North American video game crash of 1983 (opens in new tab)

(en.m.wikipedia.org)

8 pointsdeeths12y ago4 comments

4 comments

4 comments · 2 top-level

socalnate112y ago· 2 in thread

"There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was saturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality and a lot of copied games that were sold at cheaper prices, which resulted in the loss of consumer and retailer confidence."

So, are we going to see something similar in the mobile game market at some point?

deethsOP12y ago

I could definitely see it happening. One of the other issues was saturation of the console market. People that already have had consoles (or phones) for a long time already have a comfortable set of apps and are buying fewer new ones.

I could see a point where the rate in phone growth slows due to saturation and then the vendors focus on aggressively keeping the customers they have (whether with new games or more content for old games)-- which would tend to favor the largest app developers at the expense of the smaller ones.

andyjdavis12y ago

I suspect so. Particularly with the popularity of free + in game purchases as a business model.

I feel like we are heading towards a point where a lot of people will be extremely reluctant to pay for games because they are used to free but will also assume that anything free is a scammy rip-off waiting to happen.

deethsOP12y ago

Here's the URL for non-mobile displays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

4 comments

4 comments · 2 top-level

socalnate112y ago· 2 in thread

"There were several reasons for the crash, but the main cause was saturation of the market with hundreds of mostly low-quality and a lot of copied games that were sold at cheaper prices, which resulted in the loss of consumer and retailer confidence."

So, are we going to see something similar in the mobile game market at some point?

deethsOP12y ago

I could definitely see it happening. One of the other issues was saturation of the console market. People that already have had consoles (or phones) for a long time already have a comfortable set of apps and are buying fewer new ones.

I could see a point where the rate in phone growth slows due to saturation and then the vendors focus on aggressively keeping the customers they have (whether with new games or more content for old games)-- which would tend to favor the largest app developers at the expense of the smaller ones.

andyjdavis12y ago

I suspect so. Particularly with the popularity of free + in game purchases as a business model.

I feel like we are heading towards a point where a lot of people will be extremely reluctant to pay for games because they are used to free but will also assume that anything free is a scammy rip-off waiting to happen.

deethsOP12y ago

Here's the URL for non-mobile displays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_video_game_crash...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse