The Video Game Crash of 1983
- Retro Remix
- May 14, 2025
- 2 min read
Back in the early '80s, video games weren’t just entertainment — they were a phenomenon, a way of life. Arcades were buzzing with excitement, and home consoles brought that arcade-like magic right into our living rooms. I still remember the hum of the CRT screen, gripping the joystick, trying to get a better score than my brother. It felt like we were living in the future.
But by 1983, that golden era came to a screeching halt. The video game crash hit hard, and for a moment, it looked like gaming might be gone for good.
The causes? There were plenty. First, the market was completely saturated. Everyone and their cousin wanted to make a video game console. Atari was the big name, but then you had ColecoVision, Intellivision, and a wave of third-party developers flooding the shelves with games — most of which were flat-out awful. Who could forget the infamous E.T. game for the Atari 2600? It was rushed, buggy, and downright unplayable. Millions of unsold cartridges ended up in a landfill in New Mexico. That wasn’t just an urban legend — it really happened.
Another issue was quality control, or rather the complete lack of it. With no real standards in place, companies pumped out 'shovelware' that turned off consumers quickly. Parents stopped buying, stores stopped stocking, and soon the entire ecosystem began to collapse. It wasn’t just consoles either — home computers like the Commodore 64 and Apple II were pulling attention and dollars away from dedicated gaming systems.
The crash had a massive impact on the industry. Game developers went bankrupt. Retailers wrote off video games entirely. For a couple of years, video games became a dirty word in business circles. It wasn’t just an industry issue — it was a cultural deficit. The excitement around gaming faded. For those of us who grew up on Pong and Pac-Man, it felt like our favorite pastime was just... gone.
Then, in 1985, something incredible happened. Nintendo, a company that was practically unknown in North America at the time, launched the Nintendo Entertainment System. But they were smart, and didn’t market it as a video game console; they called it an "Entertainment System" and packaged it with R.O.B. the Robot to appeal to toy stores that had sworn off gaming. It worked.
But what really saved the industry were the games: Super Mario Bros., Duck Hunt, Excitebike — these weren’t just games; they were polished, well-designed, and actually a TON of fun. Nintendo also implemented a strict licensing system to control third-party releases, which ended the flood of garbage title releases.
The NES didn’t just revive gaming — it redefined it. It gave us back that spark we thought we’d lost. And looking back now, with all the 4K graphics and online multiplayer we have today, there’s still something magical about blowing the dust out of a cartridge and hearing that 8-bit music kick in.
