Atari's Landfill Adventures, I now have the proof it's true.

[Dan Iacovelli]

the main thing that caused the crash, was too many 3rd party developers and many bad games

[SoulBlazer]

the main thing that caused the crash, was too many 3rd party developers and many bad games

And don't forget too many consoles on the market, the rise of personal computers, and a feeling that video games were just a 'fad'. There's no single reason for the crash, they all worked together.

[IBP]

It really bugs me that E.T. is thought of as the worst video game of all time - that is nothing more than a dumb trope wheeled out by people who have often never played it, who say it because everyone else is saying it. E.T. wasn't that bad a game when it was released, and it is not the worst game ever now. And in terms of the "quality/dev. time" ratio, I think it wouldn't even make the top hundred bad games ever.

 

I have plenty of worse games in my collection, but you'd be hard pushed to find more than a handful of people in the world who would recognise them. What people mean when they say E.T. is the worst game of all time, is that it is the most famous bad game of all time.

 

And it had precisely zero to do with the video games crash of 1983. Atari crashed because of mismanagement and over-reaching, not because Howard Warshaw could really have used an extra week of dev time.

[high voltage]

 

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

It really bugs me that E.T. is thought of as the worst video game of all time - that is nothing more than a dumb trope wheeled out by people who have often never played it, who say it because everyone else is saying it. E.T. wasn't that bad a game when it was released, and it is not the worst game ever now. And in terms of the "quality/dev. time" ratio, I think it wouldn't even make the top hundred bad games ever.

 

I have plenty of worse games in my collection, but you'd be hard pushed to find more than a handful of people in the world who would recognise them. What people mean when they say E.T. is the worst game of all time, is that it is the most famous bad game of all time.

 

And it had precisely zero to do with the video games crash of 1983. Atari crashed because of mismanagement and over-reaching, not because Howard Warshaw could really have used an extra week of dev time.

 

YEP, revisionist history being constantly re-written by mostly people who did not even live through it lol. I hear you man, been saying pretty much the same as you over and over to many, been there, lived through it, have known most of this since the beginning since i was paying attention through the years. Today, most so called gamers and collectors seem to have latched on to the inaccurate rumors about E.T., the crash etc. From the start of all this hype about E.T. , the cause of the "crash" etc I been puzzled about these views especially so many self appointed purists and historians who seem to be living in some alternate universe where history has in parallel with AVGN fanboys lol. I suspect a certain percentage of those perpetrating the nonsense have something to gain by people believing it.

[Jinks]

 

YEP, revisionist history being constantly re-written by mostly people who did not even live through it lol. I hear you man, been saying pretty much the same as you over and over to many, been there, lived through it, have known most of this since the beginning since i was paying attention through the years. Today, most so called gamers and collectors seem to have latched on to the inaccurate rumors about E.T., the crash etc. From the start of all this hype about E.T. , the cause of the "crash" etc I been puzzled about these views especially so many self appointed purists and historians who seem to be living in some alternate universe where history has in parallel with AVGN fanboys lol. I suspect a certain percentage of those perpetrating the nonsense have something to gain by people believing it.

Well said.. Just like the US government and Obama Motors making Toyota look bad in 2008 in the market crash in 2008 when Toyota made #1 selling in the world. The facts were some of the accel pedal sticking stories were made up and the fact is the car has 200% more brakes than engine power and at 60mph will only take 2 car lengths longer to stop at full throttle. Later GM and the known ignition problems creating deaths was much more hush hush.

Once bad press is done true or not people never think about the facts.

People always try to write history without true facts to bend it to their liking.

Atari lost the video game war in the end so everything is their fault. Its amazing how many people who know zero talk shit about Atari's graphics and sound..

[Retro Rogue]

 

Unless you're just using it to show it had nothing to do with ET, I'm not sure what else that's intended to show. The '84 claim is wrong, as is again the claim of market instead of industry. For Atari it began to hit by mid '82 and started affecting the industry as a whole towards the end of the year. '83 is when it started building to it's crescendo starting with mass layoffs through the year and with most companies leaving (the bulk of which had part of the large influx the year before) and the larger more established companies leaving by the end of the year or making plans to wind down and exit by the beginning of '84. Again, we have this all mapped out in the book, other researchers in the academic front have shown this as well. People's memories aren't always the best, plus as a programmer you're not always exposed to everything going on with the business end.'84 was really a wrapping up of the US industry crash (which is what it was) with '84 and '85 really being just a period of aftermath. Plenty of product was still available the entire time and was selling, it's just most of the companies that were behind the product were now gone. That's why, as has been discussed in many threads here before, the average person wasn't even aware there had been a crash until they started reading about it during those aftermath years.

Edited January 1, 2015 by Retro Rogue

[Andromeda Stardust]

@Jinks If people would just use their brains for two seconds, an accident can be averted. Three simple steps to deal with a stuck accelerator: #1 Shift the transmission into neutral, #2 kill the engine by rotating the key counter-clockwise, #3 apply the breaks until the car comes to a stop. If possible, roll to the side of the road out of traffic.

[+Random Terrain]

[1984 stuff]

 

Here's another one from 1984:

 

archive.org/stream/Electronic_Games_Volume_02_Number_12_1984-03_Reese_Communications_US#page/n21/mode/2up

 

That's the first time I read that there was a problem.

 

 

But look at this from March of 1983:

 

archive.org/stream/Electronic_Fun_with_Computer_Games_Vol_01_No_05_1983-03_Fun_Games_Publishing_US/

WALL STREET LAYS ELECTRONIC EGG

 

Are we going to wake up one morning and find that there are no more video games? Ever since the video game phenomenon began, people have been saying it was a fad, another hula hoop. Suddenly, on December 16, Atari announced that its 1982 earnings would be "substantially below previous expectations." All hell broke loose. Video game stocks dropped so fast that the New York Stock Exchange halted trading in Warner and Mattel stocks. The TV news shows speculated. "Are video games played out?"

 

No, and we'll tell you why. A year and a half ago, when Atari made its somewhat outlandish projections, it was the only kid on the block. Since then, about 20 video game companies have formed, many making games for the Atari VCS. For instance, in 1982, Parker Brothers entered the field with two strong games. The Empire Strikes Back and Frogger. These two games alone accounted for over $30 million. Had Parker not released these games, that $30 million might have gone into the coffers at Atari. Add the hit games from Activision, Coleco, Imagic, Starpath, Spectravision, Fox, M Network, Tigervision, etc. and you've got a lot of cash funneled away from Atari— and fewer cartridge sales. At the same time, Atari's games in the second half of 1982— Math Gran Prix, Demons to Diamonds, Berterk, Star Raiders, EarthWorld, Baseball, Volleyball, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Football, and E.T.— were not exactly blockbusters. Great hopes had been pinned on Raiders and E.T. especially, two games that EF rated just two joysticks and two and a half joysticks respectively. And after flocking to buy Atari's disappointing Pac-Man cart, players didn't rush out to buy games on name alone.

 

Even so, Atari made 15% more money in 1982 than it made in 1981, which should please any company In today's economy. Video games have not peaked yet and, even when they do, you won't have to junk your old equipment.

 

Incidentally, we just got a peek at Atari's latest—Vanguard. It's an excellent game.

 

 

 

Check out the third item on this page from July 31, 1983:

 

archive.org/stream/arcade_express_v1n26#page/n0/mode/1up/

Atari will lay off roughly 1,000 white collar workers in the next weeks, as the company cuts back nearly 25% of the non-manufacturing staff. This follows layoffs of nearly 2,000 blue-collar workers earlier this year when most of the Atari manufacturing operations prepared to move to the orient. The latest job moves reduces the staff in Santa Clara County, Ca., to about 4,000 jobs, from 7,000 at the start of 1983. The most recent cutbacks resulted from Atari's merger of the videogame and home computer divisions, a move expected to cut losses by eliminating staff duplications.

 

Meanwhile, Texas Instruments laid off 750 employees from plants in Lubbock and Abilene, Tx. , due to production cutbacks in manufacture of the company's home computers. According to the company, this included 700 temporary employees who had been hired last winter when the company geared up for increased production of the 998/4A computer. How- ever, the increased sales of that unit didn't materialize. This followed a layoff of 2600 employees in September 1982. TI's workforce has been reduced by approximately 10,000 employees since the beginning of 1981.

 

Mattel reduced its work staff by laying off 260 electronics division employees, citing recent losses. The management of this Hawthorne, Ca. , toy firm expects this to help bring overhead costs down. A company spokesman explained the layoffs are "part of an industry-wide cost reduction trend" and predicted that these savings will let the company "increase its commitment to the future of electronic video entertainment."

[Jinks]

@Jinks If people would just use their brains for two seconds, an accident can be averted. Three simple steps to deal with a stuck accelerator: #1 Shift the transmission into neutral, #2 kill the engine by rotating the key counter-clockwise, #3 apply the breaks until the car comes to a stop. If possible, roll to the side of the road out of traffic.

But people should always turn off after stopped because they will switch too far back and lock the steering wheel and crash in a panic.

 

Right on RT those are some good points and sounds the most likely. But the problem is where is the sensationalism in it. There is not a big bomb like ET for the kids to talk about.

[high voltage]

Unless you're just using it to show it had nothing to do with ET, I'm not sure what else that's intended to show. The '84 claim is wrong, as is again the claim of market instead of industry. For Atari it began to hit by mid '82 and started affecting the industry as a whole towards the end of the year. '83 is when it started building to it's crescendo starting with mass layoffs through the year and with most companies leaving (the bulk of which had part of the large influx the year before) and the larger more established companies leaving by the end of the year or making plans to wind down and exit by the beginning of '84. Again, we have this all mapped out in the book, other researchers in the academic front have shown this as well. People's memories aren't always the best, plus as a programmer you're not always exposed to everything going on with the business end.'84 was really a wrapping up of the US industry crash (which is what it was) with '84 and '85 really being just a period of aftermath. Plenty of product was still available the entire time and was selling, it's just most of the companies that were behind the product were now gone. That's why, as has been discussed in many threads here before, the average person wasn't even aware there had been a crash until they started reading about it during those aftermath years.

 

Yes, but during the 90s it was always talked about the 'crash of 84'. I mean everyone who was there during the 80s knew this.

Atari (and other companies) released plenty of excellent VCS games during 83 (silver box range).

 

But you said it: exit by the beginning of '84. CRASH.

It's like playing Space Invaders, I shoot, the bullet travels, the bullet arrives at the target. Three different time frames.

So basically crash started in 82, continued in 83, conclusion in 84.

 

BTW nothing to do with E.T.

[Lost Dragon]

Sadly, you'll always find: 'revisionist history being constantly re-written by mostly people who did not even live through it' and this related to far more than just ATARI related topics.Hell from a UK point of view, the A8 Micro range seemed to have been ignored by so many, people can sprout whatever they want and it's taken as gospel, as so few people owned the hardware and thus had no 1st hand experience to suggest otherwise.

 

But it is 'interesting' to note how once the 'media' as it were peddles a line, how quickly it's accepted as fact...

 

The usual classics from UK press over the years: The ST was a poor mans Amiga, Jaguar was 2X 32 Bit chips put side by side, has only (and this ranges depending on magazine your reading so something like Arcade might say 3, somewhere else 5 or a handful) X number of good games, the N64 was a failure, Saturn was rubbish at 3D, PSP/Xbox had no good games, Nintendo saved UK games industry/UK Gaming in general with the NES..you name it, it still pops up on forums...

[Lost Dragon]

And in magazine articles today, even supposed 'respected by industry' publications like EDGE have printed a lot of drivel when looking back at platforms like the Jaguar, Sega Master System etc (and in EDGE's case because you've no idea who wrote said article, you've no idea of their personal exp of the hardware or era's they report on).

 

As a 'child of the 80's' all i can say, speaking as an avid gamer during that period (Our poor folks..we were constantly pestering them to buy new formats, new games etc and they'd just look at what we already had and say...but you already own an Atari/games system, whats so special about...? But...MUM!!!! :-) ).we were never aware of ANY crash, only read about years later when things like the NES started to appear on UK shores and UK press detailed why it was so huge in the States etc and we sure as hell were NOT sat here waiting for NES to save us, let alone our industry :-)

[Lost Dragon]

Thing was back in those 'Golden Days' no net etc, you honest to god did tend to believe what yer 'Bibles' as it were said.As an 800XL user, all i really had to go on, dedicated mag wise was Atari User and a few crumbs C+VG occ.threw my way, as a C64 owner it was Zzap64 and C.U and i vbought C.C.I for Jeff Minters column alone. The ST days? The One..ST Format, ACE, TGM , Zero etc.Then moved onto things like Raze, Mean Machines etc as console scene burst into life, C+VG remained the only constant during many years.

 

And looking into the claims they all made, as i do now for Lost Games, so much crap printed as fact, but we simply knew no different.

[high voltage]

Spot on, Lost Dragon.

 

(And I didn't even get a chance to get one of those ETs from the dig).

Edited January 2, 2015 by high voltage

[Retro Rogue]

But you said it: exit by the beginning of '84. CRASH.

That's not what I said, you're cherry picking. I stated most companies left in '83, and the larger more established companies (also) leaving by the end of the year OR making plans to wind down and exit by the beginning of '84. The crash had already occurred, '84 was just a continuation and wind down. That bullet analogy simply doesn't work, '84 was not the completion of the bullet being fired. The bullet (the sudden crash) struck in '82 and the bleed out and death lasted over the next year and a half. Not much different than when the tech bubble (dot-com bubble) burst (crashed) in 2000 and the resultant shakeout of companies lasted for the next two years. If the bulk of the companies leaving as well as the financial ramifications (the crash) had all occurred in '84 you'd be spot on, but that's not how it happened. The crash itself refers to the sudden financial shift and resultant shrinking of the industry, not what's left after the industry has already crashed. That's after the fact, i.e. the already crashed industry.

Edited January 2, 2015 by Retro Rogue

[Lost Dragon]

Thing i'd also put 'out there' is this:Just what does ATARI really mean to so many out there today? a trendy logo for a T-shirt? maybe some fond memories of the 2600?, maybe the ST and Lynx as well if your talking UK?. But the A8 Micro's pfff...blank stares seem common place.Sure, people might of seen the A8 version of a high profile game on a comparison video on youtube and if it's something like Green Beret or Rampage etc then they'll walk away firmly beliving it must have been shit, as they'd never heard of it and look how poor the game looked compared to the C64 version etc, with NO idea of hardware differences, software support etc.

 

Take my mate Stoo, HUGE ATARI fan, in terms of Lynx+Jaguar, big supporter of them personally and at the time via his chain of indie games stores etc, runs his own RETRO Arcade, Timewarp as well these days.But only picked up an ST a few months ago.Has NO idea what it was like, not a thing, yet he lived through it's era, started gaming around similar time to myself....

[Lost Dragon]

(cont) yet he knows nothing on the Atari 400/800/ XL or XE range, let alone the XEGS or 7800.So if he reads in something like Retro Gamer, that System 3 released Myth on the ST, he would'nt think twice to check it and why should he?.Ditto the guy who wrote the article, if he never owned an ST and is going off the information System 3 themselves gave him, for said article and given how long has passed since they published the game, they themselves have gotten muddled and forgotten game was never finished, why would the writer question what he's told from the source?.

 

Atari Uk never gave sales figures for the A8 range in UK as far as i can tell, can only guestimate at how many Lynxes were sold etc, so if a figure appears in RG/EDGE/Gamestm etc, people are going to believe it.

 

Same applies for articles on why Dreamcast failed or how NES was massive in UK, how poor Saturn was at 3D, people are'nt going to 'care' it was simply a lot harder to code for.

[Lost Dragon]

It's really as simple as magazines/websites have deadlines, cannot proof read everything submitted, plus websites rely on web traffic, so if you can 'sex up a story' (witness recent OMG PSN HACKED!!! stories over Xmas-no actual hacking, just system brought to a collapse), they'll run with it, as it works.

 

There have been so many reports of NES saving UK, Jaguar not being 64 Bit, Saturn crap at 3D, Atari buried 'Millions of carts in a landfill site', etc etc, you'll never change the 'public perception' as it were, because honestly? it's been established as 'Fact'.People like Marty G do painstaking work to ensure the FACTS are out there for those who want to know what really happened and i think they deserve our utmost respect for doing so, the sheer amount of time it must require....but to your average Atari-logo T-shirt wearing teenager, they'll happily believe what they've heard via a mate or online, if they care at all.

[Andre81]

The bullet (the sudden crash) struck in '82 and the bleed out and death lasted over the next year and a half.

 

Actually except Activision no other 3rd party company even entered the market before 1982. Imagic (03/1982), Parker Brothers (06/1982) and all the others (Mattel, Coleco, Tigervision, Arcadia, 20th Fox, Spectravision, Data Age, ...) released their first game in 1982. The market was red hot in 1982.

 

1982 was the cause for the crash, not the time it happened.

[Lost Dragon]

The real irony here is that whilst the internet has allowed mere idiots like myself to reach out and put the very questions i always wanted to be asked to the very people who can answer them, best they can given how old the subject material is, it's allowed any man/woman and child to set up a blog, website, or post a version of events they want told or think is true and it too adds to the established Urban Legends of gaming.

 

How does the saying go? if 10,000 people say a stupid thing, it still remains a stupid thing (or some new age crap like that). I mean people still 'debate' the moon landing (it was faked..No...yes..Dunno, none of the above), so whilst i hope to see a lot more in the vien of the Atari Inc books, i think the internet has created an ocean of disinformation and the errors reported as fact in physical magazines alone are mere streams feeding into 1 big ocean.

 

The Crash being miss-reported is just like sailing in the China Sea, whilst we 'Brits' were paddling around in the Atlantic.... :-)

[Retro Rogue]

The market was red hot in 1982.

 

1982 was the cause for the crash, not the time it happened.

Andre, that's just not accurate regarding the industry or it not being the time it happened. You're going on an oversimplification of the causes leading to a skewed idea of when it started. Mid '82 is when Atari (with 80% of the market) started suffering the ramifications of a crowded market (as one person with Warner noted, in early '82 there was a handful of new companies and by mid '82 there were exponentially more) combined with large cancellations of orders by retailers (they had forced rerailers to order for the entire year in advance) leading to dropping sales and warehouses full of non-moving stock in August that they were trying to hide. The fact they tracked and reported sell in instead of sell through numbers helped to further misslead what was going on, as did extending the final quarter. The bubble finally burst on Dec 7 with their earnings announcement q hen they were forced to admit what was happening with slowing sales and far less earnings than predicted. Which when combined with similar announcement by other companies like Mattel lead all the games industry stocks to plummet the rest of the month (it effected tech stocks overall as well), never recovering (which is what happens qhen a bubble bursts, what's referred to as a crash) and leading to the layoffs in January, followed by even more downsizes and ultimately closings throughout the year. We interviewed many people at length about this from the top down, including Ray Kassar, Manny Gerard,heads in manufacturing, heads in distribution, and even retailers. Ray was ready to be fired that January, which doesn't happen coming off strong sales on a "white hot market." Plus the occurrences of that December and what happened overall ib '82 were more than covered by financial newspapers and magazines at the time (which we also put a lot of time and money into tracking down). This isn't based off of looking up some old articles or interviews online. A lot of serious research went into this. Edited January 2, 2015 by Retro Rogue

[Andre81]

Andre, that's just not accurate regarding the industry or it not being the time it happened.

It is accurate. Retail video game sales were up in 1982 and reached a new record. Atari was just not prepared for all the new competitors that entered the market in 1982. From 1977 till 1981 there was only Atari and Activision. The market was crowded in 1982 and in 1983 even more latecomer entered the market (SEGA!).

 

All those 3rd party vendors didn't came to late to the party (your theory), they caused the party to be over (my theory).

 

You should only present facts (number of games released per month, sales) and let the conclusion to the reader. Stop trying to be the preacher who tells everyone the one and only truth.

 

You also need to differentiate between what happened in the stores (consumer point of view) and what happened in the background. From mid 1982 till mid 1983 the market was at its peak, almost all 3rd party games have been released during this period and sales peaked. Sales then declined in 1983 and crashed in 1984.

 

All the mismanagement is a different story. Atari made a wrong projection for 1982 but their sales were actually up. Stores ordered way too much stock of really bad games. Heck, even Skeet Shoot was on backorder in 1982! Even Apollo with its pretty bad line up had a backorder of 200,000 games.

 

You also need to differentiate between the layoffs that happened because they relocated manufacturing to Asia and the layoffs that happened because of the declining market / market share.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Andre81

[Andre81]

But you said it: exit by the beginning of '84. CRASH.

 

No, sales were already down in 1983 and then halved again in 1984. The peak of the crash was in 1985 with only a mere $100 million in sales.

 

I guess sales peaked in the holiday season of 1982 and then started to slip in the first quarter of 1983.

 

Of course in the background it was already an unhealthy market in 1982.

 

I think the best is to just present a timeline and facts and no opinions and conclusions.

[Retro Rogue]

It is accurate.

No, it's not. You've taken some base figures and surrounded them with your opinion. It's just as is evident below. You're telling me to stick with facts, and that's all I deal with on a professional level. There is a long and lengthy vetting process for this info involving years of research, cross referencing, and direct interviews, and personal opinions are kept out of it... in fact I work very hard to make sure they are, which is what makes your claims even more insulting. I expect this from you, given when you earlier tried to missrepresent what we did or did not say about the El Paso plant in the book, which I let go. I'm not going to take the misrepresentation of me you're trying to do here. Though at this point it doesn't make any sense to continue beyond this post, because it's like dealing with the black knight in monty python.

 

Retail video game sales were up in 1982 and reached a new record.

Again, based on sell in and not sell through figures. That's not retail sales to consumers, that's sales to retailers. It was a false figure (which is why the industry doesn't do it anymore) and what made the shockwave in December all the more louder. More information first presented directly by the people involved on the business side. It also seems by your previous posts you're trying to argue the consumer industry crash is a market crash (based by your crash in 1985 comment) when it was an industry crash. They certainly relate to one another, but one is not the other.

 

Atari was just not prepared for all the new competitors that entered the market in 1982. From 1977 till 1981 there was only Atari and Activision. The market was crowded in 1982 and in 1983 even more latecomer entered the market (SEGA!).

Again, Atari's problems were in trying to overcompensate from the shortage of '81 by having them order for all of '82 in advance and then reporting first half sales and projections of the second half on it. Not my words, the words of the multitude of management we interviewed combined with paperwork, internal emails, etc.

 

Most of those competitors were out by the end of '83.

 

All those 3rd party vendors didn't came to late to the party (your theory), they caused the party to be over (my theory).

I have not recounted a "theory," and nowhere did I say they weren't part of the problem. In fact, what I stated was the problem of the crash that started in '82 was far more complicated than just a glut of 3rd party companies and their games. They were certainly a major piece of the puzzle, but still just one piece.

 

You should only present facts (number of games released per month, sales) and let the conclusion to the reader. Stop trying to be the preacher who tells everyone the one and only truth.

That's all I present are gathered facts, ones I work very hard on to make sure they're vetted and accurate as stated. We're very open with our vetting process, which is the process I use as well for the research I do for newspapers, magazines, museums, academia, etc. People such as yourself are assuming I'm interjecting my own opinions or in some cases even interjecting ego in my responses when it's coming from nowhere in that area. Simply recounting figures and not the rest of the story as told by the people who were directly involved with it on the business end and related documentation tells only half the story and leaves too much open to opinions. That would be poor research. Such as the ones you're presenting. That's where you get myths like it involved just a bunch of bad games. Or that Alamogordo was a mass burial of bad games.

 

You also need to differentiate between what happened in the stores (consumer point of view) and what happened in the background.

It's like talking to someone with blinders on here. That's exactly what sell in vs. sell through is discussing. Likewise, that's all I've been stating is there's a difference between industry and market. I.E. it's been differentiated. Go look. Really, it's not that hard.

 

From mid 1982 till mid 1983 the market was at its peak, almost all 3rd party games have been released during this period and sales peaked. Sales then declined a little bit in 1983 and crashed in 1984.

Industry stocks crashed in '82 as industry earnings started dropping dramatically. The plunge in industry earnings continued throughout '83. This was tracked by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc. Market != earnings. As stated, the market never went away and was there through '85. The industry all but did however.

 

All the mismanagement is a different story. Atari made a wrong projection for 1982 but their sales were actually up.

Sales up, earnings down. Once again, per ex-management that's because it was a tracking of sell in and not sell through. They were falsely inflated sales numbers that didn't reflect the cancellations of orders and the stock return program they had in place. Something they tried to hide and caught up with them by the end of '82, and was fully out in the open in '83.

 

You also need to differentiate between they layoffs that happened because they relocated manufacturing to Asia and they layoffs that happened because of the declining market / market share.

I did, the issue is the problem with your viewpoint mentioned earlier. You need to do a little deeper research rather than going off of straight figures and taking newspaper PR at face value. The large layoffs due to manufacturing were a cover story, something confirmed by ex-management via interviews and also publicly by the lawsuit those initial 500 workers filed and won for that very reason. The new plant in Asia had already been known long before, and the workers were all originally supposed to be shifted within the company and even told that their jobs were secure, and then were suddenly laid off on the day of announcement without warning. Or as one article covering the settlement recounted, "The company retorted that the layoffs were a matter of economic necessity, noting that the dismissals came just one week after Warner said a downturn in video game sales had led to sharply lower profits in the last quarter of 1982." Again, a position re-iterated by the ex-management people we interviewed. This is again showing why it's not worth the time and energy to go in circles with you.

Edited January 3, 2015 by Retro Rogue