The History of Games 80's to 90's

When most people think about 1980’s they automatically think about the music and fashion scene which admittedly is a good place to start. As decades go, the 80’s sounds like a scary one full of nuclear warnings, the cold war, the Faulkland war, and strikes. House interiors were brown and grey, and mobile phones cost £2000! But it was a good time for the growth of computer technology. The music of the 80’s even started using computer technology to create unusual sounds and affects which gave birth to Electro music. 

The main technology advance was the move from arcades to home computing, consoles and computer systems such as the Coleco Telsar, the Mattel intellivision, and the Atari 5200 were brought out and surprisingly aimed at the adult audience. It seemed that video games were never intended for children to play with (which means that people have no right to tell me to grow up!) Unfortunately in 1983 everything went wrong, the end of the U.S dominance over the computing industry began, there was an oversupply of different consoles and home computers (many being dead on arrival) which lead to the bankruptcy of a lot of companies. Arcade games were becoming less popular as well; people could play the same games in the comfort of their own homes without needing the correct change! One console that survived the American game crash was the Atari 7800 featuring proper characters, colour display and games from still well-known companies Activision and EA games. The big change in the game industry was the sudden move from second to third generation gaming so companies that are still producing popular games today were just starting out. 

In 1989 the Berlin wall came down and Nintendo released their first Gameboy, I love the quote from their original advert: “You don’t stop playing when you get old, but you will get old if you stop playing” I think that this means if you stop playing the games, you will be out of touch with technology and feel old as technology is advancing so quickly. I think this is evident with my parents, my dad has kept up to date with technology and even shows me new things, but I have had to teach my mum a few things like how to use eBay etc! However neither of them are up to date with the games industry and were quite surprised when I told them I wanted to pursue a career in it!

I feel that the 80's was an important decade for gaming as it started the growth in popularity of consoles however the quality of the games were still nowhere near as good as today.