The Crash

[dvdguy]

Now I was a hardcore gamer before, during, and after this period of time. But there's something I still don't understand about The Great Video Game Crash.

 

According to many accounts, the "glut" of cheap games on the market contributed to the crash. So, were gamers going into stores, buying these cheaper carts, coming home and being so disappointed in the cheap game that they bought that they abandoned video gaming and the industry collapsed? I always remembered some games were better than others, naturally, but even as a kid I knew to stick to Atari, Activision, Imagic, etc to get the quality stuff.

 

If sales of all these cheap crappy games is what caused the crash, then how come every auction and garage sale has an Atari unit with almost nothing but all the big name games? None of these people have Firefly or Racquetball... they have Starmaster, Dig Dug, Demon Attack... all the common biggies.

 

If a glut of cheap crap ruined everything, why is the cheap unplayable crap so rare today?

[tyranthraxus]

Atari produced its own share of bad titles. And I think it was not so much

that people were buying all of the crappy 3rd party games it was that

stores were filling their shelves with these games that just weren't

selling. As I recall Atari made stores pre-order their shipments for the

year so even though the stuff wasn't selling well more and more

product was still arriving. If you check on ebay for sealed 2600 games

you'll notice that there are certain commons that always show up

sealed. These are generally the games that were overproduced by

Atari.

 

But IMHO it was the computer craze of the mid 80s that killed the game

consoles of that era. Parents wanted to get their family into computers

so the dollars went there. Meanwhile Atari and all the little guys were

pooring money into a shrinking market.

[Vic George 2K3]

It was a mixture of factors, such as producing too many games with no quality control present to keep the bad stuff off store shelves and the overall mindset that videogames were just a passing fad to transition people into buying and using computers.

[christianscott27]

i've always had a hunch that the crash was caused more by CEOs than by consumers. we all know about tramiel and warner bros. at atari, and then theres coleco - how they dropped the ball with all that money from cabbage patch kids is beyond me. nobody i knew ever got sick of video games, it seems like the industry just poorly managed itself and cut us off.

[7800Lover]

I doubt it was one specific factor. I think the rise in home computers, an oversaturated market, and disappointing, overhyped titles (2600 Pacman and ET anyone?) were just as much reasons for the Crash as was the flood of bad, cheap games.

[Nukey Shay]

It had nothing to do with a "glut of bad games" IMO. That was just management's excuse. The real reason was that there were just too many hands in the pie...at a time that the consumer dollar was being redirected into other products (like relatively new CD's, cheaper VCR's, etc.). A point should be made that many of the "bad games" also found their way onto home computers...which suffered little ill effect from the crash. Atari's "piracy" smokescreen fueled the demise of their 8-bit market...as well as a lack of consumer support - when the ST made it's appearence, Atari seemed to drop the 8-bit market like a rock (but that's another story).

 

In fact, I'll wager that there was an even HIGHER percentage of bad games made for home computers (if bad games were the main factor, how would you explain the lack of sales for the Colecovision??).

[tyranthraxus]

Yeah with the 2600, 5200, CV, Vectrex and INTV on the market that is

quite a stretch of the consumer base. And with 8-bit computers taking off

something had to give.

[jetset]

I just remember "growing out" of videogames. I never heard of the crash until only a few years ago. After the 2600 got old, and I moved onto the 5200, and it got old, there was nothing else worth playing. The 7800? Please. It's fun and all, but overall a pretty lackluster gaming system. What else was there between the 5200/Colecovision systems, and the NES, which brought videogames back to life? I just think our "generation" grew out of it and the younger kids had nothing until the NES.

My .02

[atari_aaron]

Yeah, the suits eff'd it up. The way I remember it, our Atari 2600 stuff began to break, and we couldn't replace it because we could no longer find it in the stores. Computers were too expensive for alot of us - including my family - so once the crap for gaming systems disappeared from the store, we just couldn't play anymore.

 

My friend got a 5200 toward the end of its run for Christmas one year. It was pricey for his family. Like my family, his family couldn't afford a computer either. He got seven games for his 5200 before he couldn't find anymore in the stores. Once his joysticks tanked, the thing ended up on the shelf.

 

As far as I'm concerned there was a lower-end market for video games that the computer market couldn't fill. We had money to spend on video games, just not as much as was needed to buy a computer. That's why Nintendo did so well once it got to the US. An untapped market. My senior year, I couldn't afford a color capable computer, but I could afford a Nintendo. It wasn't until I got back from the Gulf War when I had a wad of unspent war cash that I could afford my first computer.

 

I think the 84 game crash was a myth perpetiuated by companies that wanted to sell more expensive computers. The 7800 is obviously the worst example of this corporate conspiracy. I'm just bewildered that Atari sat on the 7800 from 84 through 87 eventhough they had a couple of 100,000 or so in storage? Had that been released in 84, I probably would have bought one or got one as a present.

 

Anyway, I know I'm not an expert by any means. I know there are a lot of people who are alot more knowledgable on the subject than I am. My opinion is just the opinion of an average kid... a kid who wasn't a video game fanatic, but who loved playing video games anyway.

 

Later,

 

Aaron

[Dones]

The crash was real for me. I remember stores putting out bins filled with discounted atari stuff (usually less than a US dollar). No one would buy them even at that price. After a while then came a dry spell where no store would sell videogames at all. As a kid I wondered what happened but of course never really knew.

 

Another thing to worry was the amount of crappy clones that was out there. As a kid I bought a Smurfs cart that was exactly the same as the Coleco one I already had. You see, I saw the box and it had a different name and logo so I thought it was a sequel. Man was I pissed when I got home that day! I became very distrustful of buying atari games after that.

 

Mind you there was no Internet nor magazines nor Electronics Boutique stores to go for info at that time. So imagine how many people got ripped off just like me.

[Stingray]

  I never heard of the crash until only a few years ago.  

 

Ditto. I remember there being a trasition between Atari being the dominant force and Nintendo being the dominant force. There were plenty of games out there to be had. **shrug**

 

-S

[dvdguy]

The crash was real for me. I remember stores putting out bins filled with discounted atari stuff (usually less than a US dollar). No one would buy them even at that price. After a while then came a dry spell where no store would sell videogames at all. As a kid I wondered what happened but of course never really knew.  

 

Another thing to worry was the amount of crappy clones that was out there. As a kid I bought a Smurfs cart that was exactly the same as the Coleco one I already had. You see, I saw the box and it had a different name and logo so I thought it was a sequel. Man was I pissed when I got home that day! I became very distrustful of buying atari games after that.

 

Mind you there was no Internet nor magazines nor Electronics Boutique stores to go for info at that time. So imagine how many people got ripped off just like me.

 

I was somewhat aware of it because I was an Electronic Games subscriber at the time and I believe they had a big cover story about it in one issue.

 

But as a kid I loved the aftermath. I still have DREAMS about the front of KayBee Toys in our mall, where all the Atari games were stacked up, 2 for $1. Every week I got an allowance of $2 and would go buy 4 new games. That Christmas I got something like 50 new carts. I loved it.

[jetset]

  I never heard of the crash until only a few years ago.  

 

Ditto. I remember there being a trasition between Atari being the dominant force and Nintendo being the dominant force. There were plenty of games out there to be had. **shrug**

 

-S

 

What's funny in my area though is I remember keeping an eye out for games, even after I got out of high school and went into the "working/college/no time for games anyway" world. I never once saw bins with discounted games. It's like they were there on the shelf one week still at full price, and the next they were gone, much like a lot of stores they were sold in. One store, Zayres which was big down here still had Atari stuff well into (I think I remember right) 1986/87 same price. When they went out of business they still had plenty of Atari stuff, just at almost full price. What I think a lot of us forget is that in the mid 80's the economy was in REAL bad shape. Double digit unemployment and inflation...who needs videogames when you couldn't count on a job???

[Dones]

Mind you there was no Internet nor magazines nor Electronics Boutique stores to go for info at that time. So imagine how many people got ripped off just like me.

 

I was somewhat aware of it because I was an Electronic Games subscriber at the time and I believe they had a big cover story about it in one issue.

You mean this problem was published in a magazine? What else did it say?

You are right, there were vg magazines around at the time. What I should have said that as a kid magazines were not accessible to me.

But as a kid I loved the aftermath.  I still have DREAMS about the front of KayBee Toys in our mall, where all the Atari games were stacked up, 2 for $1.  Every week I got an allowance of $2 and would go buy 4 new games.  That Christmas I got something like 50 new carts.  I loved it.

Yeah wasn't that cool? I remember Kay Bee used to do this, but all that my local store had was a pile of combats, e.t.'s and other crappy stuff. I am sure they must have had some good stuff too but probably those carts were the first to sell out.

[George Gray]

There were many factors, as others have said, that contributed to the 'crash.' I think crash is an incorrect description of what happened. Simply, it was a shakeout. Anyone of the 'big three' could have survived (yes, Intellivision went on another six years, but I would not call that surviving, I call it hanging by a thread.) Atari was in the best position to stage a comeback: they had a couple of hundred thousand 7800's ready to go, plenty of games and a marketing blitz. They also had Nintendo. Nintendo was ready to 'sign on the dotted line' to give WORLDWIDE (save Japan) distribution rights for the Famicom to Atari and Atari blew it. If anyone one company ever deserved to die it is Atari. But, they were'nt the only ones making mistakes. Mattel is a classic study in mismanagement as well. Vaporware galore. They had a system in the development stage that would have blown away anything else on the market. They had some very talented people working for them. But, by mid-1983 the upper management saw a problem on the horizon. Rather than scaling back the SOFTWARE and only releasing finished or near finished product, they ashcan the hardware group and bank on the abysmal Aquarious and ECS. Mattel's problems could arguably be traced way back to 1979 when they announced the keyboard attachment. They should never have done that. One mistake after another condemned Mattel. Go over the BSR web site. Lots of info. Remember, it is written by those who were laid off, so it is a tad biased, but still a good read.

Then there's Coleco. The saddest story of all. The Colecovision was THE hot product. They had a winner. For awhile, thanks to a certain ape, this machine was outselling the others. Rightfully so. Better machine, better graphics, better home ports. Problem was that thing called ADAM. With something like an 80% return rate, Coleco just sank. The fact that Coleco put it's eggs in the Adam basket probably did as much to harm the industry as a certain alien and poorly done dot eater ever could. No, I don't think the games were the big problem. It was mismanagement. Sure, you had an economy that was in the toilet, you had MTV rising up, you had bad games - lots of bad games but the bigger problem was just mismanagement. You had people running the show who just did not get it. People like to blame the personal computer. I don't think it had much to with it either. Someone else pointed to cost of the computers. If you recall, there was a HUGE shakeout in the home computer market AT THE SAME TIME! From mid-83 through late 85 early 86, home computer companies were going belly up in big numbers. Commodore starting failing, TI got out completely, Sinclair flooded the market with cheap computer wannabees, Apple confused the market with it's myriad of offerings, none of which were all that compelling except for that little Mac.

1984 was just a bad year for the home electronics market (anyone remember the CED videodisc?) in general.

I do remember the discount bins. I never had a 2600 until 1987. I remember seeing the cartridges for anything from a quarter (ET) to just a couple of dollars. I finally bought one of them when Atari reintroduced them. I got the Jr. version. Funny thing happened, though...the cheap games suddenly got expensive again! Comparatively speaking, of course.

I gave away the console and about 40 games several years later...after acquiring an NES and several dozen games. DOH! Anyway, I think we recently saw another shakeout, though not as dire this time (Sega's problems, Nintendo woes.) And, don't forget, the arcade industry is tanking right now. There'll be another in a year with all of these 'x in one' things now hitting the market.

[+davidcalgary29]

  I never heard of the crash until only a few years ago.  

 

Ditto. I remember there being a trasition between Atari being the dominant force and Nintendo being the dominant force. There were plenty of games out there to be had. **shrug**

 

-S

 

What's funny in my area though is I remember keeping an eye out for games, even after I got out of high school and went into the "working/college/no time for games anyway" world. I never once saw bins with discounted games. It's like they were there on the shelf one week still at full price, and the next they were gone, much like a lot of stores they were sold in. One store, Zayres which was big down here still had Atari stuff well into (I think I remember right) 1986/87 same price. When they went out of business they still had plenty of Atari stuff, just at almost full price. What I think a lot of us forget is that in the mid 80's the economy was in REAL bad shape. Double digit unemployment and inflation...who needs videogames when you couldn't count on a job???

 

The '83 video game "crash" was actually well-documented in many gaming magazines of the era (or, at least the ones that didn't go out of business at this time ).

 

@ John: People tend to forget that there was a concurrent home computer "crash" (usually called the "home computer shakeout"), and that the entire consumer electronics industry suffered a soft sales period up until '85. In '84, we lost the TI 99 4/A, Aquarius, Adam, the various Sinclair machines, a couple of stillborn MSX units, and a few other oddballs. By '85, the U.S. market was down to Atari, Commodore, IBM and Apple.

 

I bought quite a few A8 cartridges in the '84 "shakeout" when prices went down to nothing: .99 for "Pastfinder" at Kay-Bee was one particular find.

I think that alot of stores cleared out older, first-generation games at this point, and this contributed to the general feeling of a market "glut". In '84, the first second-generation third-party games were coming onto the market, and they rendered many genres obsolete.

[Vic George 2K3]

The "transition" was more toward getting people to buy and use personal computers instead of videogame systems around 1984 and 1985. Unfortunately, the "transitioning" didn't work for companies like Coleco, who basically made their Adam Family Computer System into more like an expensive toy with very few well-known companies supporting it with software.

[George Gray]

The "transition" was more toward getting people to buy and use personal computers instead of videogame systems around 1984 and 1985.  Unfortunately, the "transitioning" didn't work for companies like Coleco, who basically made their Adam Family Computer System into more like an expensive toy with very few well-known companies supporting it with software.

 

The big problems with the ADAM was quality. They were not built well and the power supply for stand alone ADAM was in the printer, which apparently was prone to failure. Plus, the tape drives had a really nasty habit of erasing the tapes after only a few plays. Coleco chose to concentrate it's efforts on ADAM and neglect the Colecovision. I suspect that if they had not done so, the video game market would be different.

 

You are right about the lack of support as well. It was quite the goofy machine too. Z80 based, yet the Basic language that was included was Apple compatible. Nevermind that the two were miles apart. Of course, the low level coding was all Z80 and more or less similar to Colecovision.

 

What a waste. ADAM had tons of potential, none of it realized.

[Nukey Shay]

I think the 84 game crash was a myth perpetiuated by companies that wanted to sell more expensive computers. The 7800 is obviously the worst example of this corporate conspiracy. I'm just bewildered that Atari sat on the 7800 from 84 through 87 eventhough they had a couple of 100,000 or so in storage? Had that been released in 84, I probably would have bought one or got one as a present.

 

If there was a way for the 7800 to be released on schedule, Atari would have done it. The problem is that it was tied up in an inner dispute (so Atari had to scramble quickly to come up with a replacement system to compete with the next wave - and settled on the "8-bit source"-compatable 5200.

[cuda_man]

But as a kid I loved the aftermath.  I still have DREAMS about the front of KayBee Toys in our mall, where all the Atari games were stacked up, 2 for $1.  Every week I got an allowance of $2 and would go buy 4 new games.  That Christmas I got something like 50 new carts.  I loved it.

 

I can remember Mom and I stopping at every Revco Drug Store (now CVS) in our town when I went to town with her. During that time there were 4 Revcos here and I pretty much racked out on Atari 2600 games. They hard huge piles of games at every store. The bulk of my first Atari 2600 library consisted of games bought at Revco stores.

[dvdguy]

I can remember Mom and I stopping at every Revco Drug Store (now CVS) in our town when I went to town with her.  During that time there were 4 Revcos here and I pretty much racked out on Atari 2600 games.  They hard huge piles of games at every store.  The bulk of my first Atari 2600 library consisted of games bought at Revco stores.

 

I almost mentioned Revco! They were my other source for all my games... tons of them everywhere. My grandmother would babysit me and she'd always end up needing to go to Revco, and I'd come home with a new game or two every time.