Author Topic: Was the crash of 1983 really bad?  (Read 4014 times)

Blanka

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Was the crash of 1983 really bad?
« on: May 18, 2013, 08:47:52 PM »
I'm reading a bit into the history of video games, and everybody talks about the big crash of 1983. But was it really that bad?
The numbers are merely based on Arcade revenue en Atari 2600/5200/Colecovision sales in the US.

What did Europe and Japan do in that period?

Another problem with the numbers:
Commodore for example sold 400000 C64's/month in 1983-1985. If you multiply that with the 400$ price, it almost accounts for a third of the dip of the crash, and Commodore is NOT included in the bad revenue figures. We also had Sinclair, MSX, Apple II etc. Games shifted from consoles to home computers. As a kid, 90% of the games I played, I played on speccies and C64's. Even on P2000's by Philips. The home computer WAS games industry. Nobody wrote a letter on them or put a database in a spreadsheet. Tapes were ROM, saving stuff was a theory. So games were the only well functioning use.
It is very hard to find revenue indexes of Consoles+Arcade+Home computers.

Does anybody know a nice source to get a more accurate idea of what happened in that time. Now I see the video games industry in the US collapsed from 8 billion$ in 1982 to 100000$ in 1985, which IMO is complete nonsense.

PaulSwan

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Re: Was the crash of 1983 really bad?
« Reply #1 on: May 19, 2013, 01:08:13 AM »
Can't comment on revenue but plenty of home computer makers went bankrupt in that time frame - Dragon Data (Dragon 32/64), Jupiter (Ace), Camputers (Lynx), Oric and a bunch of other small "startups". It was a trend repeated in the business world as IBM PC's and Apple Macs displaced a bunch of small business machines (Serius, Osbourne, Northstar etc).

If you really want to research it, plot manufacturers against year of bankruptcy or exit from the market :)

Paul.
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Re: Was the crash of 1983 really bad?
« Reply #2 on: May 20, 2013, 08:53:47 PM »
Well, there are lots of claims about what caused the crash....

A few of my opinions or beliefs:

1. I never noticed or even heard of this "crash" until many years later.  I enjoyed playing the games, that's it.  I was just a kid, I was not concerned with the economy.

2. If you were in the business at the time, how could you NOT SEE this coming.  The games were everywhere, stores, hair salons, auto repair shops, on and on!.... arcades within a few miles of each other.  It would be like opening 10 Burger Kings on the same street within blocks of each other.  Everybody got greedy and bought a bunch of games  "to get rich quick"

3. 80's technology just plain sucked, it was too expensive to produce, and unlike today, not many people had money to blow on video games. (I got in severe trouble with my parents many times for "wasting money" on video games) and that is just for a few quarters at the arcade, not to mention buying games for at home, which we only got at birthdays/Christmas etc. 

4. Nintendo was responsible for saving video games.  Did you know that Nintendo had to agree to buy back any unsold NES's before most stores would offer them for sale out of fear they would not sell?

5. If you had a home computer, in the 80's you were very lucky.  It compares to having a new car as a teenager in the 80's.  Only happens for a lucky few. There was no way in the world my Mom & Dad was going to spend that kind of money for something that frivolous. (wasn't frivolous to me)  :-)

6.  I'll bet another "crash" is on the way...  Games seem to be now either   Halo, Pokémon, Sports, or Driving/Flying/Fighting types.  Or life consuming MMORPGS.
     in other words, the genres are getting tired.  The console wars are not helping either with their proprietary formats and no backwards compatibility with old titles, not forgetting the DLC with no physical ownership of future game titles.

atarikid

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Re: Was the crash of 1983 really bad?
« Reply #3 on: May 21, 2013, 12:41:33 PM »
6.  I'll bet another "crash" is on the way... 

This year we will see the new PS4 and Xbox (will probably revealed this week). So that will boost the games for the upcomming months.

Just my two cents though..
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DanP

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Re: Was the crash of 1983 really bad?
« Reply #4 on: May 21, 2013, 04:21:28 PM »
From my perspective the "crash" wasn't really perceptible at the time, it was all a slow progression not one big bang moment.   Games were still coming out, new consoles/computers most years, etc.   Arcades did become fewer and farther between but the main seaside resorts were still full of them well into the 90's.    I worked at Silica shop (big Atari computer distributor) during this time and there wasn't a crash at all that I could see.   Atari's 8 bit line was still selling and almost seamlessly went into the 16 bit ST line.   You did notice systems coming and going (Vectrex, Coleco, etc) but it just seemed part of the game, new stuff was always superseding the old stuff.

Dan