Blog #5 --- 1985-1989

I’d like to start out this post by asking, why are people from America, Mexico, Romania, and Russia viewing my blog? 19 people from America? Unless my mother found my blog, I find that a little bit concerning.

Someone once told me:

“The second half of a decade is what’s remembered, and what defines the decade”.

I would say that person was you, but it turns out my teacher isn’t the only one reading this, so that might be a little too direct.

The statement is definitely true in the gaming industry, with huge releases that would have many sequels, such as Super Mario Bros 3, Dragon Quest 3, Zelda 2, and even final fantasy, all games which anyone today would recognize, even the one person in Romania who found my blog.

1985 was the year that Bethesda was created, but they didn’t release their first title until one year later, which was called ‘Gridiron!’ which is “a frame of parallel bars or beams, typically in two sets arranged at right angles, in particular.”

Seriously though, I learned about this game when I had a tour of the EA studio in Burnaby. Bethesda focused not on graphics, but trying to make the physics as good as possible. It was so impressive that EA bought it and used it for Madden, so technically, this game spawned many successful football games.

The next game the released was called ‘Vortex’, meaning that, again, I have to be extra specific when I google it. Due to the fact that it has no wiki page, and the only description on any site is that it’s “an action game published by Bethesda”, I’ll have to assume that it wasn’t very successful.

[Literally 0 images of Vortex]

1986 was a very successful year in the gaming industry, many amazing games were released such as [that one game you discussed in class], and [those other 2 games you discussed in class]. One that wasn’t stolen mentioned in class, was Starflight, and EA game that went to sell over a million copies.

The game was originally developed for IBM compatible and Tandy systems (Which I’ve never heard of), but due to its success, was later released for the Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh and Commodore 64. The game was set in the year 4620 and blah blah blah I’m running out of words and I’ve only covered 2 years. 

1987 looks like the year that video games start becoming real business. EA and Activision are going around buying companies, and Nintendo is suing [A company that was named during the lesson].

This is also the year that Zelda was released, which is said to be the longest running and most popular series of games. I played Zelda on the Gameboy when I was about 8, but it was too late. I had already been corrupted by Halo and World of Warcraft.

I’ll skip ahead to 1989, which is the year that I was ‘born’ according to every social media site I joined when I was 12. This was also the year that Lucasfilm Games, which is a bit redundant, released Pipe Dream, renamed to Pipe mania. You can find this game on essentially any platform nowadays. It’s a game that visually represents hacking a computer.