The Great Video Game Crash of 1983
The Great Video Game Crash of 1983-1984 refers to the time of economic decline for North American manufacturers of video games.
In early 1984, it all comes to a crashing halt, with every major videogame system up to that point either being sold to independents or discontinued altogether. A public that had once seemed to possess an insatiable appetite for any new game or console to come down the pike now collectively turns their backs on the game makers. An industry that had practically sprung up overnight to dominate the entertainment sector crashes just as quickly.
- Hunter, William |
Causes
- Console Surplus By 1983, Atari had grown to become the biggest player in the video game industry, raising their annual revenue from $75 million to $2 billion in just 3 years and selling 12 million of their popular Atari 2600 consoles. Other released their own devices: Commodore 64, Mattel's Intellivision, ColecoVision, and others (Oxford).
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(The Insane Console History).
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Image Credit: ("Player 3 Stage 6: The Great").
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- Software Overload Along with the consoles was an overwhelming quantity of lackluster software being pushed by the industry, especially after the legalization of third-party game development in 1982. Seemingly anyone could create a game. Few efforts were made to ensure games were compelling enough to attract customers (Oxford).
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- Computers Video game consoles faced competition from computers since, "The Internet provides a virtual arcade where players can challenge opponents from all over the world" (Ennis).
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Stock in Atari’s owner, Warner, crashed. Sales of consoles and games, both oversaturated, tanked across the board. Rumor has it that, unable to sell their tens of millions of surplus cartridges, Atari sent them all to a landfill in New Mexico, bulldozed them, and then buried them in cement to cover up the embarassment. Atari had been the banner of the gaming revolution, once upon a time the fastest-growing company in American history. Now, it was $500 million dollars in debt.
This was the Video Game Crash of 1983. - Werner, Nicholas |