The Worst Years in Video Game History: 1983

The year 1983 tends to be the setting for a cautionary tale in North American video game history - a time when groundbreaking innovation seems to have been overshadowed by industry turmoil. While games like Mario Bros. revolutionized platformers, Ultima III expanded the possibilities of RPGs, and some regions outside of the US saw growth or even thrived, the era is best remembered for the infamous US video game crash. Oversaturation, poor-quality releases, and a lack of industry standards led to widespread consumer distrust and financial ruin for several developers.

Let's take a look at the highs and lows of the year!

Pros:

• • Pioneering vector-based action games like Star Wars (Arcade) and Major Havoc (Arcade), offering then cutting-edge graphics and gameplay. Atari also made up for their poor Pac-Man port in 1982, with a better Ms. Pac-Man port.
  • Rise of RPGs on computers, with Ultima III: Exodus pushing boundaries with its expansive world, avoidable encounters and creative fast travel system, and both the Ultima and Wizardry series starting to influence Japanese developers around this time.
  • Mario Bros. (Arcade) revolutionized 2D platformers, introducing momentum-based controls and multiplayer gameplay. As an aside, the Game & Watch version from the same year was one of the most popular handheld games of the early '80s, and different from the arcade game.
  • While spread out across different platforms, there was a wide variety of good games, including action (Jetpac, Spy Hunter, Discs of Tron), puzzle (Lode Runner, Bomberman), racing (TX-1), MP trading simulation (MULE), the vs. action/strategy hybrid Archon for the C64, and platformers like Mappy, BC's Quest for Tires, Alley Cat and Elevator Action.
  • Games like Lode Runner (C64) pioneered user-generated content, allowing players to create and share levels.
  • Exploration-focused games like Gateway to Apshai, Atic Atac, Pharaoh's Curse and Ultima III presented new approaches to open-ended/open world gameplay.
  • The shoot 'em up genre thrived, with titles like Gyruss (Arcade), Star Wars (Arcade) and Spy Hunter (Arcade) pushing its boundaries.
  • Growth in the arcade market despite the looming video game crash, with successful titles like Gyruss, Mappy, Time Pilot and Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom (late 1982), Elevator Action, Dragon's Lair, Mario Bros., Track & Field and Champion Baseball. While arcades also experienced oversaturation issues at the time, they were more isolated to North America and solved quicker with conversion kits.
  • While it had a shaky launch due to early manufacturing issues, Nintendo's new Famicom console soared in popularity in Japan towards the end of the year, thanks to quality ports of the arcade hits Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye, user-friendly design, well made controllers and relatively low price.
  • The computer market continued to grow during this year, even in the US. In fact it was dominant in most of Europe until the late '80s.

Cons:

• • The US video game crash of 1983 led to the closure of several developers and distributors, stalling growth in the industry.
  • Poor-quality games flooded the market, contributing to the crash, with many titles rushed to release (games like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Pac-Kong, Halloween, Star Fox, Fire Fly, and Swordquest: FireWorld and -WaterWorld for the Atari 2600). The most well known examples, E.T., Custer's Revenge and Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, were from 1982. However, Atari had produced so many copies of E.T. and Pac-Man (due to extreme initial demand) that they took a big financial hit when the games stopped selling and they had to buy them back from most retailers (in E.T.'s case many copies were returned).
  • Difficulty in distinguishing quality titles from an increasing flood of low-quality, hastily produced games, in part due to Atari's loss of publishing control. This control was limited to begin with, implemented retroactively, and there was no lockout chip. On computers, many games overly derivative of previous hits like Pac-Man, Frogger and Space Invaders were released.
  • Home systems suffered from limited technology, resulting in the visual gap between arcades and home ports becoming larger and the systems being unable to replicate the gameplay of games like Star Wars and Buck Rogers.
  • Despite innovation, the games provided crude graphics and short gameplay experiences compared to modern standards.
  • Limited consumer options for home consoles as the market became oversaturated with numerous failed systems like the Atari 5200, Colecovision, Vectrex and Aquarius.
  • Various games were difficult to control, particularly on the Atari 5200, Colecovision and Intellivision, leading to poor player experiences.
  • The absence of a unified industry standard (controllers, computer vs console and cross-compatibility between different computers, development kits, software quality control) led to inconsistent gameplay experiences across different platforms, worse games, and confused customers.
  • The long-term effects of the crash damaged the reputation of the gaming industry, causing players to lose trust in the medium.
  • The FMV arcade games were generally style over substance.

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In discussions about the worst years in gaming, 1983 tends to get mentioned pretty frequently, and place around the top of "worst of" lists. Looking at it as a whole, do you think this year deserves the scorn it gets, or were its contributions to video games enough to redeem it?