Barkley's Justice
Member
Where were you? How did that make you feel?
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If you were around during the 83 video game crash, what are your memories of it?
- Thread starter Barkley's Justice
- Start date
Randolph Freelander
Member
I was playing Pac-Man.
DangerousDave
Member
6 year old.
I was addicted to the only game that I knew:
I didn't start PC gaming until 85
I was addicted to the only game that I knew:
I didn't start PC gaming until 85
Lemming_JRS
Member
So apparently I'm one of the old folks on NeoGAF.
I was 12 going on 13, I had an Intellivision, and I was pretty bummed that console vidjagames just seemed to up and vanish. Or more to the point, people stopped releasing new games for them, which might as well have been the same thing. You know things are getting bad when a game is released based on a dog food commercial (Chase the Chuck Wagon).
Later that year, I bought an Apple IIe (64k internal RAM! Yeah!) with the money I'd been saving for a few years, picked up Ultima III, Wizardry, and Pinball Construction Set. Started learning how to program in BASIC. Ended up not missing my Intellivision too much.
I stayed on computers (graduating to an Amiga in 1989) for quite some time after that, pretty much missing the NES/Sega Master System & SNES/Genesis eras as a result, getting back into consoles with the first Playstation.
I was 12 going on 13, I had an Intellivision, and I was pretty bummed that console vidjagames just seemed to up and vanish. Or more to the point, people stopped releasing new games for them, which might as well have been the same thing. You know things are getting bad when a game is released based on a dog food commercial (Chase the Chuck Wagon).
Later that year, I bought an Apple IIe (64k internal RAM! Yeah!) with the money I'd been saving for a few years, picked up Ultima III, Wizardry, and Pinball Construction Set. Started learning how to program in BASIC. Ended up not missing my Intellivision too much.
I stayed on computers (graduating to an Amiga in 1989) for quite some time after that, pretty much missing the NES/Sega Master System & SNES/Genesis eras as a result, getting back into consoles with the first Playstation.
Well, this is making me feel old. You know what though? I was a dumb teen and just kept playing games. Console game prices came way down and arcades were still plentiful.
I lived through the whole thing, and it doesn't really stand out as a single tragic date like a lot of people seem to think. Interest waned and stuff just kind of dried up, like any other traditional fad.
I lived through the whole thing, and it doesn't really stand out as a single tragic date like a lot of people seem to think. Interest waned and stuff just kind of dried up, like any other traditional fad.
chadderbox77
Member
I was six. Think I might have had a Magnavox Odyssey at that point. Two years later, at 8, I got a NES. Hooked up to a little black and white tv of my OWN, in my room. Life was good.
CitizenCope
Member
I was 12 and I had just bought my own Colecovision, days later my mom tells me she just read about the possible collapse of the video game industry in the Boston Globe. Lots of doom talk. I was not happy.
derExperte
Member
Learning the alphabet and numbers in first class. While being jealous of this one dude that owned an Atari 2600.
He wasn't laughing anymore when I got my C64 a few years later. Ha!
He wasn't laughing anymore when I got my C64 a few years later. Ha!
Hale-XF11
Member
I was 9 years old, but I don't really recall caring all that much about it. I think I figured that game developers simply weren't capable of making anything that didn't suck anymore. Then again, I spent a lot of time at arcades, which I enjoyed immensely since those continued to thrive. I mean, 1985 was just around the corner, so the NES wasn't exactly that far off and then I got my home gaming on again.
Myke Greywolf
Ambassador of Goodwill
I had a ZX Spectrum. Didn't feel a thing!
Muffdraul
Member
I was 14 and very rapidly losing interest in video games. For me, it was a matter of hitting puberty and losing interest in pretty much whatever I was into as a kid. Getting up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons, Star Wars action figures, video games, whatever. No doubt about it, they *were* childrens' toys back then. I was totally unaware of a crash or the market being flooded or whatever. All I knew was that suddenly all I wanted to do was play guitar, and I started saving my allowance to buy Devo and Ramones albums instead of blowing it at The Dragon's Dungeon playing Sinistar.
Oh man, you had a stronger will than me! There was this local parlor that had a Sinistar cabinet set up for unlimited credits, and I guess the owner didn't care because he never fixed it to my knowledge! :-D
I was 12 and enjoying my Intellivision and my dad's C64 that he had for work. A friend was much more computer savvy than I was and hooked me up with a bunch of pirated games. Blew my mind. I also got into comic books and Dr Who about that time, and those pretty much took over my life. So I didn't miss gaming much at all.
As a kid at the time you didn't think of it as a Crash at all, because how would you know? There wasn't much in the way of an industry new letter, or the web to tell you that such a thing had happened. I gamed right though those years and thought nothing of it. You could still buy games and there we plenty to choose from. Of course in the retrospective it clearly was a bigger deal, but most kids had zero idea it happened.
Muffdraul
Member
Well it's kinda depressing when I try to play Pitfall or Chopper Command nowadays and can't figure out how in the hell I could have spent so many hours on them back then. =P
I feel like I was kinda of oblivious to hints, like when Electronic Games magazine changed to Computer magazine and stopped covering games at all. But yeah, it seemed like right around the same time me and all my friends just left it behind as part of growing up. I never would have started up again, but after college I bought an SNES as part of a scheme to establish credit. I almost didn't even take it out of the box and was going to just give it away or sell it. The fact that I made the mistake of setting it up and playing Super Mario World one night is the reason I'm here now.
Yeah, I have the Intellivision Lives DS compilation, and some games are still surprisingly enjoyable, while others are just utterly excruciating.
What the hell? That's an awesome story too. You should write a book. Or at the least do a chronological blog about video games from your point of view.
I was eight years old when the Crash occured, but what I remembered is that I did not personally feel the crash until 1984-1985 when I noticed the large number of video games in the bargain bins and the huge discounts they have in places like Kay Bees Toys (RIP). I really did not understand the reason for the video game crash until the 1990s when I learned more about it when reading a magazine article.
I should mention that I started playing video games the year before in 1982 and my father bought me an Atari 2600 on Christmas 1983 as a surprise gift as he noticed that I was very interested in it when playing at a family friend's home. Just during the year of the Crash, but again, I was not aware of what is happening in the video game market until around next year.
It is nice to notice a number of older gamers remembering the crash, even if we represent a minority of gamers on this forum. Gaming in the 1980s was different back then than it is now.
DCharlie
Banned
i feel the reverse - i find the simplistic nature of early games and their focuse on pure game play mechanics with minimal or simplistic story telling quite refreshing (if sometimes crude)
I started gaming with the ZX81, then moved to the Dragon 32 and i have to say the D32 was where all the ground work got done turning me into a gamer and (because of Input Magazine) a coder) - the C64 was the cementing period though. C64 era was insane.
Note that even to this day Paradroid is -still- my favourite game of all time.
And loving every minute of it. I loved the E.T. Game. I was 10 at the time. I didn't even know there was a crash until much later in life.
wyvern_bloodfist
Member
being 5, and playing my mini-arcade games 
i was 8 years old and in Europe where we had the Spectrum and c64 .... what crash?
The only Crash we had was this :
Rest in peace Lloyd Mangram, wherever your paper bag may be buried.
Hawk269
Member
Man, I must be the Senior Citizen of the group here.
I was 16 during the crash and honestly it was not that bad. I was more into my Atari Computer and learning to program it. I was able to pick up a ton of seriously reduced priced games for my Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Intellivision etc.
I was 16 during the crash and honestly it was not that bad. I was more into my Atari Computer and learning to program it. I was able to pick up a ton of seriously reduced priced games for my Atari 2600, ColecoVision, Intellivision etc.
at 45, I would say so. Nothing wrong with that, though!
SatelliteOfLove
Member
I was 6 or so, but I didn't "game" seriously till '87 when I bugged my parents for a console (ended up with an SMS on sale). The only thing I remember playing before that was Mario Bros and Ms. Pac-Man at the Pizza Hut near our house.
Diomedeskun
Member
I was 5, occasionally playing Defender, Superman, Street Racer, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Air Sea Battle on my 2600. My oldest sister, who I would never consider a gamer, nevertheless managed to win Raiders of the Lost Ark, which is insane now that I know what you have to do. She even managed it with no help beyond the game manual, which is even more insane.
I actually didn't really become a gamer until I was in 7th grade. My best friend got an NES when they first released, but I thought the games were too hard until I got my own years later.
I actually didn't really become a gamer until I was in 7th grade. My best friend got an NES when they first released, but I thought the games were too hard until I got my own years later.
My older sister was like that a little, one of the few games she played was the mario ones and she was very good at them. She was the only one in the family who knew how to beat the last fortress of mario 3, when she wasn't with us we had to resort to use a cloud to skip that stage
I was 9? yeah. Anyway, I think the video game crash of 83 was as much mismanagement as it was technical limitations. Kids even got bored of good atari games. Come to think of it, I played Atari when I was board of playing with my other toys or couldn't go outside. Nintendo changed that equation big time
Hawk269
Member
Thanks bud. There are a few us "old timers" here on Gaf. I don't get to play as much as I would like, but being a bit older than most here on gaf, I do have my career which allows me to buy whatever the hell I want, whenever I want!
DangerousDave
Member
i was 8 years old and in Europe where we had the Spectrum and c64 .... what crash?
The only Crash we had was this :
I was very young but I remember (reading magazines and listening older boys, a few years later) that the price went down from 4.000 pts down to 500 pts. That should be, more or less (pesetas only exist now in Resident Evil 4), prices going down from $40 to $5 (not counting the monetary inflation).
Playing the Apple IIe mostly. Which is what most people were doing on their C64s and Atari 400/800/XLs and Apple IIes while this supposed video game crash was happening. In other words, I always thought the "crash" was a bit of after-the-fact hyperbole. Sure, the Atari 2600 and Intellivision markets dried up really quick, but this is also when PC gaming really started to take hold.