The theme of games at this point were strongly based on the idea of space travel. I feel they probably did this due to this new technology they were creating. To them it was space age, so what perfect subject matter for a game then space travel and battling aliens. The most far out, high tech idea’s and interests around at the time. In the same year, Nolan Bushnell and ted Dabney started Atari Computers. Then to put a twist in the tail, along came Pong. It was basically a table tennis simulation game. It was highly popular I think due to its simplicity. Also up until this point, all video games were arcade versions. But in 1975, Atari re-released Pong as a home video game. One of the first ever home gaming console. It had the same affect on people as big releases we have today. There were reports of people waiting outside stores for hours to get one. This is a very small glimps into the impact games will have on people in the future. The frenzy and desire people have for games in the present day, is what drives the game industry. The idea to entertain a mass audience, to create something everyone can be a part of. But this frenzy, in my opinion, only comes with much loved running series of games. A sequel to long running series, a much loved one, that it creates so much hysteria, that its success is because everyone is and can talk about it. In 1977, manufacturers of older, obsolete consoles and Pong clone sold their systems at a loss to clear stock, creating a glut in the market and causing Fairchild and RCA to abandon their game consoles. Only Atari and Magnavox remained in the home console market, despite suffering losses in 1977 and 1978. This led to a crash in the video games market with companies going bust after too many clones of the original games were being released. These swamped the market causing sales of the originals to plummet. This shows that many games companies and the idea of video games, just hadn’t quite reached out to the public enough. Games needed to do more and be more accessible to the public in order for their popularity to grow. As ‘Wikipedia’ puts it, the 80’s were when the industry experienced its first major growing pains. Role playing games became highly popular in the 80’s huge releases that we are familiar with today and have sequels which are still being produced today. Titles such as Legend of Zelda, Prince of Persia, Final Fantasy, Mario and so many more that we recognise and see to this day in the present games market. There was a genre innovatoion. Games no longer depicted space travel and table tennis simulations new types of games were being released. Action adventure, role playing, survival horror. These genre’s gave birth to many of the games we see today. Personally, the 80’s gaming market was the jumping point, for things to begin to evolve into the games we see today. This obviously led to the 90’s which began the revolution of modern gaming. But the 80’s I feel was a genre in itself for video games. All of which were 2D based platform games, it’s a style that we link to the early days of gaming. This was the decade that gave birth to countless games consoles, varying in success. These were all cartridge games consoles. Even though the amount of manufactured games consoles was increasing, none of them were never hugely successful. http://njarb.com/2011/07/game-consoles-of-the-80s/ This website shows a wide selection of game consoles which I found fascinating. The amount of unsuccessful creations is staggering but these were all mere experiments. The most popular I think, was the Nintendo NES, released in 1983. Having 800+ games made for it, and like Sega, which in 1989 releaseed Sega Genesis, they are both recognised and still successful games company today, it was the beginnings of the modern age of gaming.
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