0:00

The

0:00

year twenty twenty three is almost upon

0:03

us and you know what that means. It's time for us to

0:05

look back ten, twenty, thirty,

0:07

fifty years into the history video games to

0:09

talk about the things that happened all those

0:11

decades ago. Yes. It's another

0:13

years in review review. Of course, we do things

0:15

backward. We start this episode. talking

0:18

about the games of nineteen seventy three

0:20

and then move along to nineteen eighty three

0:22

and get partway through that. You could look forward

0:24

to future episodes where we finish up eighty

0:26

three and move on to nineteen ninety three

0:28

before Bob wraps things up by looking

0:31

at two thousand three in the game's industry's attempt

0:33

to recover. from the terrible hangover

0:35

of two thousand and two. If you'd like

0:37

to hear the whole episode, all you have to do is

0:39

go to patreon dot com slash retronauts

0:42

and subscribe to the show at the exclusive

0:44

content level five dollars a month or more.

0:47

Not only will you have instant access to this

0:49

entire episode, Also be able

0:51

to enjoy a few years' worth of patron

0:53

exclusive episodes published every other Friday,

0:56

as well as exclusive weekly columns

0:58

from Diamond Fight also include a mini

1:00

podcast. And you'll get to talk

1:02

about old video games on Retronauts

1:04

Discord with other Retronauts listeners

1:07

and the show's hosts. So

1:09

please enjoy this free preview and

1:12

head over to patreon dot com slash

1:14

retronauts to subscribe and

1:16

enjoy the whole thing and a whole bunch

1:18

of other stuff. And now we look to the

1:20

future by talking about the past.

1:23

As New Year's arrives, it's time for us

1:25

to look back at years in history

1:27

that came ten, twenty, thirty, even

1:30

forty, no, wait, fifty. years

1:32

earlier. Actually, I don't think we're gonna do ten. I think we're gonna

1:34

start with twenty because ten doesn't seem that

1:36

long ago now that we're old. But fifty,

1:39

that was that was actually before I was born.

1:41

can actually say that. I'm so proud. So,

1:44

yes, we're going to start to this episode

1:46

talking about nineteen seventy three. We're

1:48

also going to talk about nineteen eighty

1:50

three. And in a future

1:52

episode, we'll talk about nineteen ninety three.

1:55

But as with the past couple

1:58

of year end year end

1:59

review reviews that I've done,

2:02

instead of trying to address every

2:04

single thing that happened in these years, which

2:07

is just gonna lead to digressions and

2:09

delays and this podcast will take hours

2:11

to complete. Instead, I

2:14

have put together a list and ask everyone

2:16

to talk about a few things each

2:19

year that they find of particular interest.

2:21

So we're just going to touch on the highlights.

2:24

of nineteen seventy three and nineteen

2:26

eighty three as we prepare for twenty

2:28

twenty three just to give some

2:30

context for what was happening

2:32

in video gaming. at these particular

2:35

junctures in history.

2:37

And in nineteen seventy three, there wasn't much

2:39

of video gaming to be found which

2:42

is why I've called in three

2:44

heavy hitters for this episode. I might

2:46

have overdone it. This might be too many

2:48

heavy hitters for one episode. Those three guys.

2:51

What's that? We're gonna be hitting each other. No,

2:53

please don't. Just hit

2:55

on topics of video game history

2:57

and that'll be good. by heavy hitters, you just

2:59

mean old people? Is is that No. I mean, people

3:01

who know a lot about these topics because

3:04

I'm older than you. And yet, I do not

3:06

know as much about the year nineteen seventy

3:08

three in video gaming because I've kind

3:10

of drawn a line for myself and said,

3:12

you know, once the famicom launched,

3:15

that's where I'm gonna start a video game history and

3:17

everything before that, like, I'm aware

3:19

of it, but I don't know it with the depth that you

3:21

do because I didn't have access to mini video

3:23

games outside of arcades back then.

3:25

and haven't really

3:28

found much motivation, internal

3:30

motivation to dredge

3:32

up old computers and Preview

3:35

video game systems to to

3:37

spend time exploring them. And hey,

3:39

maybe that's a failing in myself, but I

3:41

I coped to it And so

3:43

to compensate for my feelings,

3:46

I brought in people who can talk about

3:49

cool and interesting things in nineteen

3:51

seventy three. So we're going to start in

3:53

the arcade space. And

3:56

let's see. Someone here

3:58

is in purple. I think that's Kevin.

3:59

You're going to tell us about space

4:02

race. Kevin, why is

4:04

space race? The first thing we're going to talk about in

4:06

nineteen seventy three. What was so significant and

4:08

important about space race? it should

4:10

be the lead off for this episode. So

4:14

space race, it's a

4:16

game where you're Two player

4:18

games got a rocketship on each

4:20

side and you're just trying to make it to the top

4:22

of the screen and avoiding, you know,

4:24

little asteroids that are just no

4:26

specs of light on the screen. You

4:29

can think of Activision's freeway, but

4:31

with much worse graphics, and that's

4:33

actually a pretty relevant comparison

4:37

because David Crane, who wrote

4:39

freeway for the Tory two thousand six hundred,

4:42

has directly said that

4:44

you know, he played Space Race, thought it was

4:46

a cool idea and revisited that

4:48

gameplay concept for his game.

4:51

This was particularly interesting

4:54

because this was actually a game

4:56

that Ted Davney and

4:58

Nolan Bushnell started working on

5:00

before computer space. which,

5:02

you know, came out in seventy one and was the

5:04

first arcade video game.

5:06

They never really got

5:08

too far with it. ultimately

5:11

when they started up atari, Bushnell

5:14

worked on it a little bit and then set it aside again.

5:17

And then after Al Alcorn

5:19

finished a song. He dropped

5:21

the project off on him and told him to,

5:23

you know, finish it up. unlike

5:26

Kong, which was sort of targeting that adult

5:28

demographic of people who hang out in bars and

5:30

bowling alleys, this target

5:32

audience for this was children. which

5:35

they felt would be a different

5:37

market segment, so it wouldn't be

5:39

atari competing with itself. And

5:41

it wasn't a huge hit. I mean,

5:43

sold fifteen hundred units, which was

5:45

moderately successful for the time.

5:47

But the real legacy here is that

5:50

freeway is a much

5:52

more successful game for the twenty

5:54

six hundred, and it

5:56

probably would not have existed. We're a not

5:58

for space race.