Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
aged and Atari was not developing a new console they ceded their position
as an innovator, enabling rivals to produce options that of ered game devel-
opers and home users a more compelling gaming experience.
Economic and cultural forces along with the lack of centralized con-
trol over game approval, and technological growth, ended up devastating
Atari's prospects. Atari was wildly successful in establishing the home as a
desirable place for video game play, but their success was executed in a way
that was not sustainable. The context of video games changed, establishing
a new location for play and radically popularizing the activity, but Atari
suf ered from the lack of established business norms in the new industry.
Things that are a taken for granted part of the contemporary video game
industry, like the royalties and licensing agreements that are part of console
publishing deals or the periodic need to release a new console, did not exist.
Without norms that were later established, Atari was left with a tremendous
amount of revenue and control outside of their reach. As a result of Atari's
shortcomings, console makers changed their approach, but the overwhelm-
ing success of Atari with Home Pong and the VCS redefi ned notions about
where video games could be played. The move into homes transformed the
video game industry, changing the kinds of games that were designed, as
the economic point of games shifted from attracting quarters to warranting
the purchase of a cartridge. The new space for games led to new rules that
can continue to be seen as games reach into other new markets, from the
web to Facebook to mobile gaming. Each of these new spaces requires the
development of new norms, which can also lead to new modes of play.
MODES OF PLAY
Atari's establishment of the home as a suitable location in which to play
video games caused certain practices in the game industry became more
standardized. While North American video game companies suf ered a
crash in home systems and a retrenchment from overexpansion of arcades,
Nintendo was able to thrive in Japan and remain relatively isolated from
the turmoil an ocean away. Based on the success of imported versions of
consoles resembling the Odyssey, Nintendo developed and released the
Family Computer or FamiCom that was eventually introduced into the
United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System, or NES. Although
U.S. retailers, burned by the collapse of the video game industry, were hesi-
tant to stock the system, Nintendo's persistence and unwillingness to bow
to poor focus group results and marketing advice led to the debut of a sys-
tem that swept the country in Nintendo fever. Nintendo reestablished the
home as a site of play and altered how players engaged video games.
One of the key moves that Nintendo made was to learn from the failures
of Atari. Nintendo insisted on extraordinarily restrictive agreements on
licensees to control the fl ow of games. When the console was eventually
threatened by the release of a competing console from Sega, known as the
