Tokyo Video Game Tycoon.

Including Surrey Electronics and his own company, there are now a total of twelve game console companies selling in the mainstream US market.

Two of them were newly established within the last two weeks.

The investigation revealed that most of them had Wall Street financial giants behind them, and were clearly just employees trying to grab a piece of the market.

I'm not opposed to competition with Bamboo Star at all, provided it's healthy competition, not something that bothers you every day with things unrelated to the game.

Things like commercial lawsuits are really annoying.

However, there is one thing to be wary of in the competition in the gaming industry: bad money drives out good.

The market was flooded with terrible, low-quality games, leaving no chance for good games to stand out. As a result, the market collapsed completely, and people developed a crisis of trust in the industry.

This is not a joke; it actually happened in the original world.

In a past life, there was a significant upheaval in the history of the gaming industry, known as the Atari crash.

It was a crisis of trust in the video game industry triggered by a company called Atari.

Chapter 256 The Atari Collapse

The Atari crash is undoubtedly the biggest event in the history of the video game industry.

Atari was originally a game company, a company that started out in the arcade game industry.

A group of young people spontaneously created a billiards game called Pong. The game involves using a platform to catch a small ball and then hitting it against the blocks at the top of the screen until all the blocks at the top are eliminated.

After a group of young people created the game, they turned it into a simple arcade machine and placed it in a nearby bar.

As a result, the game became so popular that the boxes for storing coins eventually became so full that they caused bugs in the game, but this did not dampen the players' enthusiasm.

From then on, video games began to flourish.

Before this, it could only be called the barbaric era of games. It was only after these young people developed Pong that it could be called the bronze age of game history.

Then the company was naturally established, developed rapidly, and eventually became a giant in the video game industry.

At that time, Nintendo was the younger brother of Atari.

However, Atari made many wrong decisions after its expansion.

The most fatal flaw is the lack of restrictions on game content creation, resulting in countless low-quality games filling its consoles.

At the same time, these trash games are very cheap, averaging only about five dollars. They are often developed by only one or two people, and can be completed in just one or two weeks, making them quick and easy.

Those who buy games initially don't know much about video games. They don't really know whether a game is good or bad. In this state, the only thing they can use to measure is the price.

A high-quality game at that time would often cost around thirty US dollars.

But a low-quality game can cost as little as five dollars, or even less.

As a result, if buyers are not knowledgeable enough, they will subconsciously choose the cheaper option.

They're all video games, I can buy five or six for the same price, isn't that great?

This was the consensus among consumers at the time.

Back then, no one actively guided them on what games were fun and what games were trash.

They will only buy what is cheap.

Then, they bought it, played the game, and found it to be a pile of garbage. They then naturally concluded that all video games are garbage, have nothing interesting about them, and that playing this thing is a waste of their time.

This is a classic case of Gresham's Law (bad money drives out good).

The abundance of content overloads these consumers, leaving them no opportunity to experience higher-quality games.

Then came Atari's final fatal blow: the release of the ET, which caused Atari's stock price to plummet by almost half.

Consumers will vote with their feet. When there are only a bunch of bad games on the market, they will no longer bother to look at potentially better games.

As a result, the US gaming industry entered a two-year winter, until Nintendo appeared and saved the entire industry.

Without Nintendo, the US video game market would have remained stagnant for at least another decade, and this is no exaggeration.

Zhu Youxing hadn't expected his business to develop so rapidly. He had tried his best to control the trend of this situation, but the industry seemed to have inevitably headed down this path.

It seems this is some kind of overwhelming trend, an irresistible force.

However, it's encouraging that the video game market is not entirely without resistance.

Today, the Youxing Electronic Entertainment brand represents high-quality games.

In addition, Takeyusei restricts the content of its own game consoles, so bad games will not appear on its consoles. As long as you buy our game console, you will never think it is bad. At most, you just don't like this category, but you can't deny that the game is bad.

As Zhu Youxing looked at the newly sent information, his heart sank deeper and deeper.

A game console typically costs less than $150, and a game typically costs less than $10, which also includes the cost of the game cartridge itself.

Such a game is hardly worth playing anymore, even for Bamboo Star.

This is terrible, really terrible!

……

In New York, USA, at a newly established small game company, several young people excitedly clapped each other.

"Aha, our game has just sold 30,000 copies! We've made a profit of two hundred thousand dollars, that's absolutely outrageous!"

Another young man stood to the side, gulping down a freshly opened bottle of beer. He wiped his mouth and exclaimed excitedly, "We only spent half a month making this game! Doesn't that mean each of us earned 200,000 in just half a month? Is there any job more awesome than this?"

"no!"

Several young people shouted in unison.

They were filled with excitement and boundless pride, feeling that they had found the cause to dedicate their lives to.

This money is being made so fast!

"Come on, it's my treat to take you guys to a strip club and have some fun today!"

"Long live the boss!"

Long live video games!

Let's go crazy!

In many parts of the United States, numerous small game studios like these have sprung up like mushrooms after rain.

They are usually just two or three college or high school dropouts who get together, have a roguish air about them, and throw themselves into game development with the little programming knowledge they have.

Game development isn't actually that difficult; it's just a little challenging to get started. But as long as you know programming and have some basic drawing skills, you can create a simple game.

Especially with all sorts of hit games already available, all they need to do is download the program, make a few minor modifications, and then they can repurpose it into their own game and release it.

These games are generally of very poor quality and have not been tested at all.

Some even experience game console crashes immediately after purchase because inserting a cartridge, rendering the console unusable.

Consumers are naturally unhappy, and they will go to the department store to request repairs or refunds.

The department stores would naturally seek redress from the game console developers, but the game console developers didn't seem to care much.

Because only a minority of people actually return the product for this reason. Most Americans are too lazy to do such a thing; they just consider it a bad experience and vow never to buy such garbage as video games again.

Most of those game console developers were also caught up in the short-term surge in sales, completely disregarding the future of the gaming industry.

Chapter 257 Coping Strategies

In recent months, a number of very young entrepreneurs have emerged.

They spend money very lavishly and without restraint, frequenting all sorts of places and boasting about their secrets to business success.

"Let me tell you, as long as we gather a few young programmers and make some simple games, which can be completed in just half a month and then released to the market, we can immediately get more than ten times the return. Now is the best time."

Inside a nightclub karaoke bar, several young men, exposing themselves to young and beautiful women, held expensive champagne and excitedly talked about their recent path to wealth.

Many people listened attentively in the background.

"Are video games really that profitable? Why didn't we discover this before?"

The young man holding the champagne scoffed, "Heh, that just shows your ignorance. Video games have become a mainstream form of entertainment. If you make one, everyone will be scrambling to buy it. You won't have to worry about selling it!"

Come on, let's jump up and sing! Let's celebrate our harvest today!

In these nightclubs, they recklessly squander their money, a stark contrast to the many families living there.

The children were delighted to see the game consoles and cartridges their parents had bought for them.

They were just a little confused because these seemed different from the game consoles their classmates had bought.

However, since they are all called game consoles, they should be similar. Moreover, my parents are very generous and can buy more than ten games at once. Even if there are some that I don't like to play, there will always be some that I like. I can also show off how many game cartridges I have at school.

However, when they happily connected the TV and inserted a DVD called "American Soldier's Adventure," the TV suddenly emitted a series of piercing screams, scaring the children so much that they almost fainted.

The parents were also startled. They hurriedly came over to turn off the TV, then looked at the cassette tape with a puzzled expression, and then glanced at their somewhat frightened child.

"Dad, this is different from what my classmates said. They didn't say that this thing would scream."

"Perhaps... there's something wrong with the operation. Let's turn the TV volume down a bit."

The father was also a little unsure, so he turned the TV volume down to the lowest level and then tried to turn on the game console.

Even so, the sound of this cassette tape was extremely loud, which was very annoying.

The good news is that the game is at least already running.

The game looks almost identical to Contra, and even the gameplay is the same, making it quite clumsy.

But at least this game can be played with a controller.

Finally, the father couldn't help but turn the volume down, which slightly improved the gaming experience.

The child quickly forgot the previous unpleasantness and began to play intently.

However, the good times didn't last long. After just passing the first level, the game console started to lag inexplicably, and the entire game screen showed noticeable delays. In short, all sorts of terrible gaming experiences combined to make the game extremely unpleasant to play.

Finally, the child couldn't stand it anymore and decided to try a different cassette tape.

Next, I tried several different cartridges, but the result was the same; there was no improvement.

The game either suddenly lags or the game itself is not well-made at all, and it is completely a half-finished test version that can only be played for ten minutes before it ends.

In the end, the child gave up completely and began to doubt whether this was really the fun game his classmates had been touting. Why was it so rubbish?