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September 13th, 2015 
Carl Williams 
The video game industry had a crash in 1983/1984 that nearly ended our favorite pastime for good. During this period there were many gaming consoles available, lots of games and many developers that were popping up out of nowhere and just as quickly disappearing. It was a horrific time for fans of gaming that lived through it, I personally was really young and only noticed that games simply disappeared from stores like Safeway, Harvest Market and Thrifty and other discount stores like Payless (before they were strictly shoes). There was a time when you couldn’t shake a stick without hitting three or four stores in a small area that carried games, even many gas stations carried Atari 2600 and Colecovision games. Games were everywhere and stores were more than happy to put them out for sale. The problem was, there were just so many available that it was hard for stores to keep good games in stock due to the bad ones they got suckered into buying by an unscrupulous sales rep. This overabundance finally took its toll when gaming was viewed as heading into the mainstream and EVERYONE wanted a piece of it. They got it alright. So many were making games and consoles but no one was watching over the shoulders of developers to make sure what was being made was actually worth playing and worth selling. Why? Because nearly anything that was put into a box and on the shelves was guaranteed to at least make a profit. With that in mind, common sense went out the window and anything and everything that could be put in a box, was. We are heading back into a crash folks. It is coming. History is repeating itself right now as everyone is trying to push their games/hardware and accessories into the market.
First, let’s just take a look at the platforms that we had in the 1983/1984 season vying for the almighty dollar.
Atari 2600
Atari 5200
Bally Astrocade
ColecoVision
Coleco Gemini
Emerson Arcadia 2001
Fairchild Channel F System II
Magnavox Odyssey II
Mattel Intellivision
Mattel Intellivision II
Sears Tele-Games consoles
Tandyvision
Vectrex
With public announcements of the Odyssey 3 and Atari 7800 as “coming soon” around this time.
Keep in mind, there were computers galore available around this time that also played games, including:
Apple II
Apple Lisa
Apple Macintosh
Atari 400/800
Commodore 64
Commodore PET
IBM clones
Texas Instruments 99/4A
That is a grand total of 21 different platforms vying for the attention, and money, of gamers in one way or another. For those saying the computers shouldn’t be there, just remember, it was not spreadsheets and word processing programs that push computing hardware to be better. It is games.
What we have on the market today, or soon to be, is just as prolific and just as after your cash as the historical figures up there. Out of all of the “originals” only Apple is still around- the rest of those companies either left gaming or went bankrupt at some point.
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I have to disagree with you, with many of these platforms beign digital only, the overstock of the marketplace won’t come anywhere close to what happened in ’83. Now the glutt of microconsoles on the other hand is a very realistic possibility, due to the ammount of companies competing. However because the games beign sold are digital only, even if they sell the microconsoles at a loss they’ll still come out on top. As far as quality control goes, that is an issue I feel most applies to Android and Steam, but is at the end of the day, something that is addressable.
Well said. The problem with this glut of platforms, digital only/physical/combination of both, is they are still vying for the same finite amount of money gamers have to spend.
If enough crappy games are released, gamers will go elsewhere for entertainment.
Hey Carl, you’ve really padded your list of modern platforms. Let’s be a little more realistic. There are many legacy platforms on your list that aren’t receiving new games (ps3, vita, 360) and some that aren’t going to happen (retroVGS LOL). These are where new games are being made, where one could reasonably spend some money.
Android
Apple iOS
Nintendo 3DS
Nintendo Wii U
Playstation 4
Xbox One
Let’s not forget that the modern market is much bigger, prices are lower, and quality is generally higher. Combine that with the manufacturing efficiencies of modern optical media (and of course digital downloads) and it’s pretty clear that we won’t see a 1984-style “crash” anytime soon, if ever again.
Sure, I “padded” the modern systems, those are still consoles (well, not the RETRO VGS, which at the time of the writing was “coming”) that command shelf space at some of the most popular stores for game sales such as Gamestop and Wal-Mart. Therefore they have to be considered “modern” as people are still buying them, even if companies are not supporting them anymore.
Sure, the modern market is bigger and more varied. That is true. It also makes it tougher for the good stuff to get to the top. Honestly, how many games are getting bought via digital download that are not AAA releases? Or how many non Call of Duty, GTA, God of War, etc titles are being bought at places like Wal-Mart. A lot of games just sit there and don’t get bought. This is evident with the numerous studio closings, publishers leaving certain markets even though they hold the rights to some extremely cherished IP’s (Konami for example).
How many gamers are going to be “happy” with a Pachinko Castlevania rather than a 2D side scrolling action fest? What kind of outcry is going to happen when we see a similar outing of Metal Gear Solid? Sure, this is a case of Konami going where the money is but when everything is IAP enabled crap puzzle games that are just graphic swaps of other games, how many gamers are going to continue supporting it?
Not many, I think. The second gaming crash will obviously be different than the first, it is just gaming nature. The market today is completely different than it was 30+ years ago, so will this looming crash be different.
What does this even mean? It makes zero sense.
“At some point gamers are going to get tired of all of the crap games out there and simply leave gaming again.”
Um, what? Wouldn’t they just be more selective and only play goood games? Quantity of choices has nothing to do with quality at the top. 99% of everything is crap, and it has always been that way.
Remember the original crash? There were still good games being released around Pac-Man and E.T. on the Atari 2600, two of the scapegoats that people point at as causing this event. Those good games didn’t stop the crash from happening as gamers got bored with all of the crap that was overshadowing the good.
We are very much in a similar situation but probably slightly different nowadays. There is a ton of “me-too” games (count the number of Match 3 games that simply swap graphics and ask for money at nearly every turn) or the “strategy” titles like Game of War (which are really just menu clicking games) that also sap the pocketbook.
Gamers are going to get tired of the crap (i.e., no real gameplay) and constant pushing of in app purchases.
If players would just play the best games then why are there so many crap titles clogging the top 10 on most of the app stores? It is increasingly tough for a good game to get exposure and purchases from gamers due to the myriad of crap titles that clog the news streams across the board.