Hot take! The ZX Spectrum saved UK gaming in the 80s!
While the US industry crashed, its low cost meant a wave of homegrown developers kept gaming alive and helped shape today’s industry giants.
US gamers often have no idea about this!
#ZXSpectrum #retrocomputing #retrogaming
Photo: Peter Jordan
While the US industry crashed, its low cost meant a wave of homegrown developers kept gaming alive and helped shape today’s industry giants.
US gamers often have no idea about this!
#ZXSpectrum #retrocomputing #retrogaming
Photo: Peter Jordan
Comments
(Dyson has destroyed his own reputation in my eyes.)
I feel the same way about Singapore Jim.
You're right, most people stateside don't know or maybe just like to gloss over it, but it's the truth.
Ultimate, Codemasters, Ocean, and many more became massive worldwide.
Many of them making games for the very system that they like to claim saved the world!
But also it's popularity, made games development such a viable business model that software houses were springing up all over as a direct result!
But the cream rose to the top, and pretty soon there were big names that you just knew you could trust.
And whilst a ton fell to the way side, the others went on to change the industry!
https://bsky.app/profile/gamewhisperer.bsky.social/post/3lchft3vdlv2y
So people were free to experiment without the primary focus being a projected profit analysis.
It drove the uptake of other platforms as well as its own.
Without the Spectrum's impact on the market, that would simply never have happened, and my whole life would have sucked. 🙂
Suffice to say that all changed when I got my 64. I really don't know how I might otherwise have turned out.
The greatest UK computer brought about a gaming revolution, period.
Also, it is true that some americans believe the game crash was global. Heck no.
And good ol' Sir Clive here did marry a stripper because he thought she loved him, and was then surprised by the divorce when his money started drying up sooo... you know... Not always right!
Well at least in his eyes anyway...
And probably many distraught parents, who brought little Timmy and Tabatha a Spectrum to do their homework on, but all they ever do with it is play Atic Atac and Chuckie Egg. 😂
Most working class parents, at least round our way, just accepted that the kids were having fun for the most part! 😆
My M128 was what really changed everything for me but it was costly!!
We had a flourishing 8bit microcomputer scene here in the UK, and Japan was doing quite nicely as well. Hell, even in the US the C64 and Apple II had healthy markets. It was only /1
(I even did a video about it a few weeks back).