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Previous: 1975-1984: stone age of the joystick
A new generation of game makers
With the advent of home computing, a whole generation of game makers had the tools to realize their dreams. Granted, you still needed some highly-specific skills to create a game from A to Z. But it was finally possible, and perhaps, easier than ever in history. It was not necessary to know electronics or to be able to design a computer from the ground up to create a simple game. Assembly was still the language of choice, but more and more games were coded in Pascal, in C or even in Basic.
8-bit consoles and home computers
- The Nintendo Entertainment System
- Perhaps the greatest success in the history of video games.
In terms of hardware, after the collapse of the Atari empire and all of its American rivals, it seemed impossible that the console market could rise from the dead. However, Nintendo, who had developped its fairly successful Famicom system in Japan, thought they were ready to conquer western markets, where competition was now totally absent. Despite the reluctance of American distributors, they managed to convince a couple of shops to carry their systems in the Christmas season of 1985. Smashing success. In 1986, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was available in every American toy store, and it invaded Europe soon afterward.
- The Sega Master System
- While more powerful than its Nintendo rival, it didn’t sell quite as well
- Super Mario Bros., NES, 1985
- The game that made Mario an household name
- The Legend of Zelda, NES, 1986
- The first episode to one of the greatest series of all times
Sega, which was previosuly been developing games for the arcade or the early home gaming systems, released its Sega Master System (SMS) a few months after. Despite its superior graphics and computing power, the SMS never really picked up in the US market, however, it did fairly well in Europe and in Japan. Nintendo’s popularity, based on breakthrough games like Super Mario Bros and Zelda, was almost similar to that of Atari in its golden age. Nintendo’s Mario quickly became one of the most recognizable characters, rivalling Mickey and other Disney icons.
- The Official Nintendo Seal of Quality
- by which Nintendo dominated its busines s partners.
Nintendo had learned form its ancestors’ mistakes, and, to avoid software development chaos, instored the Nintendo Seal of Quality. It was virtually impossible to develop a game without being licensed by Nintendo, which meant developping exclusively for Nintendo systems, having to conform to strict quality standards (each game had to be formally approved), and letting Nintendo plan when to release each game. And, just like the mythic Triforce stone saved the land of Hyrule against the evil Gannon in Zelda, the Seal of Quality by itself may be what saved and resurrected the video game industry.
- Flight Simulator, Apple II, 1980
- Flight simulators were too complex for console controllers
The computer was also more and more seen as a game machine. Although their graphical capacity were generally inferior to those of game systems, although they were not naturally equiped for gaming, with their awkward joysticks and monochrome screens, they compensated that by being programmable - anyone could make games and learn to make games, and having easy to use media - tapes or disk drives, which enabled people to share their games better. The home computer was also best suited for some types of games which would become immensely popular: RPGs, text-based adventure games, early strategy games or wargames, flight simulations. All of those relied on the superior calculation power of home computers, and the keyboard-based interface.
- The Ancient Art of War, PC, 1984
- An early, but surprisingly sophisticated RTS.
That difference between home computers and consoles led to the emergence of game genres. Before then, it was fairly silly to talk about distinct genres. One who liked games liked them all, and that was it, whether it was sport, action, driving, you name it, it all boiled down to the same sensation: purely skill-based, no need to read instructions or to learn the game. That definitely changed as games became more sophisticated.
- Wizardry, Apple II, 1981
- Along with "Ultima", this game created the RPG genre
They were not just more technically advanced, but also different in structure. The simplistic screen or sequence of screens, repeated with increasing difficulty, was seen as a thing of the past. More and more games had a distinctive start and an end, and story elements, once limited to cabinet decoration, were becoming actually important.
Games certainly remained difficult. Many game authors still saw themselves as riddlemasters, and assumed that a good game was necessarily difficult. They thought that the harder a game was, the longer people would play it. That misconception had several sources:
the arcade game tradition,
the heritage of non-electronic puzzle games (like the Rubik’s Cube or the Peg solitaire), and
the relative non-existence of marketing. Players were not yet customers who had to be respected, but voluntary victims of modern-day sphynxes (slight exaggeration, but you see the picture).
- Rygar, NES, 1987
- In the US version, Rygar dies if hit three times. Unfortunately, this makes the game impossible to beat...
Among those games, some were simply impossible. The PAL and US version of Rygar for the NES could just not be completed. The developers thought that the Japanese version was to easy, so they reduced the life bar from 5 units to 3 (i.e. number of times an enemy could hit you before you die). But in the last fight, the hero was automatically hit four times (they didn’t change that part...). Likewise, the 20th level on Solomon’s Key for NES was impossible to pass, due to a design error. Without going that far, games of that age would be seen, today, as incredibly frustrating. They still had features directly inherited from the arcade: scores, limited number of lives, likelihood to lose the game and having to restart from the beginning. The great novelty is that now, in the vast majority of cases, in order to beat the game, the player did not just need dexterity, but some experience of that specific game. Games introduced the learning curve concept - the more you play, the better you become.
Computer games were also more easily distributed. Game protection devices were, too, in their infancy, and it was fairly straightforward to copy games and pass them along to friends and relative. This meant that buying software in the shop, or playing games at the arcade were no longer the only means to get games. Magazines published code listings that computer owners could patiently type in. Chances are, they would spend more time typing the code than playing the game... And of course, since game protection devices were still in their infancy, it was the beginning of piracy.
Piracy was not then the massive counterfeiting industry that it is today, with real criminals and massive sums of money involved, but rather an almost legitimate vector of game distribution. The existence of a gray mass of games in circulation was a strong incentive to buy the hardware. Also, hacking code was an interesting programming exercise that contributed to the birth of the demo scene.