Now is the time for Atari to flourish, and no one could have imagined that two years later, the industry's leading company would collapse in just one year. It also led to the collapse of the entire North American game market.

After the Great Crash, North American gaming revenues fell by more than 90 percent, and the share price of Atari's parent company, Warner Group, evaporated by more than 50 percent.

In the four years since, no one in the United States has dared to talk about the gaming industry, and the local console market has completely disappeared.

Wu Ming had a disdainful expression on his face and explained: "Uncle Jianning, Trip, in fact, the collapse of Atari is already doomed, haven't you paid attention to the recent Atari 2600 games?"

Tripp Hawkins frowned when he heard this, and asked suspiciously, "After I took office, I investigated the games they released, and there seems to be no problem, is there something wrong?"

"No problem?!" Wu Ming listened to Hawkins' answer and sneered, "It's a big problem." Haven't you noticed that the Atari 2600 platform has started to spiral out of control?"

"Out of control?!"

Huo Jianning and Tripp Hawkins were surprised in unison.

"Yes, it's out of control. Wu Ming nodded and explained, "Before Activision was founded, video games were published directly through game design companies. Atari, for example, is the publisher of the Atari 2600. But now, many game companies are starting to learn from Activision, bypassing Atari's controls and freely producing and selling games on the Atari 2600 platform. ”

"In the past, it was good to say that there were fewer game companies, and there were fewer junk games on sale. But since the North American game market has grown, more and more capital has entered the industry. But the games they develop are mixed, and only a few companies maintain the quality of their games as strictly as ours. ”

"I don't see any problems at the moment, because players don't have much demand for the quality of the game. But sooner or later, players will grow up and demand more from the quality of the game. ”

"But the market is still flooded with a large number of low-quality games, and players have no information channels to learn about games that meet their tastes and are of excellent quality, so they can only buy those garbage games. ”

"That's when there's another game that's been publicized so much that it's already known to everyone in the United States. What do you think will happen when players buy the game and find out that the quality of the game is very poor?"

Huo Jianning pondered for a while, then replied hesitantly, "Will players abandon video games?!"

Immediately, Huo Jianning shook his head again, and said in disbelief: "Impossible, right?!"

Tripp Hawkins' eyes also widened, looking unimaginable.

When Wu Ming heard this, the corners of his mouth hooked up a sneer, "How is it impossible, Atari's slogan is 'Whoever can boldly underestimate the wisdom of Americans will earn money'." ”

"But players aren't really at the mercy of game developers like wooden men, and if players are fed up with the garbage games on the market, sooner or later they'll vote with their feet and send those game developers to hell. ”

Tripp Hawkins pondered for a moment and retorted, "Atari shouldn't be that stupid." And they can also supervise the game developers, after all, the Atari 2600 is developed by their company. ”

"As far as I know, Atari has sued Activision and should soon be able to take back the platform's regulatory powers. By then, the number of garbage games on the market should be significantly reduced. There won't be the kind of situation you said the boss said. ”

Huo Jianning also nodded and agreed: "Yes, just like Tripp said, it is impossible for Atari to watch from the sidelines and let other game developers release games on the Atari 2600 platform at will and make a lot of profits." ”

Wu Ming raised his eyebrows when he heard this, and retorted: "Don't forget, the United States still has antitrust laws, but the Atari 2600 chip has no copyright protection. Nine times out of ten, Atari will lose this lawsuit. ”

At this time, the North American home console game industry was almost monopolized by Atari.

At the end of the 19th century, because of the existence of industrial monopolies, some governments have tried to intervene in this phenomenon and behavior by means of legislation and other means. And Atari sued Activision this time, but instead ran into the muzzle of the gun.

A year later, Atari unexpectedly lost the case, and Activision's development and sale of the Atari 2600 third-party game did not constitute infringement.

This verdict not only gives Activision the freedom to develop and sell games, but also sends a signal to global speculators:

Anyone can bypass Atari control and freely produce and sell Atari 2600 games.

For a while, capital frantically poured into the game industry, and programmers, regardless of ability or experience, went to develop games for the Atari 2600 machine.

In the early 80s, when there was no mature media promotion, reviews and word-of-mouth communication, a considerable number of players could only rely on cassette covers to choose the games they wanted, and the taste and quality of the games were completely based on luck.

The full opening of the third-party market has put countless garbage games on the shelves.

In 1983, shipments of the Atari 2600 skyrocketed, but the limited market share meant that the games had to be sold at lower prices.

The already saturated market meets the dumping of inferior games, forming an endless cycle, dragging all developers and retailers in the North American game market into this vortex from which there is no escape.

A large number of games that have been produced are backlogged and cannot be sold, and players have also chosen to postpone the purchase of games due to poor quality.

Atari itself suffered a huge blow due to the strategic failures of Pac-Man and E.T. Alien.

This event in 1983 became known as the "North American Game Market Crash".

Huo Jianning and Tripp Hawkins were stunned, they really didn't expect Atari to lose the case. After thinking about it carefully, I found that the situation was really likely to be the same as Wu Ming said.

Huo Jianning had a flash of inspiration and said: "After our PSB game console is listed, it should end Atari's monopoly, and Atari should win the lawsuit at that time." ”

Wu Ming shook his head and said with a smile: "Uncle Jianning, you still haven't seen the key to the matter clearly. In fact, the key to this lawsuit is not the issue of whether the ridge has a monopoly, but that Atari's chips are not protected by copyright. ”

"With copyright protection, even if Atari creates a de facto monopoly, the courts can't do anything about them. But without copyright protection, even if Atari did not have a monopoly, they would have lost the case under the influence of many forces. ”

Later, Nintendo, isn't it because of the fact that Atari's third party is out of control vividly, so it set up a higher copyright protection chip for the red and white machine: 10NES.

Therefore, Nintendo, which has almost monopolized the North American game market, can arbitrarily manipulate third-party game developers, but the third party has no way to take Nintendo.

Even Activision, which had won the case, had to shift its focus to the development of entertainment software for personal computers.