, nor did I expect it.

I was happy, I had Crystal Castles in my house!

Nobody ever said to me "Pacman is awful".

It seems it's link with the past has made it cool to "put it down".

 

Pac-Man. The worst game?

 

No, not even close by a long shot!

 

As the other member said, I also subscribed to AtariAge which kept members abreast of new Atari releases. Let's not forget Electronic Games magazine, either.

 

You're right - Pac-Man is not the worst game by a long shot. And gamers did keep their expectations in check in that the 2600 version would always be a dumbed down version of the arcade title. That's why you didn't hear Defender being bashed BITD and only later when we have something like Stargate to compare it to. Defender was actually considered above average when it was released. Asteroids was another good one - I played the f*** out of that game.

 

Pac-Man for the 2600 generated so much hype it was just short of people killing each other to make sure they were high up on the list to get a copy the first minute it was available. But, BITD we didn't have people shooting each other over stuff like that, suing McDonald's because their coffee was served too hot or worried about getting shot/stabbed in a schoolyard fight because, after all, weapons would be in violation of the unwritten rules. I don't think peanut allergies or ADD existed either, but I digress...

 

I don't remember if we got a call from the store or we were just told to show up on x day and give them our name or what - but, I do remember after we picked it up I was sitting in the back of the '72 Chevy Nova and reading about the "vitamins" in the instruction manual and feeling confused.

 

So, after all that waiting to play Pac-Man on my 2600 I put the verfluchte cartridge in and look at the TV to see that piece of garbage?! Yeah, I played it quite a bit that night trying to warm up to it but it was a HUGE disappointment. Everything: audio, visuals, gameplay - it all sucked.

 

I think that's why Pac-Man 2600 has such a black eye - it was disappointing. And we've seen with Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man and later Pac-Man Arcade what could have been produced. Atari had the ball and could have run with it but they fumbled it in a rush to get the game out the door.

Edited August 11, 2010 by rmaerz

[Nukey Shay]

The "rush" wasn't there AFAIK. Atari was plugging the title nearly a YEAR before it was even coded (yeah, the hype for Atari's arcade ports was unbelievable...even moreso than Inty's "comparison" adverts). Programmers were given a time schedule to deliver some programs...which they could accept or pass the project to somebody else at the roundtable. That's not rushing something out the door...that's business. Other pet projects - had no time limit. They could work on them as much as they wanted.

 

Regarding sales dropping off between months...that is exactly correct. In fact, it's exactly correct across the entire market. Public interest was dying since mid '81...and the effects were finally starting to catch up at the cash register.

 

Now for the big question:

 

If one console's games were/are bad, how does that affect some other console's sales? Inty, Coleco, everybody suffered. And not just console producers...but third parties as well. That's not due to bad games. That means that the ship had sailed and was time to reexamine why the process no longer worked.

 

BTW most major department stores had the game on display that you could try before even buying it. I tried many games that way even at a mom&pop A/V store in town...Pitfall, Asteroids, Missile Command...and yep, Pac-Man too. If you couldn't try the game, you could at least look at what the screen looked like - it was printed right on the box. I kicked myself over Sorcerer...since I was impressed by the box art and was in a hurry...but that was only ten bucks (so it could have been worse, I suppose).

[NE146]

It's really not a fun game. It's buggy. It's basically a repeat of Superman. It only basically follows the license. It was a lot worse than they could have done, even in the early 80s. I got tired of trying to get out of holes...

 

Ok it's not really a whole lot of fun. That is pretty much true. The whole game is looking in the pits for stuff.

 

However I can't think of any glaring glitches or bugs in the game that were obvious in normal play. How is it buggy? If you're talking about getting out the holes, it's of course very easy if you just play the game a little to figure it out (i.e: Don't push UP. Push straight left, right, or down once outside).

 

Anyone who has problems getting out of the holes in E.T. simply hasn't figured it out and obviously hasn't played it much.

Edited August 11, 2010 by NE146

[4Ks]

Anyone who has problems getting out of the holes in E.T. simply hasn't figured it out and obviously hasn't played it much.

 

Yeah, many people never play the game enough to realize that you have to keep pressing up intil you are clear of the pit, and simply claim that the game is buggy.

[Nukey Shay]

The tunnel glitches are the only ones I can think of - dying in a tunnel which causes a display bug when reappearing on the opposite end, or getting all "ghosts" stuck in the tunnel (a glitch that I sort of like). There are a couple others in the program, but those are completely invisible to the player in normal gameplay.

 

The program is written fairly well...some of it's ideas were just executed badly.

 

The left/right-only appearance is a big turnoff, however, and can make players perceive that there are control issues. I received kudos for "fixing" the buggy control when all I did was add up and down sprite shapes...there is no bug in reality. The sprites only "cost" a few extra bytes of space, since the program no longer needed to code for the reflect register.

 

Also, the "slightest touch is lethal" aspect can be a turnoff for those aquainted with the arcade version. That too is not a glitch, but how the game is coded. It works perfectly as it is written - solely letting the hardware collision registers dictate life or death. The space needed to use relative collision checks instead cost no extra space at all.

[A.J. Franzman]

I got tired of trying to get out of holes...

@hswwsh: You testin' missiles here, or what?

Edited August 11, 2010 by A.J. Franzman

[Nukey Shay]

Oops...I thought you were referring to Pac.

 

Anyway, the only bug that bothered me in ET was trying to get a damn human OFF the landing screen. They always seemed to get stuck on the lower border at the wrong times. I know now (from these forums) that it only happens because another human is trying to go UP into the forest from the screen below.

 

I just didn't find the game to be much fun...expecting something more along the lines of RotLA. 6+1 screens isn't much of an adventure.