Video game crash of 1983.

[Ulfrinn]

I am not sure if anybody reads up on gaming history enough to know about the video game crash of 1983, but it's definitely something worth taking note of. At that point in time one of the problems the gaming community was having was the lack of quality control on games released to the public. Anybody and everybody with even a small amount of coding ability was making and releasing games and as you can imagine the quality of games coming out was complete trash.

Games were being released that weren't really properly created, full of bugs, or just absolute garbage in gameplay and it made it very hard for people to know which games were worth buying and so people just quit playing and the market collapsed.

One thing that came from this was the Famicom/NES gaming console came out and Nintendo was able to corner the market, 90% of the market share if I am not mistaken, and developers could only make games for the Nintendo if they agreed they wouldn't be made on any other system and this allowed Nintendo to implement levels of quality control that may have saved gaming. An alternative theory, and both of them could be correct, is Nintendo did it to choke out the rest of the market and they may have, but that doesn't mean that the establishment of realistic quality controls didn't de-saturate the market and improve consumer confidence in the industry.

The sad part about this, is that it seems to be happening again. The gaming market is seeing a new oversaturation. If it's not a new CoD every single year, it's a new Assassins Creed, or some other series that insists on beating the dead horse. On top of that we have Steam who would appear to let anybody and everybody capable of downloading a gaming engine to release their creations, once against oversaturating the market with, quite frankly, crap. This is making it a bit tiresome to even log into Steam and try to find a new game to play because it is page after page after page of no budget crap as well.

Are we heading towards another video game crash?

[Bunker Junker]

Luckily I'm not really one of those guys who seeks out for new games. You can just force me to play TF2 for life and I would never get bored.


That aside, interesting read, good work.

[Gus the Crocodile]

People have been making dire predictions about "a repeat of 1983!!" for so many years now; it's the videogame equivalent of streetcorner doom prophecy. Nothing ever happens, of course, but it's still just around the corner!

It's very silly. We aren't in 1983 anymore. Videogames aren't in the same position they were then, still trying to find a cultural foothold. Yes, companies can (and do) collapse, game development has always been kind of a risky world, but there's no dire existential threat. I make no personal judgement of OP specifically, but my general impression is that for the most part, this talk is largely just people seeing things they don't like succeed and wanting there to be some kind of divine punishment for that. An abundance of crappy media is normal, in all sorts of media categories.

[Vince ✟]

I actually had E.T

[Vince ✟]

Hah! No, I locked him away in the closet because he wouldnt play nice. He collected dust until at some point he was tossed in the bin

[secuda]

We had our own "crash" back in the 2000 or before Steam era. while some might not remembering it being that bad as in 1983 it was still bad enough that no one wanted to pass a decent port whenever they got an opertunity.

Because during those years 1983 we had pretty good games on C64/Atari/amiga computers they flourish at that time (atleast in eu market).

What i am trying to say it will at most change focus and like what miss ann trhope is saying its not a niche and vulnable market any more. Its a market for everyone to enjoy.

[ハイイロギツネ]

Steam doesn't have as many exclusive titles as more developers are now publishing on their own platforms or choosing other publishers.

I think what that means is that we will see more division with many different gaming clients on the PC. I think this could mean that PC games will be poorly optimized with the lack of support that the console versions will have.

Steam haven't developed first party exclusives for years with the exception of the eSports titles which have regular updates. Microsoft are finally starting to offer first party exclusives with excellent support to the Windows 10 store while major developers like Bethesda are boycotting Steam with their own client.

[KeetaCat]

I don’t think it’s low quality games that will cause another crash, I think it’ll be the endless consumerism.

Scummy DLC, microtransactions, and loot box practices are already bad today, imagine how bad they’ll be in the next couple of years if devs don’t get their priorities straight.

[Mikasa Ackerman]

A new crash is coming for sure, season passes, dlc, overpriced games that only have a few hours of play time, and consoles comming out for high prices regularly all will lead to a crash, the difference to the first crash is that gaming is too big to completely crash, so most likely only a few companies will crash, telltale was the start if you ask me, if ps5 once again Is weak and moyt games are just pretty reskins for the 4th-6th time gamers will start voting with their money

[ハイイロギツネ]

引用自 Ryuko Matoi：

A new crash is coming for sure, season passes, dlc, overpriced games that only have a few hours of play time, and consoles comming out for high prices regularly all will lead to a crash, the difference to the first crash is that gaming is too big to completely crash, so most likely only a few companies will crash, telltale was the start if you ask me, if ps5 once again Is weak and moyt games are just pretty reskins for the 4th-6th time gamers will start voting with their money

Which games did you play that only had a few hours play time?

[Γαῖα]

Comparing 1983 to now, what a joke.
There was no big PC gamer market then, it was consoles and the few games they had that crashed. It was a very long time coming before the intervention of the indie market and use of physics engines let alone peoples hardware and knowledge good enough to produce any.
OP, your conflating and as such should be ignored.

[Mikasa Ackerman]

引用自 Synth3D：

引用自 Ryuko Matoi：

A new crash is coming for sure, season passes, dlc, overpriced games that only have a few hours of play time, and consoles comming out for high prices regularly all will lead to a crash, the difference to the first crash is that gaming is too big to completely crash, so most likely only a few companies will crash, telltale was the start if you ask me, if ps5 once again Is weak and moyt games are just pretty reskins for the 4th-6th time gamers will start voting with their money

Which games did you play that only had a few hours play time?

Well I am an rpg player, and compared to older ff, 15 was rather short, and especially console games always are short on how long to beat, theres really not many games with 50 hours or more, far cry 5 doesn't even have 20 hours on how long to beat

[Speeder]

There was no such thing as quality control back in 1983, which is why the market crashed, however now all game consoles have some sort of quality control for physical releases. Nintendo basically saved the industry by not just bundling their console with one of the most innovative games of all time, they introduced the nintendo seal of approval, which made sure games were in tip top shape when getting a physical release.

[TruebornJester]

引用自 Miss Ann Thrope：

I doubt we're heading towards another gaming industry crash. At least, not anytime soon. Game publishers make a lot more money than they did during the 1980's, and their fanbase is considerably larger. Gaming is no longer such a niche market.

I think it is controlled by a review system that marks trash as trash and great as great. Also word of mouth has spread further thanks to communication improvements. We know what to avoid and what is worth a dime

[Ganger]

I lived though them times and to be honest, I didn't notice anything going on. I was still playing the Atari 2600 but I also had a spectrum +2 by 1985. People tend to say nintendo saved gaming but I reflute this statement. Gaming was still strong during and after the crash. What nintendo bought was censorship and higher costs to games. Sony changed all that with the playstation and we are better for it.

[Kargor]

SCNR :-)

Sorry, your history is way off. If you think Iris Heart could be dangerous when she goes HDD, then you clearly haven't met the CPU of Tari.

Tari, superpower of old. First nation of Gamindustri. Ruled by a CPU that is nothing short of crazy. Crazy enough to not only make her citizens revolt, but also lash out against them in response, effectively causing the "Great crash" and destroying Tari.