Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
attempting to cut into the substantial market of video games. From the
perspective of wordplay, this marks two interesting elements. First, the
home market for video games grew from nonexistent to prized in a matter
of a few years. Within roughly a decade of the Odyssey's grand failure,
almost a dozen companies were making home consoles. Video games had
begun to establish themselves within the homes of the middle and upper
classes. Separately, all the attention to the new marketplace had a deleteri-
ous ef ect on each individual console. With more than ten dif erent consoles
and potentially dozens of games for each on the market, retailers had a
hard time retaining enough shelf space to stock and promote the growing
number of products. The massive number of options was also confusing
for consumers, as keeping track of all of the dif erent products posed dif-
fi cult buying decisions for anyone uninformed about the marketplace for
video games. The rapid growth fueled options, but the options cluttered
the market, confounding the ef orts of companies to distinguish themselves
and their messages.
As the console market began to shake out, and companies whose prod-
ucts did not sell well dropped out of the competition for market share, the
rhetorical environment of consoles became less clouded, which benefi ted
Atari greatly. As the most popular console option of its time, it survived
the winnowing process, pushing out many of its contemporaries. As it
did so, it was struck with a dif erent problem. Compensation structures
and norms surrounding employment had not been established within the
growing video game industry and a variety of factors led several of Atari's
top programmers to leave and found a game development company called
Activision. Knowing that they had produced several of the most popular
games for the VCS, Activision's programmers continued making games for
the system, while obtaining independence from a management structure
they found stifl ing and unrewarding at Atari. Prior to Activision, almost
all of the games for the VCS were fi rst party titles, those made by Atari.
The entire business model for the VCS was founded on the notion that
making successful games would be what turned a profi t. Activision shat-
tered Atari's illusion of safety, developing games for the VCS console and
benefi tting from the large installed base of consoles Atari established. This
development set of a massive new competition for Atari, one that turned
out to be quite damaging to their prospects of establishing the home as a
lasting place for video game play.
The rapid success of Activision demonstrated that there was good money
to be made in developing games for the VCS. At the time, Atari had not pro-
grammed security measures into the console to prevent others from devel-
oping games and had little authority over what titles could be made for
the system or on what terms third party developers could produce games.
The lack of control, combined with the perceived opportunity for massive
profi ts meant Atari was once again competing against scads of companies.
The fl ood of cartridges for the VCS also meant that the number of games
