Again, I call the video game crash "bullsh*t".

[+thanatos]

On 5/16/2023 at 1:55 AM, CaptainBreakout said:

 

I remember two huge 4'x8' tables set in front of the enterence to KB Toy Store in Hillsdale Mall in San Mateo (that's within Silicon Valley for context). These tables had big sheet plastic walls about a foot deep all around them... Giving them a look of big troughs. They were all full of shrink-wrapped Atari 2600 games on clearance. All of marked down to $1-$3.

 

 

Part of my crash influenced experience, not knowing there was a crash:  Being at the mall with that giant bin of 2600 games at KB Toys, and mom would let us pick a game out because they were $1-$3.

 

Second part - 1984, after family got a CoCo 2.  "Wow, these games are way better than Atari!"

 

1986-7:  Holy cow the Nintendo is amazing!

 

 

[dwh]

My small part of the blame for the crash was growing up and getting a job($3 an hour!), a car($800), going to college(12 credits $146+200 for books); no time for fun and games. I was so busy back then that I didn't even see any of the bargain $1-3 games at all. Of course that has made it very expensive to collect missing stuff now.

I have a lot of the history of video games books and it is amazing to see some of the decisions that were made ,in hindsight of course.

The saddest was Coleco, they eventually sold off their only money maker...the plastic little round kiddie swimming pool. No really!

The worst was the stock manipulation and backstabbing. the Imagic IPO comes to mind, coupled with the insider sale of stock by the Atari CEO and the early 3rd quarter lose of revenue released by same CEO a day or two before the Imagic IPO, thus sinking both companies; Of course the crook got away with it.

Have to give Nintendo credit though ,for the cartridge lockout, vetting of the software and their demand that they produce the game carts. Pretty good business plan for them.

[+pboland]

I'm sure this topic is most likely a troll topic, but I thought I would put this here just in case:

 

 

[+bent_pin]

On 5/16/2023 at 4:50 PM, zylon said:

 

[CapitanClassic]

10 hours ago, dwh said:

The worst was the stock manipulation and backstabbing. the Imagic IPO comes to mind, coupled with the insider sale of stock by the Atari CEO and the early 3rd quarter lose of revenue released by same CEO a day or two before the Imagic IPO, thus sinking both companies; Of course the crook got away with it.

https://www.nytimes.com/1983/09/27/business/2-charged-in-atari-stock-sale.html

Quote

The agency charged that Raymond E. Kasser, the former chairman and chief executive of Atari, sold 5,000 Warner shares on Dec. 8, 23 minutes before the company issued a press release announcing that its 1982 results would be ''substantially below expectations'' due in large part to disappointing Atari sales.

Agrees to Give Up $81,875

Mr. Kasser, without admitting or denying the S.E.C.'s allegations, agreed to give up $81,875, representing the loss that he avoided by selling his stock before Warner's unexpectedly negative earnings announcement drove down the price. 

 

[desiv]

On 5/14/2023 at 6:57 AM, bent_pin said:

Ever see a ten trillion dollar note? You can buy them for a few dollars on eBay.

What?

<looks at my 1 Billion Dollar note on my wall>

 

Darn it, there goes my retirement plan!!!

Oh well, at least I have all those Beanie Babies as a backup....

 

As for the OP, as others have said, yes there was a crash.  No, it didn't mean all video game activity died everywhere.

For me, I didn't even notice, as I had moved to computers by then...

[MrMaddog]

If this was a serious thread, then the Crash didn't so much affect gamers as much as it did the retailers and publishers. 

 

Overglut of games that anyone could make all running on the last-gen 2600 with the only alternatives for consumers were expensive consoles that had "slightly" better graphics or home computers...or just move on to a different hobby.

 

So-called media experts mistaken it as proof of video games being a "fad" instead of realizing that the industry is a cycle and just needed better replacement consoles.

 

But here is OP who being part of the Post-Truth generation (which wasn't even born back then) just had to inject the usual revisionist BS that's so common on social media and hence the well deserved Heap-O'-Scorn...

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by MrMaddog

[zzip]

37 minutes ago, MrMaddog said:

So-called media experts mistaken it as proof of video games being a "fad" instead of realizing that the industry is a cycle and just needed better replacement consoles.

It most certainly was a fad.   Everybody went gaga over Pac-man and other games that rode its coattails for a brief time, then suddenly lost interest.   There were Pac-Man hit songs on the radio, Pac-Man cereals, trading cards, then nothing.   One day you were the cool kid on the block for getting the latest game, then soon it was "only nerds and dweebs still play video games".   If that isn't a fad, then what is?

 

There are still fad games in the industry.    Fortnite, Pokemon Go, Among Us, Flappy Bird, and so on.    They get a lot of attention for a time.   The difference is now the industry is broad enough that when those games inevitably crash and burn, they don't take most of the industry with it.   Back then the industry didn't have anything to pivot to when those arcade properties stopped being hot.   

[John Van Ryzin]

The best part of this thread was the gong show video.

 

Acceptance or denial of simple supply and demand economics is boring.

[+x=usr(1536)]

9 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

But here is OP who being part of the Post-Truth generation (which wasn't even born back then) just had to inject the usual revisionist BS that's so common on social media and hence the well deserved Heap-O'-Scorn...

Wisdom once found in he margins of a comic book that was oddly-prescient in relation to today's world:

 

"Relax in the safety of your own delusions."

 

Also found in other margins of the same comic:

 

"Pull the wool over your own eyes."

[Cebus Capucinis]

Again, I call the Gong Show bullsh*t!!!!!* Never happened. It's a collective hallucination due to fluoride in the water, which they'd been increasing in the time period. Prove me wrong.

 

*I may have never called the Gong Show this before.

[retrorussell]

7 minutes ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Again, I call the Gong Show bullsh*t!!!!!* Never happened. It's a collective hallucination due to fluoride in the water, which they'd been increasing in the time period. Prove me wrong.

 

*I may have never called the Gong Show this before.

It definitely feels like an LSD-induced dream.  But if want to believe that never happened, you'd REALLY want to purge this from your memory banks:

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

3 minutes ago, retrorussell said:

It definitely feels like an LSD-induced dream.

Nah.  I'm watching that episode of the X-Files where they put LSD in the water supply going to Mulder's apartment.  Unless there's little ETs running around in a buried train car, it's not real.

 

Dialysis filters, man.  Dialysis filters.  That's how you do it.

[+thanatos]

I totally missed the earlier Gong Show clip.  It's the greatest!

 

Well, except maybe for this one:

 

 

[roadrunner]

[Mayhem]

On 5/17/2023 at 3:08 PM, KaeruYojimbo said:

So, yeah, kids got sick of video games. Retailers stopped ordering new ones. Companies went out of business. People lost their jobs. The industry crashed. A few of the stronger companies limped along until Nintendo came along and rejuvenated the industry. The crash was temporary, but it was definitely real.

Maybe in the US, but we kept pootling along happily in Europe with home computers, and so did Japan. The crash was really just an American thing overall. The industry certainly didn't die here, in fact you could argue there were too many and only the strongest computers (Spectrum, C64, Amstrad) survived, the rest such as Jupiter Ace, Dragon and Oric fell by the wayside. Nintendo only picked up the videogame market in the US, it took until about 1989 for the NES to slowly get popular here, and it was soon overshadow by the Mega Drive. That was the "must have" hardware that signalled the return of the console market to Europe.

[Mayhem]

Double post.

Edited May 19, 2023 by Mayhem

[The Usotsuki]

I feel it was more of a market correction than a crash.

[+x=usr(1536)]

 

Holds up great in a crash, but I expect better handling from a vehicle designed and built by Mattel, Inc.

[+bent_pin]

13 hours ago, The Usotsuki said:

I feel it was more of a market correction than a crash

A correction is a 10%ish market adjustment. It's what happens when confidence is checked by some event.

A crash is when a market experiences an extremely sudden and sharp drop in prices leading to vendors taking substantial losses voluntarily in a vicious downward cycle. It's a complete loss of confidence.

Edited May 20, 2023 by bent_pin

[+GoldLeader]

On 5/14/2023 at 10:53 AM, CartridgeStealer said:

I've heard all those excuses.

Maybe I'm just tired, but...

 

This comment from page 1 just gets funnier and funnier to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MrMaddog]

On 5/18/2023 at 12:54 PM, zzip said:

It most certainly was a fad.   Everybody went gaga over Pac-man and other games that rode its coattails for a brief time, then suddenly lost interest.   There were Pac-Man hit songs on the radio, Pac-Man cereals, trading cards, then nothing.   One day you were the cool kid on the block for getting the latest game, then soon it was "only nerds and dweebs still play video games".   If that isn't a fad, then what is?

 

There are still fad games in the industry.    Fortnite, Pokemon Go, Among Us, Flappy Bird, and so on.    They get a lot of attention for a time.   The difference is now the industry is broad enough that when those games inevitably crash and burn, they don't take most of the industry with it.   Back then the industry didn't have anything to pivot to when those arcade properties stopped being hot.   

 

Well those examples are also a part of the only going cycle of the industry.  When one young generation grows out of gaming, another takes over with a different popular game.  And those older people who still game move on to other types (ie. Doom, CoD...) and only coming back to their favorites for nostalgic reasons.

 

Back in the early 80's it was assumed by the business media that "one time only" fad like so many things going on in that decade, and it was a lot of crazy things going on then...  And then came Nintendo that re-started the industry with younger customers who barely remebered Atari.

 

BTW, I was one of those "computer nerds" who only stuck with it since computers were a very lucruitive career choice unlike say skateboarding...

[+bent_pin]

14 hours ago, MrMaddog said:

I was one of those "computer nerds" who only stuck with it since computers were a very lucruitive career choice unlike say skateboarding

Me too, but had to post Tony Hawk anyway because he was in Point Break.

[zzip]

On 5/20/2023 at 4:15 PM, MrMaddog said:

Well those examples are also a part of the only going cycle of the industry.  When one young generation grows out of gaming, another takes over with a different popular game.  And those older people who still game move on to other types (ie. Doom, CoD...) and only coming back to their favorites for nostalgic reasons.

Yeah I think that's what happened.   People got tired of the reigning game paradigm of the early 80s, and there was no super popular game to replace it so people dropped out.   Though I saw many of same people return for the NES when it became popular 

 

On 5/20/2023 at 4:15 PM, MrMaddog said:

Back in the early 80's it was assumed by the business media that "one time only" fad like so many things going on in that decade, and it was a lot of crazy things going on then...  And then came Nintendo that re-started the industry with younger customers who barely remebered Atari.

Yeah the idea was that people would jump to computers and there was no point in owning a gaming console.   They never seemed to consider that most gamers would not jump to computers or that people couldn't own and enjoy both.

 

So while gaming behaved exactly like a fad between 80-83,  the mistake was in assuming it couldn't come back and be a sustainable business.

 

It was just like the Dot-Com crash.  Between the time of the Netscape IPO and the year 2000, any internet stock was flying into the stratosphere.   But then suddenly in 2000 investors seemed to sober up and realize most dot-coms were built on hype and had no path to profitability.   And it was assumed they never will.   I remember reading articles in business media saying how Amazon had a slim hope of ever succeeding even though they were expanding out of books into other consumer goods.     They'd never be able to make it work and they were a bad investment according to articles I read!     Of course, just like gaming,  Internet eventually became a viable place for business despite the doom and gloom of the media

 

 

 

 

[+x=usr(1536)]

For anyone who has never heard of The Crash at Crush, this PR stunt gone wrong from 1896 may be of interest: