[ATARI] Playing it the European way – A Discussion on the European Gaming Market in the 80s
Jesus Cea
jcea at jcea.es
Wed May 25 16:43:19 CEST 2022
Este artículo me ha parecido muy interesante:
<https://genesistemple.com/playing-it-the-european-way-a-discussion-on-the-european-gaming-market-in-the-80s>
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"""
Playing it the European way – A Discussion on the European Gaming Market
in the 80s
You are here:
HomeGame Design VaultPlaying it the European way…
In the 80s, the videogame market was very much different to that of
today. While perhaps stating the obvious, it is important to keep mind
considering this article will analyze an era which we could define,
generally, as “pre-globalization”.
Indeed, forty years ago, well before the digital revolution and on-line
markets, each nation had a different and unique approach to the
industry: this included the number of “gaming” systems available. This
is especially true for Europe, a market that followed quite a different
set of rules than the US. In order to try and figure out how the
European market worked, along with how it shaped the industry and the
public for the following decades, there is one thing to keep in mind:
there is no single narrative. There are obvious trends running
underneath many of the countries I will touch upon, but – worth
repeating – there is no single revealing fact or event that might make
it easier for someone to understand the way European consumers behaved
during that decade nor what exactly happened that might have changed
things overnight.
Let us also keep in mind that computers and consoles used to represent
two different – almost completely so – market segments, with very
minimal overlap. While it was indeed possible for a child or young teen
to possess both, they would still have quite different gaming
experiences on the two platforms. Except for the obvious that computers
would teach one how to program, generally console games were aimed at a
younger crowd and offered less variety: mostly arcade, platformers and
sport games. There were no adventure games on consoles, except for a few
late ports. There were RPGs, sure, but while many of them would not
reach a Western audience, many times they were also plagued by simple
text and mediocre translation that would make them quite the inferior
counterpart to series like Ultima or Wizardry.
But again, since there is no “obvious truth” here nor a single overall
narrative, I have decided to call this article a “discussion”. With
actual sources and data are definitely few and far between, any writer
trying to sell a “one truth” theory is probably on the wrong path. Also,
for the sake of the article I will be focusing mostly on Western Europe,
but I am pretty sure at least some of these observations can be applied
to other Eastern countries as well.
The big videogame crash as an American-only event
Starting in 1983, and well until 1985, the gaming market in the US
crashed and burned to a grinding halt. This is an event that has been
discussed in great detail by many authors and researchers. The crash
happened because of several reasons, among these: the huge number of
very similar consoles available and the market being flooded with games
without quality control. The Commodore 64 would also play a part, since,
in order to try and make up for the not outstanding sales of its
previous systems, Commodore offered the 64 to consumers with a 100$
rebate. Many retailers ended up making the situation worse by offering
ways to actually gain money on the offer, most often by aggressively
cutting prices of old computers. Consumers could, then, buy old
computers or cheaps consoles at low prices and then immediately bring
them in, gaining quite a bit on the money difference.
The crash was not simply an event that brought several companies to
their knees, consumers were also affected: people just did not trust the
gaming companies anymore. They ended up being the victims of a system of
companies unable to control third party developers and, consequently,
failed in providing consumers with quality titles that were worth their
time and money. In the end, console games in the US could have seriously
proven to be little more than a passing trend.
This catastrophic event for the American industry had very little
consequence on the rest of the world.
New York Times article
Despite describing the big videogame crash as a strictly American event,
it is still important to consider that the US market was still the most
important one. Logically, as much as it might be convenient to discount
it, the event still ended up influencing companies’ decisions in the old
continent as well. But its other effect, namely the way it shaped
consumers’ tastes for the rest of the decade, did not in any way touch
Europe. As a very easy to understand example: the well-known decision by
Nintendo of America to change the original Famicom design, in order for
the NES to better appeal to the skeptical post-crash audience, is a
completely useless factor while talking about the success (or lack
thereof) of the 8 bit machine in Europe.
Let us first take a look at the generic homecomputer market in Europe in
the 80s.
The smashing success of home computers in Europe
If there is one single generally known fact, which could be applied to
the whole decade and a good part of the 90s, it would probably be: home
computers were much more successful than console as a gaming platform in
most European countries. While this is not a generic fact that can be
stated without a sliver of research, this is surely true for many of the
biggest gaming markets the likes of Germany, France and the United
Kingdom, along with smaller ones like Spain and Italy. It is also true
for many Eastern European countries, since most of them would not even
see a console before the early 90s.
Looking at the gaming companies which led the American market in the 80s
and 90s, Nintendo and Sega were in no rush to do the same on to the
European market. This is an easily understandable decision, since the US
was an easier market to address, both culturally and commercially. While
Europe had a potentially similar audience, there was no way a Japanese
company could find a single unique effective way to appeal to a
continent as diverse as Europe while also taking into consideration
different countries’ tastes.
Article on the effects of the spread of personal computers (from
Personal Computer World, issue 2, 1978)
Home computers were easier to sell in Europe (also) because they were
more familiar to the audience. Let us not forget that the United Kingdom
had quite the strong computer industry, via the BBC, Amstrad and,
naturally, Sir Clive Sinclair and his line of generally cheap computers.
Not to mention, government backing specific programs in order to teach
people how computers worked and how to program successfully. These UK
products were exported with variying degrees of success all over Europe.
Most successfult of all was the ZX Spectrum, which managed to gain quite
a following in many countries.
BBC "The Computer Programme" 1982
Going back to countries close to or behind the “iron curtain”, many home
computers were also mainly responsible for kickstarting the industry in
countries like Czechoslovakia and Slovenia (which at the time was part
of the federal republic of Yugoslavia) where consoles were basically
impossible to find. As an example, one of the very first games that is
known to have been developed in Slovenia was a ZX Spectrum textual
adventure, Kontrabant (by Žiga Turk and Matevž Kmet), where the player
smuggled pieces of the Sinclair computer in order to then, build a ZX
machine in their own homes. An experience all too familiar to many kids.
ZX Spectrum played a huge part in kickstarting the first generation of
computer developers in Slovakia as well.
This success and influence of the ZX Spectrum – a cheap home computer
that was definitely appealing for many European consumers hit hard by
recession – did not happen in the US, along with many of the other
non-IBM computers that influenced developers in many European countries,
were little more than blips on the market. In America, the Commodore 64
got off to a strong start and would outsell its competitors at least
until 1986, but still did not seem to bring the same huge influence that
would reign over many European countries in the same years. The Apple II
was also a strong competitor, mainly for the many companies jumping ship
to support it, among those Sierra and Broderbund.
The Apple II did not have the same success in Europe as in the United
States, since by the time Apple tried to penetrate the market in the old
continent, Commodore and Sinclair were already a strong presence, along
with having close contacts with retail sellers, plus it was quite
expensive which was also quite the problem for the IBM PC. While the
Apple II was not a complete failure in the old continent, it is fair to
say it surely never did register important sales, even compared to
smaller successes like the Amstrad and Acorn computers.
Data on sales of PC in Europe from the 70s. (Source: The Economist)
We might ask ourselves: which computer was the most popular in Europe?
That is a question impossible to answer with 100% certainty, for obvious
reasons, the answer would vary from country to country. Generally, the
Spectrum and Commodore scenes were clearly the most active, they would
continue existing well beyond the machines’ lifetimes. In Italy, in
1993, games were still being developed for the Commodore 64, even though
by that point Super Nintendo was already a year old. As mentioned, many
developers got their start with games for the two 8 bit machines, but
this only partially answers our question.
Surely, the Commodore 64 was quite a strong presence in Europe,
especially in countries like Italy, Sweden and Spain as well. In Sweden,
the computer sold quite well in its first years, thanks to the presence
of Commodore Scandinavia, apparently around 100/200k units, Amiga had
much less success in comparison. After the closing of the Commodore
branch in the region, the numbers start dwindling down and the Amiga
probably only sold around 120k units.
In Sweden, Commodore ran ads pretty often in the comic books.
In Spain, computers from Commodore arrived pretty early, in 1978,
through the local company Microeletrónica y Control S.A. The PET was the
first computer to reach Spain, with an initial order of only 50
computers, which the company managers stored in their parents’ house
because they did not have room elsewhere. Thanks to the quick success of
the PET, in that very same year the first club of homecomputer users in
Spain was founded, the Club Data, By 1984, Microeletrónica could count
something close to 900 shops in the country, and that same year also
distributed the Commodore 16. Three years later, it was replaced by a
local branch of Commodore S.A., directed by Santiago de Gracia.
Source: “Desarrollo, difusión e impacto social y cultural de los
videojuegos de 8 bits en España (1983-1992)” – Ignasi Medà
In France, the Commodore 64 did not have the same success because of
poor distribution, instead in 1984 the Spectrum saw quite more units
sold, along with good numbers also for the Thomson T07 and M05 models.
These were especially successful because of the Informatique Pour Tous
government campaign which, along with featuring antipiracy laws, gave
funds to the fledgling gaming industry and installed 120k Thomson
computers in every school in the country. The Amstrad CPC 464 was quite
the success as well, also thanks to a memorable ad campaign featuring a
blue crocodile as the company’s mascotte. The whole scene of French
developers from the 80s and, later, 90s were all influenced by home
computer games, as consoles did not really seem to take off until after
1990.
Something also worth nothing: while I have been using the term several
times, it is worth remembering that, in many countries, the “video games
market” could hardly be defined as such. An electronic product, at the
time, would sell mostly on the strength and recognition of its brand,
along with its accessible price, as European consumers did not really
have the same spending power as American ones. The quality of the games
and the marketing were obviously two influencing factors but, overall,
probably less important than brand and price
Nintendo and Sega, for example, could not be considered strong brands in
Europe because people were not familiar with them, throughout the 80s
they did – overall – small numbers, even in countries where they managed
to have a recognizable degree of success. Clearly, Sega was a more
familiar brand to people for their arcade games and, as mentioned, some
of their computers which managed to reach Europe, but overall, it was
not a brand familiar to most. In comparison, Commodore and Sinclair were
definitely much stronger brands, along with local companies distributing
computers. For example, the Amstrad in Germany and Austria was being
distributed by Schneider, a division of the Schneider Rundfunkwerke from
Türkheim.
A Schneider CPC64, similar to an original Amstrad but with a few
differences.
Clearly the fact that Europe had quite an active pirate/demoscene should
not come as a surprise, considering what we’ve discussed so far. Piracy
was not born because of home computers’ success, but mainly together
with them. We could define it as a sort of “mutually beneficial
relationship”. Europe was into home computers also because gaming was
cheaper on those systems, not simply because of piracy.
Having a Commodore 64 in the mid 80s, especially in quite the active
gaming market like the one in the United Kingdom, meant it was possible
to access a trove of games at accessible prices. While, perhaps, not all
of them were even worth that tiny admission price (some were priced at 2
GPBs even), there still was a lot of choice. On the opposite side,
gaming on consoles was incredibly expensive. Buying a single console was
obviously cheaper than a computer, but each cart would end up costing
quite the hefty price and there were no cheaper alternatives.
ELSPA against software piracy
So, clearly piracy was a phenomenon that has existed ever since the
computer industry became open to a wide array of consumers. It was also
facilitated when computers started using cassette tapes, a cheap and
easy way to duplicate media. This would obviously help sales for both
the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 (and, before it, the PET) in several
countries. Interestingly, pirate/hacker groups in the 80s would usually
call themselves with long evocative names like Remember, while the PC
scene – which started in the late 80s – and the limitations of DOS meant
that most groups had to use three letters names only.
Software piracy was rampant in many parts of Europe, Scandinavian
countries included. This was also because the legislation was much
easier to circumvent than in the United States, so much so that single
nations like France, Portugal and Italy were forced to create a specific
law to try and stop rampant software piracy. Clone consoles were also
available in several countries, like Spain or Italy, especially NES
clones that allowed players to access a bigger library of games while
not having to pay the quite expensive prices that first party Nintendo
games would usually sell for.
Data on software piracy provided by BSA
Consoles having a hard time
Taken at face value, the big crash having basically no effect in the old
continent, might lead us to conclude that Europe did not see the
abundance of consoles (and clones) that the US were bombarded with. The
Intellivision, Atari and Colecovision were indeed sold mostly all over
mainland Europe, but their market share was often little more than a
blip on the radar. Among several reasons, it might be interesting to
note that all these consoles were being marketed mainly to an American
audience, along with the games being pretty much tailored for that
demographic. It was not possible to think a company could copy and paste
their software library successfully from overseas, without even thinking
of adapting the content to the tastes of a specific European country. At
least, not in the 80s.
And “adapting” might have been indeed a problem for some companies,
considering how consoles, back then, needed to be modified over in order
to work on the PAL (50HZ) video system. Along with technical
limitations, some magazines at the time considered the different kind of
relationship that European families have with their TVs, as opposed to
Americans. For many, that it might be a struggle to both play and watch
television on a single set. Lisa Hondel and Bill Kukel wrote in EG “TV
viewing hours begin at 5 PM and end at 1 AM, family members can be found
fighting for either the switch box or channel changer in a true death
struggle for video supremacy”. While a slight exaggeration, there was
indeed truth in how different habits influenced the old continent and
its relationship with this new media.
From EG Issue 23 (January 84)
This can be also observed in the way Atari succeded in conquering one
specific national market in Europe, that of Germany, remaining on top of
the market well until the late 80s. The company set up one of the first
branches in Europe, in March 1980, Atari Elektronik
Vertriebsgesellschaft mbH in Hamburg, even though the console was
already being distributed in Germany (under the name “Atari VCS 800”) by
a third party. Because of Atari investing in marketing in the country,
with television advertising and full color pages in magazines, the VCS
ended up doing pretty well in Germany. In 1980 alone, Atari apparently
sold around 450k units by 1984, establishing itself as the industry
leader ahead of competitors like Philips with the Videopac.
Since it might sound unfamiliar to several readers, a quick note on the
Videopac. It was essentialy the name given in Europe to the console
known as the Magnavox Odyssey 2 in the United States. While that console
never really had much success in the American market, especially because
going against strong well-known competitors like Atari and Mattel, the
Videopac G7000 (and, to a lesser extent, its successor G7400) enjoyed
quite more attention in the old continent especially because it
generally came to the market quite early (around 1978-1979 before both
Mattel and ColecoVision). Along with Scandinavia, the model was present
on the market also in Italy, France and Germany where it also enjoyed
good sales on the strength of the Philips brand.
Italian commercial for the Videopac
Atari also opened a factory in Ireland, but despite enjoying quite
vantagious fiscal treatment, the American company never seemed to use it
to manufacture VCS consoles in Europe (this is to be 100% confirmed,
though). The generous marketing budget which made Atari the leader of
the market in Germany was not employed for other countries. In France,
the Atari 2600 would come to market years later from its original debut
in the US, in September 1981, actually imported by another company,
Wea-Records B.V., based in the Netherlands, which was also in charge of
distributing the console in that country.
In France, the VCS would go on to sell 600k over the course of eight
years, which is quite a good number but, as a comparison, the Master
System in a single year of release would sell around 105k units.
Competitors for the VCS, like the Colecovision, would come to the French
market even later, in 1983, apparently not doing very well. Mattel did
try an interesting move, by opening an office in the south of France in
1983 to try to develop games that could appeal to a more European
sensibility. For all intents and purpose, it was too little and too late
and the office did not really produce anything of note, being sold off
less than a year later. Similar experiments were also being considered
by Atari but with the big crash impacting their international plans as
well, that did not end up ever becoming a reality.
Article from French magazine Science & Vie Micro (Dec 1989) which
reports some sales data
In Spain, the Atari 2600 was distributed by a small company called
Audelec, located in Malàga. I was not able to find much information
about the Intellivision, but we can be sure it was not a great success.
Overall, the first wave of consoles did not seem to make quite the big
splash in the country. The Videopac was quite a big presence in Spain
too, thanks to good support by Philips. Also, according to my research,
one successul console among the first wave was the Colecovision because
it had the strongest company advertising it (CBS had a branch in Spain,
apparently), but again this is mere speculation since I was not able to
find much about the sales numbers.
Atari advertisement from Spain
In Scandinavia, Atari was distributed in Norway by Inter-Salg A/S (based
in Nesbru), Sweden and Finland were instead handled by other companies
like Cherry Hemelektronik AB, Algavision AB and Alga. In the
Scandinavian market, thought, more than Atari and Mattel with
Intellivision, there was another console with much more success: the
Philips Videopac. The early 80s console market in Sweden, for example,
seemed to be evenly distributed between the Videopac and the 2600, at
least according to newspaper articles from 1982.
Nintendo in Europe: not so "Super"
In the United States, after the first wave of consoles and their
subsequent crash, history goes that Nintendo stepped in and basically
conquered the market by directly appealing to the consumers’ tastes,
with Sega being a very distant second, at least until the 16-bit era.
Again, this did not happen in Europe, where Japanese companies would
appear on a country’s market only if there was a specific agreement with
a national distributor.
In Europe, one would need a company that would import the console, adapt
it to the national market and start doing its very own marketing to try
and sell the console and games. Many times, this also meant that the
consoles were being distributed by little companies working in an
unfamiliar market, with limited budgets. Like in Italy, where the Master
System in 1986, was being distributed by a little known company called
NBC Italia, which very soon gave up on it. Nintendo of Europe, would
only be created officially in 1990, with the company – in the following
years – going on to create specific country branches in the Netherlands,
Spain, France and the United Kingdom.
Nintendo's headquarters in Großostheim (founded in 1990, closed in 2014)
There is a bit of confusion on the year the NES first appeared in
Europe, with many articles placing it between 1985 and 1987. Apparently,
Mattel divided mainland Europe in two regions, with region “A” (which
was most of mainland Europe and Scandinavia) getting the console first
in 1986, while Region “B”, namely Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom
the year after. In Ireland, with the country going through a tough time
economically, the console would barely make a dent into the overall
market, going to be become successful only much later.
While Mattel was a big company well versed in doing advertising for
toys, they clearly did not have a lot of experience with video games
and, at the time, there was no clear single way to market them. This
could help explain some of their weird marketing choices. As for the UK
gaming market, we have to consider that by 1987 young gamers were
already being informed of new systems like the Amiga and Atari ST, so
that the then recent NES 8-bit games would have definitely felt
primitive by comparison. Also, the pricing of the first party Nintendo
games did little to help the success of the console, since they
commanded prices around £40 [120 GBP of today]. Comparing that with
basically half the price for Amiga or ST games, and a fourth of that for
older Spectrum and Commodore 64 titles.
Note the absence of the Nintendo brand on this Argos catalogue from 1987
Only by 1990 (when Nintendo of Europe was created), in the UK the NES
managed to comeback strongly on the market, mostly because the
distribution of the console was passed from Mattel, over to local board
game company San Serif which had definitely more interesting ideas.
Their first marketing move was, against Nintendo of America’s original
intentions, to bundle the Konami Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle game with
the console: a brilliant move to boost sales. NES games also began
appearing more regularly on magazines, even though it was really too
late, considering how the Mega Drive would come out that year as well.
This late comeback might actually explain why, looking at sales data
from 1994, the Master System and NES seem to have sold basically the
same number of units in the United Kingdom.
Game Boy ad for the United Kingdom
In Spain, the NES found quickly its public, initially through a solid
distribution via local company Spaco. In the late 80s, former Sega
distributor Erbe, would also being distributing the NES. The company,
which was the biggest national distributor in Spain, had changed the
market for the better, coming to save an industry plagued by piracy. In
1993, apparently 750k NES units had been sold in the country, despite
there being also several clones available.
Erbe would also distribute both the Game Boy and the Super Nintendo. In
1993, fate would step in again when a big fire ended up destroying the
warehouse of Erbe which, according to many of the people who first came
on the scene, was not an accidental event. Shortly after the
catastrophic event, the company fell into economic troubles, later
losing the distribution of Nintendo which basically disappeared from
Spain, reappearing only later by establishing an office in Madrid.
In most other European countries, those in the so called “Region A” not
handled by Mattel, the NES was distributed by smaller companies like
Bienengräber in Germany (which had also distributed the Game & Watch)
and ASD in France (pretty late, in October of 1987). Probably also
because these smaller companies could not afford huge budget for
marketing, along with other countries never having an official
distribution of the NES at all (like Portugal, which got the NES only in
1991 through Concentra), it is fair to say that in Europe the arrival of
Nintendo’s 8-bit console was affected by problems with pricing,
marketing and also distribution.
Generally, it would be fair to say that the NES did not revolutionize
the market, there was no “Nintendo generation” in Europe as in the
United States. But naturally, there are exceptions. In Sweden (which
apparently was the first country to receive and sell the NES in
September of 1986, but this is to be confirmed), through the
distribution and successful marketing by Bergsala (which also
distributed the console in neighboring Northern countries), the NES
enjoyed quite the success from 1987 onwards, especially owing it to the
release of Super Mario Brothers. Sega would start to get back some of
the market share only by 1990 with the launch of Sonic, the Mega Drive
and an expensive marketing campaign. Overall, Sweden seems to count for
around 8.7% of total sales of the NES in what Nintendo defined as “the
rest of the world”, around 740k units were sold, quite an impressive
number indeed, considering it’s about twice the share of the rest of the
Nordic market.
The System that was the Master: Sega in Europe
The Master System in Europe was definitely a different story, since some
of Sega’s computers had already arrived in the continent so it was not
an entirely unfamilar brand overall, also because of their quite well
known and loved games in the arcade. Overall, the Tokyo company had
quite much of a stronger headstart compared to Nintendo. For example,
Sega arrived in Italy quite early, by 1984, with their first home
computers, which suffered an unlucky fate since the distributor reported
huge economical loss that year and decided to cut the marketing budget
for the SC-3000 by half. In the end, the computers sold poorly and the
relationship between Sega and Melchioni was discontinued pretty soon.
In the UK, Sega made agreements with Mastertronic (later Virgin
Mastertronic) which had definitely a stronger grip on the gaming market
compared to Mattel in the 80s. Not only there were would be several Sega
dedicated magazines in the United Kingdom, but Master System games would
be reviewed quite often also on general magazines. The country made up
quite a big chunk of the overall European sales for the Master System
(1.5 million of units out of the 6.95 million sold by 1993). Also, I
would like to address those specific “edgy” Sega late 80s ads that pop
up on the internet every once and a while. These come from an agreement
between Mastertronic and the adult magazine Viz, so Sega as a company
had really nothing to do with them, they probably would not have
greenlighted them.
Going back to Italy, after the failed launch of the SC-3000, Sega was
distributed by toys company Giochi Preziosi which, right from the start,
allocated a huge marketing budget for the consoles, along with sponsors
like famous football players (Walter Zenga, Roberto Mancini). The Master
System managed to easily win over the NES, at least until – as with the
UK – Mattel lost the distribution of Nintendo and GiG took over, in 1992.
Italian AD for the Sega SC-3000
In Portugal, as mentioned, Nintendo and Sega would arrive officially
quite late, even though it was available on the market a quite
successful NES clone which would run official NES carts. In 1991, Sega
started being officially distributed via local company Ecofilmes which
would bring to the country the Sega Mega Drive, the Master System II and
the Game Gear. Ecofilmes later changed the name of their company to
Ecoplay and they still are the biggest gaming company in the country.
Promotional Ecofilmes Sega video (1991)
As mentioned before, Spain saw Erbe again taking over the distribution
of the Master System, after local company Proein did not really make
numbers and lost the license, behind it all there was the magic of local
hero Paco Pastor, also a former singer. Despite little faith in the
future of consoles, he was approached by the then president of Sega of
Europe Nick Alexander, in 1987, to discuss the creation of a Virgin
Mastertronic Sega division at Erbe. Sega would then break away from Erbe
after the company supported the launch of the Amstrad GX4000. Pastor
would then create his very own subsidiary of Sega which would
distribute, later, the Mega Drive.
Launch of the Master System in Spain (December 1987 from Micromania)
In France the Master System had an interesting history, arriving quite
early in 1986 being distributed by the company Master Games. But,
apparently, the company had never actually licensed the console from
Sega and did not really know what to do with it, so – in the end – only
sold nothing more than a couple of hundred systems. On the other hand,
the PC Engine sold via the company Sodipeng had quite the success, but
this was still after 1990 so it is not part of our discussion.
In Germany, the Master System was being distributed by Bertelsmann
which, after Atari started losing their grasp of the market, would
quickly make up for some important sales. It was only after 1990, with
the arrival of Nintendo with their European headquarters based in the
country, that the Master System would start serious losing market share
in favor of the NES.
Sales numbers from Sega Power (May 1991)
My hope with this small “discussion” on the European gaming market was
to, finally, try and put together some of the information spread out
there, along with providing a sort of alternate narrative to the
prevalent “Nintendo” and US-centric one, so common online. With how
unfamiliar consoles and computers felt to the audience, the general
population of Europe definitely took more time to get to know what will
soon become part of their lives. Consequentely, the fledgling gaming
industry ended up taking quite a different direction from that of the
US. Clearly this different state of things also ended up influencing the
developers that were working in those decades, which is how Europe was
home to such interesting studios such as Delphine Software, DMA Design,
Radarsoft and Rainbow Arts.
Even all these years later, the way history has influenced the gaming
tastes of the population can still be felt, with inspirations that are
quite different from country to country. What is of utmost importance is
to try and preserve this rich gaming cultural heritage, since it is very
much at risk of being lost forever. In an era where every game can be
sold everywhere in the world, it might seem strange to go back to a time
where consoles needed to be “imported” and marketed to have a chance of
success. But this is where we come from, where the industry with all of
its faults and problems was born and thrived. If we are to understand
and figure out the identity and presence of this “new” medium, history
is our necessary introduction.
Thank you for reading.
If you would like to help me to keep the project running, be sure to
check out my patreon or alternatively, offer me a coffee.
Sources & References
For more information on the VideoPac and Intron, check out this detailed
article [in Swedish but it is easily translatable] by Martin Lindell
whom I also thank for the info provided.
Information on Nintendo in Spain from Hobby Consolas. Thanks also to
Marçal Mora for the kind help.
Information on Portugal thanks to J.B. Martins, check out his Youtube
channel.
Study on the Austrian gaming industry in the 90s by Eugen Pfister.
For Slovakia, it is interesting to take a look at several recent
translations of games developed in the late 80s. Also recommended
reading, Gaming the Iron Curtain by Jaroslav Švelch.
On Abandonware France, quite interesting article (in English) on the
state of things in France and the “French touch”.
"""
--
Jesús Cea Avión _/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/
jcea at jcea.es - https://www.jcea.es/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/
Twitter: @jcea _/_/ _/_/ _/_/_/_/_/
jabber / xmpp:jcea at jabber.org _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/
"Things are not so easy" _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/ _/_/
"My name is Dump, Core Dump" _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/ _/_/
"El amor es poner tu felicidad en la felicidad de otro" - Leibniz
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