Tag: Pc games

Video Game crash of 1983

In 1983 the video games industry was hit with a recession that almost ended the existence of video games of that time period. This period lasted for almost two years from 1983 to 1985. Many people and journalists who were critical were calling video gaming a fad. Numerous companies went bankrupt or stopped making video games entirely. This recession is known as the Great North American Video Game Crash or Atari Shock (Primarily in Japan).

Video games in the 1970s were dominated by arcade machines and by the end of the decade home game consoles were also getting popular. With the start of the 1980s, the video gaming industry witnessed a boom with numerous companies like Mattel, Atari, and Coleco dominating the market. The early 80s was a time of innovation and growth in the video game industry but there was instability in the industry as well. This was a time period when video games were becoming more mainstream and popular. Many new players entered the market ranging from industries to small developers that had no association or prior experience in game development in general.

  • Super Nintendo Entertainment System released on November 1990 (Successor to NES)

Pacman was a big hit in the early 80s and it was not of the most popular video games in the arcades. Its successor Miss. Pacman improved on the formula and was a success as well. After the success of Pacman in the arcades, Atari wanted to replicate the success in the home game consoles. But with the limited constraints with the memory and short development period, the game was not well received by the consumers and critics alike. In 1982 Atari also brought the license to release the video game of the movie for 21 million. The game was developed in a time period of only 5 weeks. The game was negatively received and only 1 million copies of the game were sold off the 5 million manufactured. Many of the sales were also returned to the retailers furthering the damage. During this period video games were being published by small developers with very poor quality and many big developers were producing games that were more of a marketing token than the game. There were many clones of the same games with little to no redeeming quality and replayability. There were also numerous consoles unlike today with too many options that were no different from one another. With the abundance of supply and low sales of games, retailers started to remove stocks of video games and this led to the shrinking of the industry. Atari had lost $500 Million in 1983 and had to cut its workforce from 10,000 employees to just 400 employees.

During the 1980s there was a boom in the Personal Computers market as well. The PCs were much more powerful than consoles and they could play games and do many tasks like word processing and spreadsheets. The PC industry was unaffected by this low point of video game consoles.

In 1985 Nintendo Corporation launched the Nintendo Entertainment systems in North America and Nintendo ensured that only a limited number of games to be released under their license agreement. This ensured a certain threshold of quality for the games that were released for the system and Nintendo emerged out of the survivor from the video game crash. The Nintendo Corporation started to dominate the video game industry with an assurance of quality that was unmatched by any other corporation at that time. Many other entrants like SEGA also emerged after the crash. Nintendo with its approach and license and quality assurance of video games has left a big impact on the industry to this date. Video games industry has only grown since then and also overtaken other source of entertainment. Nintendo can be credited to provide the industry a trajectory that was severely needed after the crash of 83.

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The Story of the Best Selling Video Game of all time: Tetris

Tetris has its origin in the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre (Research Lab). It was one of the foremost research institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences, located in St Petersburg, Soviet Union (Now Russia). Created by software researcher Alexey Pajitnov in 1984, Tetris is a simple tile-matching game that took the world by storm upon it’s release.

It was developed for Electronika 60, which was a computer, made in the Soviet Union. This period was the final stage of the Cold war Era and computers were becoming more popular as well.

The game wasn’t intended as a commercial product just like the creation of the music record. But it was to be distributed freely among academic institutions around the Soviet Union and the economic bloc of countries aligned with the USSR in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas that demonstrated use cases for the software.

As USSR was a communist state, so Pajitnov did not technically own the program as the game was under the ownership of the state. Pajitnov along with the help of a colleague, Dmitry Pavlovsky, and a teen computer programmer, Vadim Gerasimov continued to work on the game project even though commercializing it would have been a risky move under the Soviet government. Gerasimov further ported the game from the old and bulky Elektronika 60 to the more widely used (IBM) compatible PCs.

As Elektronika 60 had no graphics output, the individual blocks in the game were made of different text, but with the port in PC, they were able to support color graphics. This brought the game to life.

Pajitnov and Gerasimov had started distributing Tetris for (PC) in 1985 among their friends and colleagues in various math or computer conventions. Soon the sharing spread and the game was smuggled outside USSR to Hungary. During mid-80s U.S and Japan had a more prevalent console market whereas, in Europe, gaming was primarily done on computers. There was a non-existent software market in Russia and most software was usually copied in floppy disks.

Welcome screen of 1987 version of Tetris

In 1986 Robert Stein, a salesman from the UK-based software company Andromeda spotted Tetris at Hungary’s Institute of Computer Science. He was convinced by the potential of the software and he struck an agreement with Pajitnov to sell the games internationally. But legally Tetris was still under the ownership of the Soviet government.  There was one problem, the agreement was only for the PC and not for any other platform and Stein has struck a deal with Sega to launch the game on their platform. Later Henk Rogers, another salesman from the Netherlands wanted to find a good launch game for the Nintendo’s new Game Boy handheld. The Soviet government was not happy with the Stein deal. But Rogers convinced the Soviet government and they agreed and he also formed a good relationship with Pajitnov. Later Andromeda’s license of Tetris was deemed illegal. Nintendo was given the right to launch the game on its console. The GameBoy was a platform to showcase one of the first video games exported from Russia. The game was a commercial hit and it has been ported to the most number platforms to date. The game also holds the record as the best-selling game of all time. In 1996, Pajitnov was able to reclaim the ownership of the rights and formed the Tetris Company, along with Henk Rogers. Even though he missed collecting the potential royalties for Tetris which were over hundreds of millions, he was still able to secure the future royalties.

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Top 10 Pc Games You Need To Play

In recent years, computer games are very popular among Indian gamers. The evidence is the growth of the gaming community, 

the game industry is rising faster in India with a greater number of new games, players, and esports events. Let’s check out the top 10 most popular PC games in India and see which is the hottest game in the country now. 

1. Apex Legends:

This is one of the most popular Battle Royale Games now. Although it’s also a multiplayer game, it’s pretty different from PUBG or Fortnite. The programmers of Apex Legend produced a brand new non-verbal communication system. It lets you play with strangers who do not use a mic for voice chat. If you want to conquer exciting missions in Apex Legend, players can download the game for free from the Origin store.

2. PUBG:

PUBG now is called a cultural phenomenon in India with a huge number of players. Many small or big PUBG esports event in India this year has attracted great attention of the international gaming community. In PUBG, a hundred players join in a battle for survival on an abandoned island. After landing, players start to loot weapons, ammo, armor, and supplies to fight and try to survive until the end. It’s more realistic when playing FPS mode. If you would like to join a fierce match with some realistic and thrilling action, you can try PUBG.

3. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare:

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare now is the most favorite PC game with excellent graphics, exciting gameplay, and storyline. This is an exciting multiplayer shooting game with many thrilling in-game actions. The exo-suit is a great attraction in this season. In 2019, CoD achieved great success in India with a great number of players.

4. Fortnite:

The next title in this list is Fortnite released by Epic Game. It was said to be an replication of PUBG. Thus, the developer of Fortnite made a huge change in the recent comeback. They added more things to this update, making it different from PUBG. For example, players can build their buildings for defense in Fortnite. However, Fortnite fails to offers players a life-like game that PUBG does.

5. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey:

This is the fifth title in the list of popular PC games in India and an excellent RPG game at this time. With Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, you will have a totally different experience. However, the developers retain some certain elements of Assassin’s Creed game in this version. After all, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is still greatly welcomed by the Indian gaming community.

6. Frostpunk:

Frostpunk is an interesting city-building game. It starts in a post-apocalyptic frozen wasteland. Players need to lead and try to provide a group of refugees with bare necessities for survival, such as heat, food, water, and shelter. With unique gameplay and interesting storyline, Frostpunk is one of the most favorite games in India this year.

7. Nier Automata:

Nier Automata is an excellent action RPG game. With amazing and flexible gameplay, emotional storyline, exciting combats, interesting characters, and various lands to explore, it deserves one of the greatest games of the year. However, the awful PC port makes Nier Automata less attractive with players. After all, it’s still a favorite game of Indian players.

8. Divinity: Original Sin II:

Another favorite game of Indian gamers is Divinity: Original Sin II. You can play this game in single-player /multiplayer, competitive /corporative modes. Since its release, this RPG has been welcomed by gamers all over the world and in India, too. In this game, you can create your own character and choose the status, gender, race, and profile for your character. Moreover, you can join in fantastic combat and draw a brilliant plan to win.

9. Dirt Rally 2.0:

This is a fantastic racing game on PC. With better graphics and sound, this version of the rally, also known as Dirty Rally 2.0, bring players better gaming experiences. Though, the developers remain their tricky car driving skills in this version, requiring players to practice to win the race.

10. Metro Exodus:

The last game title in this list is Metro Exodus. It’s the third PC game in the post-apocalyptic FPS series based on Dmitry Glukhovsky’s novels. In Metro Exodus, you’ll join in an exciting journey to the ruins of the dead city Moscow. It provides players with a thrilling but fantastic feeling. That’s why Metro Exodus is one of the most popular PC games in India.