How many Apple II games were made?

[PDog]

I know that by the time the IIGS launched (1986?), Apple claimed there were over 10,000 software titles, but they didn't breakdown how many of those were games. I'm guessing about 70% or more probably were though and I know many more Apple II games were made since then. Anyone have any hard numbers?

[high voltage]

The gaming magazine EG mentioned in their May 1985 issue 16.000 software titles. Then you gotta add 1985 to 1992.

EG was gospel way back

Edited April 19, 2014 by high voltage

[PDog]

Even if only 10,000 of those 16,000 were games, that's pretty dang impressive. Wouldn't that give the Apple II the biggest games library of any console/computer?

[Keatah]

A lot.

[Bill Loguidice]

It's alsmost

 

Even if only 10,000 of those 16,000 were games, that's pretty dang impressive. Wouldn't that give the Apple II the biggest games library of any console/computer?

 

Not necessarily. The Commodore 64, for instance, can boast of similar numbers. It's also in how you define games, be they commercial or public domain. In either case, getting accurate numbers when you're talking platforms with thousands of games becomes almost impossible, unless of course you're a console. For instance, the figure of 3,870 games for the PS2 is accurate, simply because there was a single source of software. The same is not true for computers.

 

You also have to consider how many PC DOS games were made, then how many PC Windows games continue to get made, each of which likely exceeds either the Apple II or C-64 libraries (and, in particular, the PC Windows stuff, which is growing exponentially and easily exceeds). Figuring out a cut off for any of the PC stuff, either DOS or Windows era, is very difficult simply because of the huge range of configurations and the longevity of the platform (1981 - present). In that regard, it's kind of the same with the Apple II - several different configurations and specifications were targeted from the platform's launch in 1977 to it being discontinued in the early 1990s, i.e., a 1970s era Apple II couldn't run the same software as a mid-1980s Apple II. In that regard, something like the Commodore 64 is "safer" to consider its entire library as one thing because it was the same platform from its launch in 1982 to the last of the commercial software being released for it in the early 1990s.

[Keatah]

I taught my sister how to program and we made a game. It flashes a box on the screen, and you have to hit the <space bar> as fast as possible.The time delay reaction is measured with .01 resolution. Does that count?

[Tanrunomad]

1,677 and counting. I've been adding games to my Apple II Games database for about a year: http://tanrunomad.com/vintage-computer-collection/apple-ii-games/

 

Eventually I'd love to add screen shots, graphics mode, RAM requirements, genre, rarity, you name it, but right now I've just been adding the basic info as I find them. The real challenge is finding the time to research these games, right now I just only update it once or twice a month maybe. Based on my research thus far, I do not think there were 10,000 published Apple II games, although I still have a ways to go in getting educational games and games from disk magazines.

[Keatah]

Be lucky if the count was less than 15,000..

[Keatah]

I pulled a handful of disks from my pile and these are not on the list.

 

Zardos, Space Vikings, Compu-Cube, A.B.M., Neutrons, RC-FS2, Five Card Stud, Nonads, Bill Budge's Trilogy of Games, Rubik's Cube Unlocked.

 

And what is the cutoff between a full-blown big-time commercial game and simple Basic Language experiment that morphed into a half-assed partly completed game traded at user's groups?

 

Or how about half-game half-simulation like Saturn Navigator, and do you count both versions? Educational disks from MECC? Type-ins? If you include the latter, the count can go to 40,000 easy.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Keatah

[Tanrunomad]

I pulled a handful of disks from my pile and these are not on the list.

 

Zardos, Space Vikings, Compu-Cube, A.B.M., Neutrons, RC-FS2, Five Card Stud, Nonads, Bill Budge's Trilogy of Games, Rubik's Cube Unlocked.

 

And what is the cutoff between a full-blown big-time commercial game and simple Basic Language experiment that morphed into a half-assed partly completed game traded at user's groups?

 

Or how about half-game half-simulation like Saturn Navigator, and do you count both versions? Educational disks from MECC? Type-ins? If you include the latter, the count can go to 40,000 easy.

 

I had Space Vikings listed, but not the rest. I was surprised I didn't have Muse's ABM on there yet! But that's how it goes, one game at a time. What I really need to do at this point is add these games to a google spreadsheet and just share it with the Apple II community so they can add new games and complete/correct the info on the rest (and that includes you, Keatah!)

 

As to your point about what constitutes a game, that is definitely a grey area. I listed all the public domain stuff including my own games under the publisher "Homebrew" so those can be easily included (or excluded) as needed. Only educational "games" will be included in here, but of course that in itself needs to be defined. I definitely want to include all disk magazine games as individual entries such as games from Softdisk and Uptime. I haven't even begun to include type-in games, but those definitely need to be included. I think I just have one at this point, a post-apocalyptic survival BASIC game called Atom 20 written back in 1977 for a CDC CYBER Mainframe and made available as a type-in in 1979.

[krslam]

The latest version of gamebase64 has ~24,000 C64 titles. Not sure how many of those are unique, though.

www.gb64.com if you want to check it out.

Edited April 24, 2014 by krslam

[Keatah]

It was/is typical of GameBase and newsgroup compilations to archive a single game several times due to it having been cracked in different ways or cracked by different crackers.

[carlsson]

But even if we assume that half of the GB64 entries are recracks or versions under false names, it would leave 12000 unique games. In reality, I think at most perhaps 1/6 of the GB64 falls into that category, i.e. 20000 unique and 4000 duplicated games.

 

I have also heard the Apple ][ game library is huge, which to me is a complete mystery given how relatively expensive they were. At least on this side of the pond, the Apple series would exclusively be considered business computers, just like the IBM PC was for the first 8-10 years. I have downloaded some games, but while they load on my ][+ clone, I haven't had enough success with my PC joystick adapter to enjoy any of them.

 

While it is an extremely poor benchmark, since the tracker was started in 2008 there has been a total play time of 295 minutes from three different people. The Apple ][ series were last seen in the end of January 2012. One day when I get the joystick working, I'll add some minutes to the mark.

[Tanrunomad]

Just a heads up. I've made the spreadsheet available to be updated by anyone who would like to contribute. You can access it from the database page I listed earlier or directly from here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ggfUzUZDyZJ8LPOpPBOA9AQNBBnF959OdL-2Vs_JCjw/edit?usp=sharing

[Keatah]

Having had an Apple system in the house since day one, I don't know what the II series should be classified as. Home, scientific, business, educational. It seemed to excel in all areas, especially edu and home.

[high voltage]

But even if we assume that half of the GB64 entries are recracks or versions under false names, it would leave 12000 unique games. In reality, I think at most perhaps 1/6 of the GB64 falls into that category, i.e. 20000 unique and 4000 duplicated games.

 

I have also heard the Apple ][ game library is huge, which to me is a complete mystery given how relatively expensive they were. At least on this side of the pond, the Apple series would exclusively be considered business computers, just like the IBM PC was for the first 8-10 years. I have downloaded some games, but while they load on my ][+ clone, I haven't had enough success with my PC joystick adapter to enjoy any of them.

 

While it is an extremely poor benchmark, since the tracker was started in 2008 there has been a total play time of 295 minutes from three different people. The Apple ][ series were last seen in the end of January 2012. One day when I get the joystick working, I'll add some minutes to the mark.

 

In USA it was different, the Apple ][ created industries, game companies were formed to make games for Apple ][,

 

As for C64, look on GB 64, for example Electronic Arts, it lists 78 games, but it's really only 74 (take away the doubles like Chessmaster 2000, D-Bug, Heart of Africa, Bard's Tale) minus another 4 which are creations of Pinball Construction Set so there's only 70 EA releases in reality. Many companies on GB64 lists some games twice

And there's 1000s of Boulder Dash screens listed as games, type-ins from numerous magazines etc....

Edited April 24, 2014 by high voltage

[carlsson]

Yes, I know the category "Arcade - Boulder Dash" contains 1145 entries of which a majority is hacks. That leaves 2855 additional hacks and alternative versions of all games that are not Boulder Dashes.

 

Whether or not to count type-ins, user group games, other public domain items etc is a subject of matter. If you don't count C64 games that origin from user groups, you shall not count ditto Apple ][ games. Did the EG magazine only count mostly commercial software in their figure of 16000 titles?

 

How many unique games did Electronic Arts release for the Apple series as comparison, as you seem to suggest that 70 is a very low number? For that matter, Ocean has a little over 90 games, Activision some 80, Mastertronic at least 120-130, a little over 10 games from System 3 and so on.

 

Anyway, it should not really be a contest who's got the longest **** but how many of those 1000, 5000, 10000, 15000, 20000 titles are recorded, ideally archived as well.

[bojay1997]

In USA it was different, the Apple ][ created industries, game companies were formed to make games for Apple ][,

 

As for C64, look on GB 64, for example Electronic Arts, it lists 78 games, but it's really only 74 (take away the doubles like Chessmaster 2000, D-Bug, Heart of Africa, Bard's Tale) minus another 4 which are creations of Pinball Construction Set so there's only 70 EA releases in reality. Many companies on GB64 lists some games twice

And there's 1000s of Boulder Dash screens listed as games, type-ins from numerous magazines etc....

As someone whose parents bought an early Apple II and who was a gamer from a very young age, I would agree that the Apple II had a large developer community early on. Having said that, by the mid-80s, the Apple II was clearly no longer the leader for computer gaming in the United States and there were tons of games that were exclusive to the Commodore 64 or other platforms including the PC that never hit the Apple II. It would be interesting to see a complete and accurate list of commercial game releases for both platforms, but I suspect that if you include European games, the Commodore 64 would surpass the Apple II in volume of commercial games by a massive margin.

Edited April 24, 2014 by bojay1997

[carlsson]

BTW Tanrunomad, I just spotted a few games in your list that you might want to validate whether they're duplicates or should exist in multiple entries. Some might be false positives as well as I may have omitted some with very generic names that I don't know anything about.

 

(The) Alpine Encounter

(The) American Challenge (A Sailing Simulation)

(The) Ancient Art of War

(The) Ancient Art of War at Sea

(The) Arcade Machine

Archon

(The) Bard's Tale

(The) Bard's Tale II

(The) Bard's Tale III

(The) Battle of Shilon

(The) Black Cauldron

(The) Caverns of Freitag

(The) Chessmaster 2000

(The) Cosmic Balance

(The) Coveted Mirror

(The) Crimson Crown

(The) Curse of Crowley Manor

(The) Dallas Quest

(The) Dark Crystal

(The) Dark Heart of Uukrul

Frogger II

(The) Goonies

H.E.R.O

Hardball

(The) Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

(The) Hunt(er) for Red October

(The) Institute

(The) Lurking Horror

(The) Mask of the Sun

Odyssey

(The) Oregon Trail (unless there were multiple versions of this one?)

Pitstop II

(The) Return of Heracles

(The) Seven Cities of Gold

Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego

 

35 out of 1679 is only 2%, not that bad..

[high voltage]

If you study the catalogues from SSI or Microprose or EA, new Apple ][ games where always featured until late 80s.

But you're right, C64 was the leader from 1985 onwards.

 

In Europe the Apple ][ was not a gaming computer platform like the C64 or A8. I only ever saw Apple ][ games in London, and only in one shop.

C64 was number one 8-bitter in Germany and second in UK after ZX Spectrum.

[carlsson]

Yes, every region had its own favorites. Take for example the MSX computers which most people in the US and probably large parts of Europe consider uncommon, some even obscure. Generation MSX has 4263 titles in the year range 1982-1994. Some of those are not games, and a fair deal are re-releases but I'd wager at least 2000 are unique games, most from Japan. Now a library of 2000 games may not sound like a lot compared to the C64 and Apple ][ we're discussing - does anyone have a figure off-hand for the Atari 8-bit computers? - but it also puts the system well above obscurity from a global point of view.

Edited April 24, 2014 by carlsson

[Mayhem]

It was/is typical of GameBase and newsgroup compilations to archive a single game several times due to it having been cracked in different ways or cracked by different crackers.

 

Generally not for GB64, there's one entry per individual game. However, the same game may get featured more than once if a) there were fundamental differences between the tape, disk or cartridge versions (see Congo Bongo, Zaxxon and Super Zaxxon) b) it was released in different (non English) languages c) it was released by different publishers in differing territories and there warrants a reason to double dip.

[The Usotsuki]

There was "Oregon" which was an earlier program that was rewritten into The Oregon Trail...

[Tanrunomad]

35 out of 1679 is only 2%, not that bad..

Thank you so much for combing through the list and finding these!

[X900BattleGrape]

Rough guess for the Commodore 64 is probably over 10k, and likely over 15k if you include other territories like Europe, Australia, etc. My recollection as well was that Apple II game releases dropped significantly after 1985 and I rarely heard anything about a games scene for Apple II in Europe.