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Video Games And The Video Game Industry

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In the year 2016, the video game industry hit an important milestone. As seen in this 2015-2019 analysis, the industry hit a market value of over $100,000,000,000: (“THE GLOBAL GAMES MARKET REACHES $99.6 BILLION IN 2016, MOBILE GENERATING 37%”). Just like today, 1983 was looking great for the future of video games. However, unlike today, 1983 did not go great for the video game industry, it went awfully. In 1983, the video game industry crashed and has not fully recovered to the value of the market since. (“Video Games in the United States”). Due to the unfortunate events of over-sensationalised media, an overflowing market, incorrect judgements, and poor business, the video game industry hit rock bottom in 1983 and took a mastermind …show more content…

In the 1970’s to the early 1980’s the video game market was doing exceptionally well for a fairly new industry. As well, the market was not fully utilized and allowed new small startups to be formed. These startups were making games as fast as they could, because as soon as any game hit the market it sold swiftly. As time went on, the number of startups grew and the market value could not keep up, forcing the startups to make games at an even faster rate. In 1983, the market was so full of games, most which were rushed, terrible excuses for a game, that the market finally popped like a bubble. In an episode of “Engines of Ingenuity,” Dr. Andy Boyd, a faculty member of the Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Houston, claims, “The biggest culprit appears to have been a flood of poor quality games” (Boyd). These poor quality games sold abysmally and if the company, making the game, was not large enough, the company would fail as most could only make one game before losing all of their money. The startups failing left and right, and the enormous amount of bad games were causing many to lose interest in games, further hurting the market and industry. As Dr. Boyd explains further that, “Many industry pundits were ready to write off home video games altogether, referring to them as a passing fad” (Boyd). Like all industries, if the consumers losses interest then the consumer 's’ money losses interest in the industry. With the overflowing number of crappy

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