History of the Video Games 1980–1989

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The following is the most important data on computer and video game history from 1980 to 1989 .

Home computer Commodore C-64 (1982)
Pac-Man (1980, stylized)

Platforms

Arcade games

Arcade games were often significantly more powerful than other platforms, especially graphically. Some games originated as arcade games and appeared a little later as implementation on consoles and home computers. The golden era of arcade games lasted until the mid-1980s. From 1984, 16-bit processors were sometimes used in the construction of slot machines.

Consoles

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game console , 1983 (Japan)

In the 1980s, many game consoles appeared , mostly with an 8-bit architecture. The Nintendo Entertainment System , which appeared in Germany in 1986, and the Sega Master System , which was offered in Germany from 1987 , were particularly widespread . Both consoles each brought their own series and characters. The earliest devices with 16-bit technology ( 4th generation ) appeared from 1987, in Germany not until 1990. At the beginning of the 1980s, the older consoles, especially the Atari 2600 , were still widespread

Handheld consoles

Amiga 500 and young computer gamer with Turrican

Home computers

One of the first DOS games: DONKEY.BAS (1981), here a free version, created with Gambas

Pc

In the 1980s, PCs were mainly used to play games on the MS-DOS operating system . Windows games only became established in version 3 from 1990 onwards.

Donkey Kong (1981, arcade machine)

Popular genres of the time

Almost all genres still known today existed in the 1980s. Simple game principles such as shoot 'em ups , action games , sports and racing games, adventure games and more extensive simulations were still particularly widespread . A new addition was the Jump 'n' runs and beat 'em ups . Many of the classics of that time are still popular as retro games today .

Online games

Simple text-based games such as mailbox (BBS) playable games and multi-user dungeons (MUDs) were early exponents of online games . From the middle of the decade, the first action and strategy games with a modem option for online games for two came onto the market.

Important developers

Many games have been published by major publishers; the individual developers faded into the background. Extensive games were often created in larger teams.

Important companies

Nintendo and Sega dominated the game consoles together ; in home computers, Commodore was a leader with the C64 and Amiga models. PC games ( DOS games) only slowly gained acceptance, on the one hand due to the high acquisition costs and the initially limited hardware properties. The 16-color EGA standard did not exist until 1984 ; sound cards were mostly retrofitted later.

There were numerous companies in the arcade sector, including Atari / Atari Games , Konami , Taito , Sega, Nintendo, as well as Namco , Data East and Capcom .

Software companies emerged and disappeared in great numbers or were taken over. 1983 saw the collapse of the market in the USA, the video game crash . Well-known publishers were, besides the ones mentioned, for example Acclaim Entertainment , Accolade , Activision , Bug-Byte , Epyx , Sierra On-Line and Ubisoft .

Data carrier / costs

A 5.25 "floppy disk, typical storage medium for the C64, among others

At that time, arcade games in Germany usually cost one DM per game and player, but the operators were able to set the level of difficulty and the number of "lives". Outside Germany, the costs were often lower.

Cartridges and compact cassettes were initially the usual data carriers for home computers . In 1982/1983 commercial games for home computers cost up to 89 DM, for consoles between 70 and 140 DM. Alternatively, games were programmed by oneself or program printouts were typed out from books or magazines. When the distribution of the devices increased sharply in the mid-80s and the first 5.25 " floppy disk drives appeared, the prices for games fell to around 50–60 DM and were usually much more demanding. The prices for empty media fell drastically and there were many Towards the end of the decade, 3.5-inch floppy disks were common (for Amiga and partly for PC) and a game usually cost up to 89 DM (Amiga) and 119 DM (PC), and the game was often there Distributed on several floppy disks, sometimes over 10. Despite compression, console games were much cheaper and often had fixed prices.

Chronicle / most important games of the decade

Game principle of Tetris (1985)

Other popular games, some only on individual platforms, were:

Other innovative, partly less well-known titles were:

OutRun arcade machine (1986)

Despite copy protection , black copies were widespread in the 1980s .

Indexing

Computer games were a new phenomenon in the 1980s; The Federal Inspectorate for Media Harmful to Young People (at that time still the Federal Inspectorate for Writings Harmful to Young People, BPJS for short) reacted quite helplessly and arbitrarily when it came to indexing games: Not only were games quite brutal - even by today's standards - like Commando Libya or Beach Head and Beach Head II (with realistic screams of dying soldiers), but also - by then and now - harmless games like River Raid and Blue Max , in which stylized planes and tanks were shot at. This led to the German version of the game Commando being slightly redesigned graphically - instead of soldiers in the version called Space Invasion, aliens were the opponents, which did not prevent the BPJS from indexing them as well.

This indexing policy led to a lack of understanding and a general rejection of the BPJS, especially since there were a lot of black copies in circulation at the time, so that the measures were ineffective; some indexed games (see section Propaganda) were also not freely available. Later the BPJS showed more sense of proportion when indexing.

Strangely enough, the BPJS also put clearly cracked games, i.e. black copies, on the table for evaluation. These media are likely to have been forwarded to the office from the households of concerned parents via the youth welfare offices, in accordance with the procedure. The further procedure corresponded to the rules, according to which suspicious media and unknown authors are always indexed first in order to provide further clarification. It should be obvious that this clarity could not be achieved with cracks. The 1942 trainer game (a cracked version of the 1942 game that has been expanded by a cheat ) is still on the index of works that are not freely available. Accordingly, Capcom or Elite is not specified as the publisher as the manufacturer for the medium , but an unknown person named Doctor Bit , under whose pseudonym the cheat was published and circulated. There are no signs of open commercial distribution, otherwise the original manufacturer would have taken appropriate measures.

See also

literature

Web links

Further web links and sources exist for general and special articles.