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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech style from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: welcome to check stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and

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Speaker 1: I am an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as usual, is senior writer Jonathan

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Speaker 1: Strickland on the other side of the screen. It all

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Speaker 1: looks so easy. That's a quote. Never mind, I said,

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Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna say where it was farm anymore, so

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Speaker 1: people have to tell me where it's from. Uh. So,

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Speaker 1: today we're gonna talk about the great video game crash,

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Speaker 1: which really we should specify happened in North America. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and we're not talking about the video game crash that

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Speaker 1: we of arcade games. We're talking specifically of the home market. Yes.

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Speaker 1: So in order to understand this, we really have to

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Speaker 1: uh to think back to the origin of the video

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Speaker 1: game market the home market. Um, because it doesn't really

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Speaker 1: make sense to talk about the crash until you find

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Speaker 1: out how you got to where you were in the

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Speaker 1: first place. Right, True enough, and honestly, the the arcade

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Speaker 1: game market and the home market started roughly the same

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Speaker 1: time they were growing out of um you know some

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Speaker 1: work that different computer programmers were doing in the nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: even a little bit earlier. But it's kind of hard

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Speaker 1: to say that it was really becoming a video game

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Speaker 1: of any kind of sort until it got to the

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Speaker 1: late sixties and the early seventies is when you saw

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Speaker 1: the first arcade games and first home video games, and

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Speaker 1: I'm talking early seventies nine. Nineteen seventy two is when

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Speaker 1: we saw the very first home video game console in

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Speaker 1: the North American market, and it was a Magna Vox Odyssey. Man,

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Speaker 1: what a machine that was. Yeah, the original Odyssey. Now

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Speaker 1: there were lots and lots of future Odyssey consoles, which well,

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Speaker 1: I'll chat about briefly. I've got a kind of timeline

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Speaker 1: where i can talk about some of the consoles that

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Speaker 1: came out and the big years in video game the

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Speaker 1: home video game market. But nineteen seventy two is probably

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Speaker 1: the biggest year because it's the first one. Um So

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Speaker 1: you had the Odyssey, which was designed by an engineer

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Speaker 1: named Ralph Bear, and he had been working on the

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Speaker 1: prototype for this since the late sixties, like you had mentioned,

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Speaker 1: and uh, it's interesting. It was um it was powered

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Speaker 1: by batteries. It was not something that you plugged into

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Speaker 1: a wall at that point, and it was analog not digital,

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Speaker 1: so pretty lot. Also, no sound in the earliest console

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Speaker 1: there was no You didn't get audio. You just had

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Speaker 1: a video output. And the video output, of course, was

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Speaker 1: your television. You had to hook it up to a TV.

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Speaker 1: It didn't have its own screen or anything like that.

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Speaker 1: You know what I have to say about that? What's that?

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Speaker 1: Because there was no sounds really funny. So in nineteen seventy,

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Speaker 1: thank you for the pity there, You're welcome. In ninety three,

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Speaker 1: the the Pong coin operated game was starting to make

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Speaker 1: a splash. That's right. So Pong is like the first

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Speaker 1: like major breakthrough arcade game, uh to hit the arcades,

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Speaker 1: well not even arcades at that point, but bars and

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Speaker 1: and things like that. Yeah. Computer Space was the very

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Speaker 1: first coin operated game. Yeah but uh, and and that

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Speaker 1: was done Nolan Bushnell. Those of you longtime listeners or

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Speaker 1: computer game fans probably know who Nolan Bushnell was. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: Pong was actually the second of those games. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: in nineteen Sears began to sell a Pong home console.

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Speaker 1: I remember that now I should point out I should

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Speaker 1: have said this for the Odyssey as well. These home

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Speaker 1: consoles had games hard coded into them. Yeah, we're talking

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Speaker 1: the chips actually very similar to arcade games. Yes, the

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Speaker 1: chips inside them would tell you what they would do.

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Speaker 1: So I mean you're not removing a cartridge, right, you know,

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Speaker 1: a CD or DVD which hadn't been invented yet. You

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Speaker 1: couldn't even switch a chip out like with with some

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Speaker 1: arcade machines you can switch out rams, so a RAM

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Speaker 1: would be what essentially has the game's programming on it,

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Speaker 1: And some arcade consoles, you know, you can switch one

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Speaker 1: ROM out for another and use the same cabinet to

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Speaker 1: house different games. So if one game is not getting

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Speaker 1: a lot of traffic in an arcade, you could swap

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Speaker 1: out the ROM for and put in a new game. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you couldn't do that with these home consoles. You're stuck

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Speaker 1: with whatever games they were able to put on there.

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Speaker 1: And so a lot of them were variations of pong um.

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Speaker 1: You know, like you might have pong and then you

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Speaker 1: might have handball, which is really just a slightly the

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Speaker 1: paddles are slightly smaller and it moves faster. Um and basketball,

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Speaker 1: in which case everything was was um horizontally oriented rather

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Speaker 1: than vertically oriented, but it was still using the same

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Speaker 1: sort of mechanics as pong. Uh. It was really just

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Speaker 1: variations on that for a while. So se you get

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Speaker 1: the Odyssey one and two hundred. Uh, this one was

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Speaker 1: kind of funny and that um the the PALNK system

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Speaker 1: that Sears put out in had an on screen scoring system.

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Speaker 1: It would keep track of your score. The Magnavox Odyssey

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Speaker 1: on two hundred did not have an on screen scoring system.

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Speaker 1: It had little plastic markers on the console itself, and

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Speaker 1: you would move your marker up a notch every time

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Speaker 1: you scored a point until whoever reached the you know,

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Speaker 1: whatever the limit was that you had decided, whether that

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Speaker 1: was the top of the notches or all right, we'll

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Speaker 1: play to whoever it gets to five points first. So

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like playing a game of pool. You

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Speaker 1: actually had to physically notate what your score was on

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Speaker 1: the console system. Do I get to throw in a

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Speaker 1: plug for my very first video game system? Go for it?

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Speaker 1: Because it was a clone of all these There were

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Speaker 1: lots and lots of Palm clones, but mine, which I

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Speaker 1: still have is colicos tells to our system that came

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Speaker 1: out in Yes, lots of them did. The fair Child

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Speaker 1: Channel F was out about that same time, which actually

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Speaker 1: that was one of the first ones to ever use cartridges. Yes,

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Speaker 1: in seventy six, you've got the Odyssey three hundred, four hundred,

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Speaker 1: five hundred, Super Pong, Wonder Wizard, and the Calico tell Star.

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Speaker 1: And like you said, the tell Star was one that

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Speaker 1: had hard coded games on it, right, the tell Star,

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Speaker 1: yes did, and it had three So this this is

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Speaker 1: before Kalika Vision. This is not that's not what we're

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Speaker 1: talking about. We're talking about earlier system than that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's the that's the whole thing. When you were talking

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Speaker 1: about the cartridges, Um, we're talking about the rams again,

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Speaker 1: which are hard coded inside. But at least these newer

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Speaker 1: machines gave you a slot from which you could remove

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Speaker 1: a RAM and put a new cartridge in, so then

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Speaker 1: you could play. It was extensible, You could play lots

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Speaker 1: of different games on it. Yeah, So the fair Child

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Speaker 1: Channel F never really took off, but it was the

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Speaker 1: first one to actually start using a cartridge based system.

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Speaker 1: So the next year and seventy seven, uh well started

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Speaker 1: seeing things like the Atari Video Pinball Machine, the Atari

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Speaker 1: Stunt cycle machine. But also there were a couple more

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Speaker 1: to tell Star models that came out, and of course

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Speaker 1: more Odyssey games. What about the r C A Studio series. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's that as well. But the but in seventy seven

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Speaker 1: a big one hit, probably the big one for the

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Speaker 1: earliest video game market story, which is the Atari VCS,

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Speaker 1: the video computer system, which was actually my very first.

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Speaker 1: The other one was technically my brothers, but you know,

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Speaker 1: I just wanted to plug the tell Star Yeah I

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Speaker 1: had as well. Now this was of course a cartridge

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Speaker 1: based system again, so there were no games pre programmed

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Speaker 1: on the console. Yeah, there was a game packaged with

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Speaker 1: the system though for mine it was Combat, Yes it

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Speaker 1: was mine. For Combat was mine as well. And I'll

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Speaker 1: never forget playing jet versus airplane. Yeah, fun times anyway.

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Speaker 1: So actually that that's going back to you, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: I didn't mean going back to your scoring thing. For

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Speaker 1: those of you who have never played an Atari. Um

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Speaker 1: the games and about which we were talking, they came

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Speaker 1: with an instruction book, and and most of the instruction

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Speaker 1: books that at Chari published. There the last couple of

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Speaker 1: pages or last page had a note field so that

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Speaker 1: you could write down your high scores because of course

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Speaker 1: at that point, well maybe not of course, but at

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Speaker 1: that point they didn't have any kind of onboard storage,

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Speaker 1: So so I didn't remember your high scores and you

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Speaker 1: wanted to keep it, keep track of it, you needed

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Speaker 1: to write it down. Yeah. This is also before like

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Speaker 1: at this point, the the video games that you would

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Speaker 1: get in the home market were a lot like the

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Speaker 1: ones in the arcade and that they were usually you know,

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Speaker 1: usually would only play them for short burst because uh,

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Speaker 1: there's no way to save your progress. So there was

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Speaker 1: no point in writing a longer game that would require

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Speaker 1: multiple sessions of play because there was no way to

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Speaker 1: to save and pick up where you left off. I mean,

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Speaker 1: why would you come back and and and just basically

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Speaker 1: leave the machine on for day is as you worked

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Speaker 1: your way through a game because there wasn't any way

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Speaker 1: to store that. There are a lot of people who

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Speaker 1: did that with later systems in particular. Um, well we'll

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Speaker 1: get to those. But so then let's go ahead to

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Speaker 1: seventy eight. We get some more tell Stars because you know,

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Speaker 1: every year has to pass with another tell Star getting Uh,

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Speaker 1: that's when the Odyssey Squared came out or Odyssely to

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Speaker 1: um that actually was a computer and it had basic programming. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Then you also had Colico tell Star Gemini, which was

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Speaker 1: an attenty sud clone that came out in Sight, and

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Speaker 1: the one and only entrigue from uh Bally the Ballet

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Speaker 1: Professional Arcade came out in that year. I remember that too,

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Speaker 1: And do you guys if you listen to our Midway podcast,

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Speaker 1: you know that Bally had purchased Midway. This was the

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Speaker 1: result of Bally Midway working together to create a home

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Speaker 1: arcade system use bitmap graphics. Did not succeed those that one.

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Speaker 1: You know, you may not have ever heard of it

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Speaker 1: because it never really well anywhere. Um, did you want

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Speaker 1: to have anything else to add? For seventy eight before

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Speaker 1: I go to see Okay? Seventy nine you had the

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Speaker 1: Zircon Channel F system to Wow, which was like the

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Speaker 1: fair Child is going back, and then um, the Atari

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Speaker 1: four hundred, yes, which also was really kind of a computer. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It actually had its own keyboard built into that console

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Speaker 1: and uh, yeah it was. It was meant to be

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Speaker 1: like a kid's computer. Like my first computer was the

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Speaker 1: Atari four hundred and it was also cartridge based. It

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Speaker 1: did have an onboard program which was essentially a notepad program.

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Speaker 1: It was kind of like a very very basic word processor.

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Speaker 1: You should, uh, if you're an old if you're a

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Speaker 1: fan of old computers, I didn't want to say old

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Speaker 1: computer fan. If you're a fan of old computers, you

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Speaker 1: should definitely check out the Atari four and, as Jonathan

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Speaker 1: will mention shortly, the eight hundred, which looked very much

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Speaker 1: like it because they were kind of cool. They had

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Speaker 1: a big door and the top of them to remove

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Speaker 1: and insert cartridges from, so you can actually you know,

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Speaker 1: open it up and plug it in and then close

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Speaker 1: the door back again. Very kind of old school computer style,

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Speaker 1: and had a membrane keyboard, which is real pain and

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Speaker 1: neck to type on. It's not entirely differed from the

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Speaker 1: way the Nintendo had a door where she would flip

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Speaker 1: open and take a cartridge out in a way, no,

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Speaker 1: but it kind of reminds me of the old mainframe

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Speaker 1: style things where we had to open it up to

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Speaker 1: actually mess with it, rather than you know, like the

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Speaker 1: hr vcs, which the slot was just on the top

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Speaker 1: right where dust could get in it. Yes, where you

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Speaker 1: got into the hole let's blow into the cartridge before

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Speaker 1: we put it into the machine, because if dust got

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Speaker 1: in there, if enough dust got in there, it wouldn't

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Speaker 1: work anymore. Another big player hits the scene, which is

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Speaker 1: Mattel's in television. I believe you had one of these.

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Speaker 1: I did have an intelevision, and I had an intelevision

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Speaker 1: long after the heyday of intelevision games had had passed. Well,

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Speaker 1: people are still playing the games now, yeah, but there

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Speaker 1: was no way there were no new games coming out

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Speaker 1: by the time I had. I came into possession of one.

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Speaker 1: I inherited it essentially from a cousin, And yeah, it

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Speaker 1: was a It was a really neat game system. It

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Speaker 1: was I would call it more advanced than the Atari

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Speaker 1: twenty hundred. It still wasn't you know, it wouldn't blow

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Speaker 1: you away or anything, but but the games were a

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Speaker 1: little more sophisticated than the ones you would get on

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Speaker 1: the twenty. Well, I think it directly resulted in Atari's

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Speaker 1: next move, which we'll get into in a moment. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that's when we start seeing some more some more

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Speaker 1: interesting machines. We see the Clico vision, another big heavy

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Speaker 1: hitter in television and click a vision kind of battled

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Speaker 1: it out in the early eighties to see who would

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Speaker 1: have video game supremacy, and Attari had a leg up

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Speaker 1: just because it'd been around a little longer than the

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Speaker 1: other two, even though the other two had slightly better

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Speaker 1: graphics and and arguably a better controller, depending on whether

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Speaker 1: or not you felt like you got a couple tunnel

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Speaker 1: from it. Well, it's funny because at this point in

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Speaker 1: home video gaming there was sort of this weird crossover

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Speaker 1: between home computers and home video game systems. Um. Like

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Speaker 1: today you see stuff like the WE and the PlayStation

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Speaker 1: series and the the Xbox series, and they can do

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Speaker 1: things that computers do. But uh, some of these systems,

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Speaker 1: you know, um getting into the Colico Vision, and then

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Speaker 1: Colico also started a system called the Atom, which was

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Speaker 1: supposed to be a computer system, but they were sort

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Speaker 1: of compatible with one another, and you know the R

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Speaker 1: four eight hundred UM and uh, you know they're they're

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Speaker 1: things like that, and having the opportunity to use a keypad,

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Speaker 1: because the Colliquo Vision and the in Television both had

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Speaker 1: a Numeriic keypad on their their controllers, as did the

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Speaker 1: R and so for a while there, I think the

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Speaker 1: manufacturers were all sort of flirting with this idea that

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Speaker 1: you know, maybe creating a system that could do all

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Speaker 1: of the stuff. Um. Unfortunately, uh, that didn't come out

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Speaker 1: in the way I think that they really intended, or

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Speaker 1: you know, none of them, none of these companies were

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Speaker 1: able to capitalize on it. Yeah, a lot of the

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Speaker 1: a lot of the consumers seem to think that these games,

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Speaker 1: these systems were more game systems than computer systems. There

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Speaker 1: was more of a division of the two products in

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Speaker 1: the mind of the average consumer, and it was really

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Speaker 1: hard to bridge that gap. I think because I think

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Speaker 1: what they may have been trying to do, and this

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Speaker 1: is just speculation on my part, is that perhaps they

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Speaker 1: thought if they could embed some computer ability in it,

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Speaker 1: that it might encourage more moms and dads to fork

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Speaker 1: over the cash for a video game system that they

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Speaker 1: could do their taxes on. Yeah, you know, later on

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Speaker 1: it's like, well, you know, and like Kate video game

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Speaker 1: system exactly. But um, but yeah, I mean also, Atari

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Speaker 1: had a leg up on Colico because Atari was a,

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Speaker 1: if you will, a pure play h video game company,

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Speaker 1: whereas Colico stood for Kinnectic Get Leather company. They actually

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Speaker 1: had their roots in a completely different business. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: games that you play with leather. I've made this joke.

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Speaker 1: I made this exact same joke, so I'm not gonna

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Speaker 1: several times I believe. Yeah, well, I mean on the

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Speaker 1: podcast specifically, I make the joke all the time. In

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Speaker 1: the office. Actually, HR will probably talk to me, no, no,

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Speaker 1: but but yeah, I mean they were they were doing

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Speaker 1: something else for a long time and then got into

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Speaker 1: two Electronics and uh, Colico bet hard and the Callico Vision, right,

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Speaker 1: and getting back to two. So Collico Vision comes out.

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Speaker 1: Also the at comes out, which is essentially the Atari

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Speaker 1: four hundred but without the keyboard. Right. You had the

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Speaker 1: vet trex come out. Look like a little console. I

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Speaker 1: had a little cabinet game. Yeah it actually it actually

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Speaker 1: had its own dedicated screen, so it looked like a

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Speaker 1: miniature arcade machine Kaid Cabinet Sorry, go ahead. And it's

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Speaker 1: also vector based and monochromatic. It was vector based on

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Speaker 1: the Grand Fields better but it was monochromatic. So what

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Speaker 1: they they shipped the game system and the games with overlays. Nice.

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Speaker 1: You put an overlay on the screen and that would

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Speaker 1: simulate color. Very nice. Yeah, groovy. Also, the Emmerson Arcadia

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Speaker 1: two thousand one came out in two as well as

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Speaker 1: the in television two. And uh, we're gonna we're gonna

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Speaker 1: pause the timeline there in two because now we're getting

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Speaker 1: up to the point where the actual crash began to

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Speaker 1: take place. And uh, and there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: different reasons for the crash. One of them we've already

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Speaker 1: established just by doing the timeline. There were lots and

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Speaker 1: lots of competing video game systems out there. Yeah, now

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Speaker 1: we've we've basically been going from two up through the

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Speaker 1: mid eighties, early eighties, about eight five, we're sort of

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Speaker 1: getting this thing and um, that's the whole thing that

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Speaker 1: we're in the third generation of consoles in you know, years,

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Speaker 1: ten years really, I mean because because if you look

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Speaker 1: at the crash, the crash is pretty much eighty three,

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Speaker 1: so you think of as the eleventh year. So home

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Speaker 1: video game market had ten amazing years. But as you

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Speaker 1: were pointing out, three generations within ten years, gets, especially

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Speaker 1: for a new kind of product, is hard for consumers

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Speaker 1: to swallow. Ye, I mean it's at that time it

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Speaker 1: was very difficult to think I need to I'm going

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Speaker 1: to make a two or more investment two hundred dollars

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Speaker 1: in those dollars those years, dollars which more than what

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Speaker 1: you would spend today. So you know, you look at

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Speaker 1: an arcade or a video game console as it comes

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Speaker 1: out today and you're thinking, wow, five hundred dollars, it's

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Speaker 1: a lot of money. Well, if you look at the

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Speaker 1: consoles that first came out in the seventies, uh, they

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Speaker 1: were priced around two hundred dollars, including the twenty hundred

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Speaker 1: um when adjusted for inflation, they might be the same

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Speaker 1: or more than what you will pay for a and

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Speaker 1: like a brand new console in today's market. Yeah, as

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Speaker 1: a matter of fact, I'm trying to look that up

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Speaker 1: as we speak, but while the computer is percolating, since

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Speaker 1: we have weird WiFi in this room. Um yeah, and

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Speaker 1: something else too. I mean, at this point, the home

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Speaker 1: video game industry was just huge, and other people were

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Speaker 1: trying to get into it. A little company starting up

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Speaker 1: you may have heard of, Activision, was fighting desperately to

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Speaker 1: get on the Yeah, let's talk about this. This is

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Speaker 1: where you can lay a lot of the blame for

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Speaker 1: the video game crash on Atari's shoulders. Oh yeah, and

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Speaker 1: here's here's what it boils down to. Ultimately is credit.

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Speaker 1: Video game developers wanted to start getting credit for their work.

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Speaker 1: They were designing these games, and they wanted to be

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Speaker 1: able to have their names attached to the games that

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Speaker 1: they were building. Atari meanwhile, wasn't too keen on that idea.

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Speaker 1: They didn't see any need to do that. They wanted

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Speaker 1: the games to look more like they all essentially were,

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Speaker 1: you know, just from Atari. They didn't want to to

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Speaker 1: differentiate that at all. Yeah, and uh, as a result

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Speaker 1: that that did, I would say that ultimately four is

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Speaker 1: the basis of what formed Activision. Yeah, it was game

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Speaker 1: developers who wanted to be able to create games that

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Speaker 1: they would get credit for, you know, they wouldn't remain anonymous. Um.

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Speaker 1: By the way, according to Will from Alpha, at an

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Speaker 1: average rate of inflation of two point nine one per year,

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Speaker 1: two hundred dollars would be approximately four d four dollars

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Speaker 1: and thirty four cents. So that's three. And remember that

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Speaker 1: the came out in the late seventies, So yeah, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the early video game systems cost then in

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Speaker 1: purchasing power essentially what they cost today. Yep, and uh,

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Speaker 1: Woll from Alpha was working on that Toy seven debut

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Speaker 1: at the tred two hundred dollars at an average rate

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Speaker 1: of inflation of three point nine three percent per years,

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Speaker 1: seven dollars seventy six cents, so actually more expensive than

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Speaker 1: either the PlayStation three or the Xbox three sixty when

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Speaker 1: they debuted. Yes, and in relative terms. But um, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean there was we talked about I think Warren

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Speaker 1: Robinett in an earlier podcast. Probably he was one of

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Speaker 1: the if I think he was the developer behind the

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Speaker 1: game Adventure, and one of the big things to do

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Speaker 1: back when that game was released was to find what

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Speaker 1: was called a micro dot, which is not a micro

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Speaker 1: dot in a classic sense, um in the spy terms,

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Speaker 1: if you will, but a micro dot. There was a

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Speaker 1: little glowing dot, a couple of pixels. I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: exactly how big it was in terms of pickles pixels

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Speaker 1: pickles pickles. It was about three gherkins wide. Anyway, I know,

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Speaker 1: I know it's right before lunchtime. So anyway, if you

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Speaker 1: could find this dot, you could take your character, which

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Speaker 1: was a square through a wall that normally you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be able to go through. It was just basically cordoning

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Speaker 1: off part of the game. Yes, this was Easter Eggs podcast. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and you could see the name of the designer, Warren Robinett,

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Speaker 1: and uh, because otherwise you never would have seen it

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00:21:02,960 --> 00:21:05,000
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, it wasn't It wasn't listed down. There

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Speaker 1: weren't credits like like you see when you finish one

385
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:09,159
Speaker 1: of these, uh, one of the newer video games, you

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00:21:09,160 --> 00:21:11,159
Speaker 1: get a whole listing of all the animators and the

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Speaker 1: story developers and the story boarders anybody else who's worked

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Speaker 1: on the game. And it wasn't just a question of credit,

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Speaker 1: although that was definitely important, big it was also royalties. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I mean, without being credited for their work, these

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Speaker 1: developers weren't going to be able to claim royalties on

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Speaker 1: any sales. And uh, that's the that's probably the It's

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Speaker 1: hard for me to say because I wasn't there, but

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Speaker 1: I would guess that that was the main reason why

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Speaker 1: Atari resisted this whole credit thing. They didn't want to

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Speaker 1: pay out royalties to the developers, and um, so it

397
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:45,479
Speaker 1: boils down to money. So that ended up make having Uh,

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Speaker 1: these these developers found activision, whether they're developing their own

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Speaker 1: game company. Uh, there's a there was essentially a big

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Speaker 1: restraining order that Atari put on on other game developers

401
00:21:58,119 --> 00:22:02,040
Speaker 1: saying you can't develop games for our proprietary console. But

402
00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 1: it never panned out. So that kind of opened the

403
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:10,280
Speaker 1: doors for third party developers yep, and that allowed all

404
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:13,200
Speaker 1: sorts of games to flood on the market. Now, Activision

405
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:16,440
Speaker 1: had some of the uh I liked them a lot.

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Speaker 1: I mean I played laser Blast for hours and hours,

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Speaker 1: and Activision do Pitfall. Activision did do that is like

408
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Speaker 1: and Mega Mania Pitfall. When I think of great home

409
00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:30,359
Speaker 1: video games, especially for the Atari, Pitfall has got to

410
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Speaker 1: be in the top ten. I mean it was a wonderful,

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Speaker 1: amazing game and uh I loved it, and um yeah,

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Speaker 1: so I mean the Activision put out some really good games. Now,

413
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Speaker 1: the problem was not all third party developers put out

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Speaker 1: games of the quality that Activision was creating. And because

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00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:51,680
Speaker 1: those floodgates had opened, where now any third party developer

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Speaker 1: could build a an Atari game and sell it. You know,

417
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Speaker 1: they didn't have to go through Atari to sell it.

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Speaker 1: They just you know, they had to get their own

419
00:22:59,640 --> 00:23:02,200
Speaker 1: distribut it or whatever, but they didn't have to ship

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Speaker 1: stuff to Atari. Uh. It meant that anyone who had

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00:23:06,119 --> 00:23:09,800
Speaker 1: some programming skill could build um an Atari game, and

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Speaker 1: that led to some pretty crappy games. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: there were some pretty good developers. Oh no, there were

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Speaker 1: some great developers, but there were some really bad ones. Okay,

425
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:24,800
Speaker 1: so we're gonna let's talk about two games that helped

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Speaker 1: perpetuate this crash. So we've already established that part of

427
00:23:28,600 --> 00:23:30,040
Speaker 1: the problem is that there were a lot of game

428
00:23:30,080 --> 00:23:32,880
Speaker 1: systems on the market, so consumers had way too much

429
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:36,160
Speaker 1: choice in that sense, it was really hard for any

430
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:39,520
Speaker 1: one console to to do well apart from like the

431
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:43,560
Speaker 1: three big ones Collego, Vision and Television and at UM.

432
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:47,080
Speaker 1: So that was one problem. Uh The other problems were

433
00:23:47,200 --> 00:23:51,320
Speaker 1: things like the the fact that the systems were so expensive,

434
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 1: so people didn't want to upgrade every few years because

435
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 1: they put in such a huge investment already. And then

436
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: we had the problem of the the the flood of

437
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:05,040
Speaker 1: games hitting the market all at once. Uh two games

438
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:09,440
Speaker 1: in particular, really heard Atari specifically, and then by extension,

439
00:24:09,480 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 1: the rest of the video game market. Are you going

440
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:16,000
Speaker 1: to too? Are these uh Atari specific games? One of

441
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:19,680
Speaker 1: them is pac Man. The adaptation of pac Man, which

442
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: was such a huge hit in the arcade, was an

443
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 1: enormous disappointment when it was brought to the problem was

444
00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: that the timeline to develop the game was very very short.

445
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 1: Atari was putting pressure on the developers to get it

446
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:34,280
Speaker 1: ready by the holiday season that year. I think this

447
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 1: in fact, and uh so, uh the developers have to

448
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,879
Speaker 1: try and build this game in a fraction of the

449
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,399
Speaker 1: time they would have used to put it together. So

450
00:24:45,560 --> 00:24:49,440
Speaker 1: when it launches, it looks hardly anything at all like

451
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: the pac Man of the arcade games. I mean, the

452
00:24:51,880 --> 00:24:54,920
Speaker 1: basic concept is the same, and that's it. The graphics

453
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,320
Speaker 1: were terrible, the sound effects, everything was was dreadful, and

454
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,360
Speaker 1: so people really got turned off by game. The next year,

455
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 1: that's when the granddaddy of all terrible arc home video games,

456
00:25:07,520 --> 00:25:11,400
Speaker 1: uh came out. And it's one that I've talked about

457
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: multiple times on this podcast and I'm gonna do it again.

458
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: It was ET. And you know, I have to say,

459
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 1: not everyone agrees with you that ET was the worst

460
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 1: game for the but not everyone is as smart as

461
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 1: I am. No, that's the that's the whole problem. I mean,

462
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 1: I remember, even when the A was very popular, going into,

463
00:25:34,960 --> 00:25:39,439
Speaker 1: for example, drug stores and seeing huge you know how

464
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 1: you go into the imagine most of our listeners probably

465
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:44,080
Speaker 1: play some kind of video game. And if you've ever

466
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: been one of the used video store, video game stores,

467
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 1: you see those big baskets and it's like these are

468
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,120
Speaker 1: five bucks, and they'll be games from five or six

469
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: years ago. I mean consoles like the PlayStation two. They

470
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: are still enjoying quite a bit of success, you know,

471
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:02,719
Speaker 1: still alling new consoles. Um you know, basically they're going out.

472
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 1: You know what, we got thirty of these things here

473
00:26:05,920 --> 00:26:07,680
Speaker 1: take you know, twenty five of them are gonna stick

474
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,200
Speaker 1: them in the bend, sell them for five bucks or

475
00:26:09,200 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: seven bucks or something like that. Was having that same thing,

476
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 1: only a lot of these were it was like straight

477
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:16,199
Speaker 1: to video, if you will. A lot of them were

478
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:20,680
Speaker 1: going straight into those bins of games that were just reprehensible. Yeah,

479
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 1: so you've got you've got a flood of really bad games,

480
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:26,520
Speaker 1: You've got expensive hardware that keeps steaming to be upgraded.

481
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:30,000
Speaker 1: You've got too many choices on the market. Uh, it

482
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: was just a recipe for disaster. And around in North America,

483
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 1: that's when it all came crashing down. And so uh,

484
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:39,480
Speaker 1: you know what also helped was the rise of the

485
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 1: personal computer. At personal computers were starting to to have

486
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,120
Speaker 1: their own set of games that were in a way

487
00:26:47,520 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: more sophisticated than the home video games. They were different,

488
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:52,680
Speaker 1: you know, they didn't they weren't. They didn't have the

489
00:26:52,720 --> 00:26:54,960
Speaker 1: same kind of twitch based gameplay that a lot of

490
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:58,359
Speaker 1: the home video games did. But they allowed you to

491
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:00,840
Speaker 1: do more with those games, and once you were able

492
00:27:00,840 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: to do things like save games, that really started to

493
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:07,399
Speaker 1: change things. So the home video game market really started

494
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: to crash in on itself. It imploded to the point

495
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: where there are famous stories about companies having to dispose

496
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:20,040
Speaker 1: of enormous inventories of games, including ET, which if you've

497
00:27:20,160 --> 00:27:22,320
Speaker 1: heard the tales, where did where did all of those

498
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 1: ET cartridges end up? Those cartridges ended up in a

499
00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:31,160
Speaker 1: public landfill? And I believe it's Arizona. I actually found

500
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:33,359
Speaker 1: the story on Snopes. I wanted to find out if

501
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:35,160
Speaker 1: it was actually true, if it was a miss myth.

502
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:37,879
Speaker 1: I'm sorry it's in New Mexico. Oh it was New Mexico.

503
00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: I thought was Arizona. So yeah, yeah, Alama Gordo, New Mexico.

504
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:47,720
Speaker 1: In late September. According to Snopes, um Atari took ET

505
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: and pac Man and dumped them in a city landfill.

506
00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:55,240
Speaker 1: Uh rolled over them with steamrollers, so you couldn't play

507
00:27:55,320 --> 00:28:02,800
Speaker 1: them right than that playable before and covered them with cement. Yeah,

508
00:28:02,840 --> 00:28:06,239
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to note that they treated that as

509
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: if it were toxic waste kind of was considering the

510
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:13,440
Speaker 1: amount of lead in them. Yeah, I'm talking about a

511
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: more like philosophical um but yes, but also that so yeah, anyway,

512
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: the this is all the stuff that kind of together

513
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: led to that huge crash, and in America it lasted

514
00:28:27,320 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: for about two years. It wouldn't be until the debut

515
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: of the Nintendo Entertainment System in America, which was before

516
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 1: the home video game market started to recover. So for

517
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 1: two years, home video game market was pretty much dead.

518
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 1: You could you could pick up titles for a fraction

519
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: of what they once went for as people were trying

520
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:49,920
Speaker 1: to stores were trying to get rid of them because

521
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: no one was making new ones. They just needed to

522
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:56,160
Speaker 1: get this stuff out of inventory. So uh, yeah, for

523
00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: about two years, there was no way of getting like

524
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:01,120
Speaker 1: a new system or new games. And we're gonna have

525
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: to probably cut it off here, but I think it

526
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:05,840
Speaker 1: might be fun in the future. We'll we'll probably give

527
00:29:05,880 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 1: it some time. But to revisit this and talk about

528
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 1: how Nintendo helped usher in a new era of home

529
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,960
Speaker 1: video game systems and and what it took to bring

530
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: home video game systems back from the dead because Nintendo

531
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: had a very specific way of doing things that that

532
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 1: really changed the whole paradigm of how video game consoles

533
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:32,560
Speaker 1: were marketed and how how third party development was handled.

534
00:29:32,960 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 1: And we'll get into that in a future podcast. I

535
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:37,480
Speaker 1: do think it's ironic. I'd like to mention you know

536
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: how I was talking about how Atari had an advantage

537
00:29:40,360 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 1: over Colco because they actually were a video game company. Well,

538
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 1: Nintendo wasn't exactly a video game company when it started

539
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 1: either Playing Card Company. Yes, still still game weighted, yes, indeed.

540
00:29:52,920 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: Whereas Leather, I have to leave it off there, all right,

541
00:29:56,920 --> 00:29:58,720
Speaker 1: So I guess it's time for us to wrap this

542
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: up in leather and we will talk to you guys

543
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:04,000
Speaker 1: again soon. Remember you can email us. Our entrance is

544
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: your tex stuff at how stuff Works dot com. Chris

545
00:30:06,920 --> 00:30:08,880
Speaker 1: and I will chat with you again once Chris is

546
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 1: done crying. If you're a tech stuff and be sure

547
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 1: to check us out on Twitter, Text stuff, hs ws

548
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: R handle, and you can also find us on Facebook

549
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 1: at Facebook dot com, slash tech Stuff h s W

550
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,200
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does

551
00:30:28,240 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: it How stuff works dot com and be sure to

552
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: check out the new tech stuff blog now on the

553
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:40,120
Speaker 1: House Stuff Works homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented

554
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Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you