Was PacMan really a "flop"

[high voltage]

if bad games ruin an industry there wouldn't be a gaming industry left, I mean look at NES/Famicom, 3/4ers of the 2000 games for this system are plain bad, and look at itunes or Android gaming apps, only a minority are worth d/ling, but games are still going.

Edited September 20, 2013 by high voltage

[Master Phruby]

95% of the stuff for the Wii is pure shovelware. You have to look really hard to find something new and original.

[jetset]

there are too many youngsters who think they know their video game history.

 

 

Agreed. I'm taken by surprise by the comment(s) that prior to opening the game and popping it in we knew what the gameplay was like. I can't of course speak for all areas of the states, but I lived in a pretty populated area...I honestly don't recall Sears, K-Mart....any of the major retailers having Pac-Man on display and certainly the smaller dedicated shops didn't have it playing, at least until it was out a week or two. In fact Sears and JCPenny were big time Atari retailers, and we would ALWAYS be at the mall down here that had both and were constantly looking for any tidbits on the game prior to release. Beyond posters and ceiling mobiles that just showed the artwork, there was nothing. Commercials I can remember like most Atari commercials spent more time showing granpa holding the controller looking excited than actual gameplay.

Point being I get the feeling there is a suggestion that, everyone knew *exactly* how pacman played and what it looked like compared to the arcade, and decided it was actually *good* and ran out and bought it.

On the contrary, I think Atari (and retailers) did as much as they could to make it look exciting without actually letting you know just how terrible the game was.

I think had there been an information media back like then like we have today with the ability to see samples, screeshots, and even have s demo of sorts the game would have tanked miserably.

Or better yet what would the sales numbers have been had retailers allowed returns or exchanges once the game was opened. I wanted to take it back in the WORST way and so did a lot of my friends.

You can defend it all you like, Pac-Man SUCKED and the phenomeonal sales numbers were attributed mainly due to three things..

Hype and impulse buying above all else...

Name recognition (people bought it knowing it sucked just to own it)

Being added as a pack in.

 

And I'm not comparing it to the recent hacks in saying the whole "well they worked with what they could" line. It was less than a year later that Ms Pac-Man came out and it was worlds better. Was there some kind of fundemental change in programming that allowed Ms Pac-Man to be so much better in 8 months or did Atari just spend a little more time and effort?

[Nukey Shay]

A 4k Ms.Pac-Man game would not be feasible at the time (certianly not by using the same methods it's predecessor did). So a bankswitched rom was a given...thus not as many compromises had to be made. It is a confirmed fact that Frye requested 8k in the first place...if you forgot Gaming tech changed quite a lot in 8 months' time back then, regardless.

 

BTW the hometown store that I bought most of my stuff from (A.V.Room - Monticello) always had their newest stuff on display, and Pac-Man was no exception. In fact...I can't even think of any department stores I visited BITD either that DIDN'T have a collection of new games on display to try.

 

Come to think of it...there's not many carts I bought that I didn't see in action beforehand. Sorcerer, Space Jockey, Basic Programming come to mind. So this "consumers didn't know what it was like" argument has always been complete rubbish IMO. Via preorder/mail order, you may have a point. In the stores themselves...not really.

[jetset]

Like I said...I can't speak for all markets in the US. South Florida had nada in the way of displays or advertisements that showed Pac-Man prior to release.

[Nukey Shay]

Nobody knew what the game was like prior to release. Atari kept that hidden for sure (even in news segments about it). But that wasn't necessarily unique to the title before or since. A moot point anyway since the majority of purchases occurred after launch (it's considerable low rarity to this day is proof of that).

 

First impressions as I recall:

It certainly didn't live up to the year-long hype it was given. Too close to Dodge'Em visually, but not the worst game on the planet either. I remember liking that it included multiple 1 and 2 player variations (something that games at the time were starting to drift away from), but being put off by the unforgiving collision-detection. Object flicker was not even a concern - that was what VCS games were like.

[+Gemintronic]

Nobody knew what the game was like prior to release. Atari kept that hidden for sure (even in news segments about it). But that wasn't necessarily unique to the title before or since. A moot point anyway since the majority of purchases occurred after launch (it's considerable low rarity to this day is proof of that).

 

First impressions as I recall:

It certainly didn't live up to the year-long hype it was given. Too close to Dodge'Em visually, but not the worst game on the planet either. I remember liking that it included multiple 1 and 2 player variations (something that games at the time were starting to drift away from), but being put off by the unforgiving collision-detection. Object flicker was not even a concern - that was what VCS games were like.

 

I think it's important to keep things in the perspective of "at the time". The flicker wasn't remarkable to me. The graphics had less fidelity than other titles to me. I first noted flicker in Adventure when stuffing everything (including Dragon carcasses) into the Yellow Castle. The second time I actually noticed flicker was in Zelda on the NES.. and then I noticed it in MANY other Nintendo games after that.

 

Flicker was a technique on the VCS. Flicker was an obvious hardware failing on the NES.

[jetset]

Nobody knew what the game was like prior to release. Atari kept that hidden for sure (even in news segments about it). But that wasn't necessarily unique to the title before or since. A moot point anyway since the majority of purchases occurred after launch (it's considerable low rarity to this day is proof of that).

 

First impressions as I recall:

It certainly didn't live up to the year-long hype it was given. Too close to Dodge'Em visually, but not the worst game on the planet either. I remember liking that it included multiple 1 and 2 player variations (something that games at the time were starting to drift away from), but being put off by the unforgiving collision-detection. Object flicker was not even a concern - that was what VCS games were like.

 

 

Yes of course within probably 1-2 weeks after launch was when I saw them in the stores. But, (and again not speaking for all markets) if you were on who HAD to be one of the first to own the game, you were for the most part, buying blind.

I'd love to know the sames numbers from a perspective of how many were sold at launch (the first two weeks), as opposed to how many were sold once people knew how bad it was, and of course the ones that people got like it or not with the system.

[+Random Terrain]

I didn't play Adventure until months after we got Pac-Man. We also pre-ordered Pac-Man, assuming it would look similar to the version on the Atari computer that we saw at Woolco. This thread inspired me to update the section about Pac-Man on my web site:

 

randomterrain.com/atari-2600-memories-favorite-games.html#pacman

[Mr SQL]

Out of context. He was referring to distributer preorders IIRC. E.T. sold well enough in stores (it being nearly as common today as Pac-Man and Combat is evidence of that...and it never was a pack-in).

 

It would have turned out more-or-less the same. The VCS wasn't the only console at the time. So how would supposed "negative reception" of those two games or that company translate to bad press for Inty, CV, O2, etc?

 

Nukey,

I disagree; by your argument a popular recording artist could go ahead and release an album of unenjoyable songs and expect it to not have an effect on their next album. We can see from the parallel this isn't the case; if a band releases the equivelent of a fun game like Pacman or Qbert or Defender or Space Invaders that's a hit album and the next album will enjoy greater sales, people will even buy some of their existng albums as a result.

 

But, if a Band releases the equivelent of a game that's not fun to play (for most people) then forget it, their next album tanks!

 

Regarding your question, Atari was at the top of the charts at the time and they had market share thus Inty, CV, O2 debacles had less capacity to affect Atari yet an Atari debacle like hyping up and releasing ET had broad sweeping effects on industry as a whole/ CV et al.

[Nukey Shay]

"Gee, this album sucks. I'm giving up on music altogether!"??

 

That doesn't fit what I was referring to. But if a couple of crap games is all it took to bring down the entire market, there shouldn't be a console market left at all presently. Instead, it's larger and more profitable than it ever was. It's true that some people support bands that produce nothing but crap, but most stick to artists that perform well

 

Incidentally, the music industry was part of the cause. The CD medium was new and grabbing a larger portion of the shrinking consumer entertainment dollar (thank you, President Reagan). Cheaper home computers that consoles could not compete against technologically were a bigger reason...those weathered the storm just fine (at least until the PC clone wave rolled in).

[Brian R.]

A bad album doesn't always mean the next will tank.

 

Example: The loveable Canadian trio Rush -- 2112 came after Caress of Steel.

[CatPix]

It would have turned out more-or-less the same. The VCS wasn't the only console at the time. So how would supposed "negative reception" of those two games or that company translate to bad press for Inty, CV, O2, etc?

It's not just "those two games". They were the icing on top of the cake.

 

There was other consoles at the time, that's right.

 

Intellivision, Odyssey² Colecovision, Vectrex, Astrovision "Bally" Astrocade, Emerson Arcadia 2001, Atari 5200. And the VCS. 8 different systems at the same time on the market!. Then Atari announced a new system to come already!

And if it wasn't enough, there was also for the VCS, dozen of mediocre unlicenced games. Sure, taken separately, they have no impact on the market.

But add them all to the pile, and add two big titles being big disappointment, don't forget the Mattel struggle about their Keyboard Component that never came out and was replaced by a disappointing add-on, the big lies from Emerson about their new console, you have the perfect negative impact on the market to make people run away from this mess.

[idavis]

 

 

Agreed. I'm taken by surprise by the comment(s) that prior to opening the game and popping it in we knew what the gameplay was like. I can't of course speak for all areas of the states, but I lived in a pretty populated area...I honestly don't recall Sears, K-Mart....any of the major retailers having Pac-Man on display and certainly the smaller dedicated shops didn't have it playing, at least until it was out a week or two. In fact Sears and JCPenny were big time Atari retailers, and we would ALWAYS be at the mall down here that had both and were constantly looking for any tidbits on the game prior to release. Beyond posters and ceiling mobiles that just showed the artwork, there was nothing. Commercials I can remember like most Atari commercials spent more time showing granpa holding the controller looking excited than actual gameplay.

Point being I get the feeling there is a suggestion that, everyone knew *exactly* how pacman played and what it looked like compared to the arcade, and decided it was actually *good* and ran out and bought it.

On the contrary, I think Atari (and retailers) did as much as they could to make it look exciting without actually letting you know just how terrible the game was.

I think had there been an information media back like then like we have today with the ability to see samples, screeshots, and even have s demo of sorts the game would have tanked miserably.

Or better yet what would the sales numbers have been had retailers allowed returns or exchanges once the game was opened. I wanted to take it back in the WORST way and so did a lot of my friends.

You can defend it all you like, Pac-Man SUCKED and the phenomeonal sales numbers were attributed mainly due to three things..

Hype and impulse buying above all else...

Name recognition (people bought it knowing it sucked just to own it)

Being added as a pack in.

 

And I'm not comparing it to the recent hacks in saying the whole "well they worked with what they could" line. It was less than a year later that Ms Pac-Man came out and it was worlds better. Was there some kind of fundemental change in programming that allowed Ms Pac-Man to be so much better in 8 months or did Atari just spend a little more time and effort?

 

I know that we had to drive about 150 miles each way to pick up our copy of Pac Man. I didn't get to see it until I popped it into my console. And to say I was a little disappointed was probably an understatement. But I can guarantee you this, it was the only arcade port of the game, and not only were my parent's NOT driving the 300 mile round trip to return it, they also weren't giving me anymore money to drop into the arcades since we "had a copy at home". So I was stuck with it. Sure I played the crap out of it, but that was because of the situation. It wasn't like I could just groan and pop in GTA V. That was it, all you had, and you damn well better like it, or else..

[Retro Rogue]

And to complete the informations : Atari never got to licence the NES or Famicom.

Nintendo approched them in 1982 to create a video game system, which was a mix of Nintendo arcade chips and Atari chips; mostly, Nintendo provided the CPU and sound, and Atari provided the Maria video chip.

After some development, Atari cancelled all the project, nagging at Nintendo "we don't need a small Japanase arcade maker to make a game system." and Nintendo made the Famicom from the "remains" of the project, using their own GPU.

What on earth are you smoking? It's like you mixed three different stories together to come up with one really messed up fantasy.

 

crash was in 1984

You're both wrong, it started in '82 and continued through to '84. It was not an asteroid like sudden extinction event.

[Vaughan]

I got my VCS back in the day, on the day it released.

 

My memory of these arcade games is slightly different from some of you. I don't ever remember my mates and I hoping or thinking that the game would mirror the arcade. Always there was the "how close can they get it". I always knew it would be different, that the arcade would be "better". We knew the technology in the arcade was better. You have to remember, arcades were big back then, they were a premium entertainment over a console. Just having the games on a TV was something of an event - before the VCS we basically had a 100 variations of Pong. So whatever the VCS offered was a marked improvement.

 

All arcade games on the VCS were inferior to the originals.

[high voltage]

What on earth are you smoking? It's like you mixed three different stories together to come up with one really messed up fantasy.

 

 

You're both wrong, it started in '82 and continued through to '84. It was not an asteroid like sudden extinction event.

 

Ah yes, we know this now (I read Atari Inc) but way back when we only had EG and 'the big video game shake-out' happened in 1984 (EG March 1984, pages 6, 23, 24, 26).

 

 

.

Edited September 22, 2013 by high voltage

[Retro Rogue]

 

Ah yes, we know this now (I read Atari Inc) but way back when we only had EG and 'the big video game shake-out' happened in 1984 (EG March 1984, pages 6, 23, 24, 26).

 

 

 

.

 

Well that and newspapers and other magazines.

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Rt1bAAAAIBAJ&sjid=41INAAAAIBAJ&pg=2222,2413925&dq=video+game+shakeout&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=7LJPAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5AUEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6777,2230428&dq=video+game+shakeout&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4L4yAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Ee8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=1300,5550178&dq=video+game+shakeout&hl=en

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6KUrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=1PwFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6526,2770649&dq=video+game+shakeout&hl=en

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952210-2,00.html

 

Here's one for the video coin-op crash, which was already in full swing by the time the consumer one hit. Mind you, coin is a completely separate industry. There was no "video game industry" at the time, rather several different industries that had video games.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=u9wlAAAAIBAJ&sjid=J_MFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2948,2913887&dq=video+game+shakeout&hl=en

 

And the computer industry crash thanks to Jack and company:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,953968,00.html

[jetset]

Those articles mostly point to possibilities. "Analysts *predict* a major shakeout" December 82. "We've been looking at a shakeout" December 1982. Not much very concrete. Not saying the crash was or wasn't started by any certain point, but those articles are just reflective of the times. In 1980 we were as a whole in an INCREDIBLY bad economy that improved briefly, got far worse for a few years, and finally started recovering (depending on how you look at it) in late 84 at best. Point being when the economy is in free fall it's pretty easy to predict an industry based around entertainment will falter.

[high voltage]

I never read newspapers, only video gaming magazines (and Playboy)

[Greg2600]

Pac-Man was a success, Atari sold a TON of those games. The problem was they made too many, yes.

[Brian R.]

I never read newspapers, only video gaming magazines (and Playboy)

 

Then one day you can drive me to the welfare office.

 

<- Newspaper reporter.

 

 

Thanks for those links, Retro. Always fascinating to read stuff like that. It helps to try and see things from the perspective of the times, rather than colored by 2013 glasses.

 

P.S. I like the Apple ad touting in part the Apple III, their "most powerful." Ah, well....

 

And there's a story about the "latest computer innovation," spell check! Which we all take for granted today, and is built into the browser I'm using as I type.

Edited September 23, 2013 by Brian R.

[Retro Rogue]

 

Thanks for those links, Retro. Always fascinating to read stuff like that. It helps to try and see things from the perspective of the times, rather than colored by 2013 glasses.

 

P.S. I like the Apple ad touting in part the Apple III, their "most powerful." Ah, well....

 

And there's a story about the "latest computer innovation," spell check! Which we all take for granted today, and is built into the browser I'm using as I type.

 

Not a problem. That's just a few online links, I have an archive of a good couple 100 newspaper articles from December '82 through July '84 detailing the industry crash. Jetset is of course mistaken, those few articles I shared actually do concretely document the beginnings of the crash (at least the public awareness of it) and specifically the stock market problems that heralded it (including their surprise it started with juggernaut Atari). Future articles over the next two weeks chronicle the stock crash across all the then public trading consumer companies (Atari, Mattel, Magnavox, etc.) and it's major financial effects on the industry, and then starting immediately in January '83 start the layoffs and closings across the industry. These continue throughout the year. By the end of '83 most of the large third party game and peripheral industry that sprang up over '81 through '82 was gone, and the major companies were either severely chopping themselves or making plans to exit by early '84.

 

People confuse a market crash vs. an industry crash - this was an industry crash. Product (the market) was still being actively sold through '85 (even if a lot of the companies behind the product were no longer there), so the consumer's didn't necessarily see the full effects of what had happened other than cheap games and consoles and few places carrying that product.

[+Random Terrain]

Jetset is of course mistaken, those few articles I shared actually do concretely document the beginnings of the crash (at least the public awareness of it) and specifically the stock market problems that heralded it (including their surprise it started with juggernaut Atari). Future articles over the next two weeks chronicle the stock crash across all the then public trading consumer companies (Atari, Mattel, Magnavox, etc.) and it's major financial effects on the industry, and then starting immediately in January '83 start the layoffs and closings across the industry. These continue throughout the year. By the end of '83 most of the large third party game and peripheral industry that sprang up over '81 through '82 was gone, and the major companies were either severely chopping themselves or making plans to exit by early '84.

 

Which 'public' are you talking about? Rich people and the upper middle class who paid attention to the stock market or the common man who was lucky if he had time to watch a couple of sitcoms before going to bed? The teens and children of the lower classes didn't seem to know there was a crash going on. Our parents were too busy working themselves to death and we were too busy playing video games and mowing yards.

 

My family wasn't aware of a crash until we were told by Electronic Games magazine in 1984 that there was a crash. Similar to what I said in another thread, I didn't know I was witnessing a crash. All I knew was that there were a ton of games dropping in price and I had to make tough decisions with my yard mowing money. I was given a VIC-20 in the summer of 1983, so my attention was pulled to making games instead of just playing them. Maybe that's one of the reasons why I didn't notice the crash.

[Retro Rogue]

 

Which 'public' are you talking about?

 

People who read newspapers, read magazines, watched TV news, etc. It was very well covered from '82 through '83 in all those media channels, and in fact in regular news - it has nothing to do with "rich people" watching the stock market.

 

A few more online examples:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/05/24/business/more-layoffs-at-atari-inc.html

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952015,00.html

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952210-2,00.html

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=S9cxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=muMFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4366,4457478

http://www.nytimes.com/1983/11/12/business/activision-sets-layoffs-for-90.html

Edited September 23, 2013 by Retro Rogue