The collapse of Atari is definitely the biggest event in the history of the video game industry.
Atari was a game company in the original world, a game company that originally started in the arcade field.
A few young people created a pool game called pong on a whim. The gameplay is to use a platform to continuously catch a small ball, and then hit the blocks at the top of the screen until all the blocks above are destroyed.
After a few young people created the game, they built it into a simple arcade machine and placed it in a nearby bar.
As a result, the game became extremely popular, and the boxes for storing coins were eventually filled up, causing bugs in the game, but it still couldn't stop players' enthusiasm.
It was also from this time that video games began to flourish.
Before this, it could only be called the barbaric age of gaming. After these young people developed pong, it can be called the Bronze Age of gaming history.
Then the company was founded naturally, then developed rapidly, and finally became a giant in the field of video games.
At that time, Nintendo was the younger brother to Atari.
However, Atari made many wrong decisions after its expansion.
The most fatal thing is that it does not restrict the creation of game content, causing its game consoles to be filled with countless junk games.
At the same time, these junk games are very cheap, with an average price of only about five US dollars. They are often developed by one or two people, and they can be completed in only a week and a half, which is quick and easy.
Those users who buy games don't know enough about video games at the beginning. They really don't know whether the game is good or bad. In this state, the only thing they can use to measure it is the price.
A high-quality game at that time often cost around thirty dollars.
But a low-quality game only costs five dollars, or even less.
In this way, if the buyer does not know enough about it, he will subconsciously choose the cheaper one.
They're all video games, and I can buy five or six of them for the same price. Isn't that great?
This was the unanimous thinking of consumers at the time.
At that time, no one took the initiative to guide them on what was fun and what was a rubbish game.
They will only see the cheap ones and buy them.
Then, they bought it home, played the game, and found out that it was a bunch of garbage. Then they naturally thought that video games were garbage, there was nothing interesting about them, and I was just wasting my time playing this thing.
This is bad money driving out good money.
The large amount of content is overwhelming these consumers, leaving them no chance to experience higher-quality games.
Then, Atari's final fatal blow, the release of et, caused Atari to almost fall in half.
Consumers will vote with their feet. When there are only a bunch of junk games on the market, they can no longer take a second look at games that may be better.
As a result, the U.S. gaming industry fell into a cold winter for two years, until Nintendo emerged from the sky and saved the entire industry.
Without Nintendo, the American video game market would have been stagnant for at least ten more years. This is not something we say casually.
Zhu Youxing did not expect that he would develop so rapidly, and he has tried his best to control the development trend of this kind of thing, but the industry still seems to be inevitably heading towards this path.
It seems that this is a general trend and a force majeure.
But the good news is that the current video game market is not without any resistance.
Now the brand of Youxing Electronic Entertainment is the representative of high-quality games.
Coupled with Zhuyouxing's restrictions on the content of its own game consoles, junk games will not appear on its own game consoles. As long as you buy our game consoles, you will never think it is junk. At most, you don't like this category.
That's all, but you can't deny that game.
Zhu Youxing looked at the newly transmitted information, and the more he looked at it, the more his heart sank.
The price of a game console is generally less than 150 dollars, and the price of a game is generally less than 10 dollars, which also includes the cost of the game cartridge itself.
There is almost no need to play such a game like this.
This is bad, really bad!
…
In the United States, New York, a small game company has just been established. Several young people clapped to each other excitedly.
"Aha, our game just sold 30,000 copies! Our profit was 200,000 US dollars, which is a huge profit."
Another young man was holding a bottle of beer that had just been opened and was sipping it. Then he wiped his mouth and said excitedly: "It only took us half a month to make this game. Doesn't this mean that every time we make it?"
My personal output value is 200,000 yuan in half a month? Is there any more exciting job than this?"
"No!"
Several young people shouted in unison.
Their hearts are surging, they have infinite pride in their hearts, and they feel that they have found a career that they will devote their lives to in the future.
This money is made so fast!
"Come on, I'll treat you to a striptease bar today!"
"Long live the boss!"
"Long live video games!"
"Let's get crazy!"
Many such small game studios have sprung up in many parts of the United States.
They are usually just two or three young people who have dropped out of college or high school. They are full of gangsterism and throw themselves into game development with the little programming knowledge they have.
Game development is actually not that difficult. It’s just that it’s a little difficult to get started at the beginning. But as long as you know programming knowledge and some simple drawing skills, you can create a simple game.
Especially since all kinds of popular games are already in front of them, they only need to download the program, and then modify it a little, and then they can transform it into their own game and sell it.
These games are generally very poor and have not been tested in any way.
Some game consoles may freeze just after they are purchased because of the insertion of a cassette cartridge. In the end, the console cannot be used.
Of course, consumers are unhappy, and they will go to the department store to ask for repairs or returns.
Department stores will naturally go to the game console developers to ask for explanations. As for the game console developers, they don't care much.
Because there are still a small number of people who actually return goods because of this kind of thing. Most people in the United States are too lazy to do this kind of thing. They just treat it as a dead fly and swear to never buy crap like video games again in the future.
Most of those game console developers are also immersed in the short-term surge in sales performance and have not cared about the future of the game industry at all.