The arcade
game industry entered its golden age at the end of the 70’s going into the 80’s
with the release of Space Invaders by Taito,
which was a huge success that inspired dozens of manufacturers to enter the
computer games industry. Space Invaders also defined most of the basic parameters
of what classic action games to date consist of: A player controls an object/an
actor against some enemies; a score is kept; the game is real-time and requires
fast reflexes; the player has a fixed amount of lives; the game is based on
successive levels of increasing difficulty. Which
basically means that when you get right down to it, there’s actually not a lot of
difference between Halo 4 and Space Invades with the only major difference
being graphics and the fact that space invaders doesn't have an epic character
like Master chief who is one of my all-time favourite game characters.
Now moving away from Halo 4 and back to the 1980’s
before I start ranting about my love of Halo. Space Invaders inspired arcade machines in the 1980's and it was seen in other locations like shopping centres, storefronts, restaurants/Pubs and convenience
stores. However Space Invades wasn’t the only game that was
a huge hit during this period and also defined the future of games.
Pacman!! Yes the classic Pacman
was another huge favourite and is still a hugely popular game even today
and according to records it is the highest grossing video game of all time.
Players find themselves guiding the lovable pacman around a single maze level eating dots, while avoiding the four ghosts
who even had names which were Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. This Game also had
common themes that are present in today’s games with: Level Design, Characters,
and it basically had a simple objective, avoid being killed while trying killing
everything!!! Just give all the ghost AK-47's and you just get Call of Duty eat your
heart out game.
With huge advances in technology around the computer
game industry, the first computers, such as the aforementioned PDP-1, which
were giant machines priced at millions of dollars were becoming something of
the past. With the PC revolution developing personal computers/consoles and
allowing people to experience the success of arcade games in a personal home environment.
Companies like Apple, Commodore, and Tandy were creating early home computers that were small enough to be able to be placed on a signal
desk, in an office or at home. Allowing for the idea of the personal computer to emerge. With personal computers rapidly evolving
in the 1980's, they became
nearly as simple to start playing with as consoles and they allowed owners to program simple games themselves.
This however had a bad effect on the game industry and
soon clones of classics such as Space Invaders, Pacman which were
being distributed by amateur programmers. They sold disks in plastic
bags, put them on the shelves of local shops or sent them through the mail. Things took a turn for the worst when the clone
games and manufacturers of older, obsolete consoles were sold at a loss to
clear stock, creating a hole in the market. This allowed for another crash in the games industry
which is known today as the 'The North American Video Game Crash'
similar to crash back in 1977; however this crash saw bankruptcy of several huge companies in the industry.
It was at this time that Nintendo, after its successes with Donkey Kong which
is considered to be the first platform game, began to grow into the video game industry. The Company that was originally
known for its collectable cards and toys now became the major games console company
at this time with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). They took the
title for the best selling console of the 80s'. The NES dominated the North American and the
Japanese market from the mid 80’s going into the 90’s. However Nintendo’s successes
were short lived with the rise of the next generation of consoles in
the early 1990s and saw the beginning of the ‘console war’!!!
and to finish this blog I'd like to share a video that I really enjoyed watching and enlightened me alot about the Video Game Crash of 1983.
I found this video really helpful in understanding what actually happened in the Video Game Crash of 1983 compared to reading long boring articles. Enjoy!!!....
