The End of The Era and The Aftermath
See also: Arcade game: HistoryThe golden age cooled around the mid-1980s as copies of popular games began to saturate the arcades. Arcade video game revenues in the United States had declined from $8 billion in 1981 and $7 billion in 1982 to $5 billion in 1983, reaching a low of $4 billion in 1986. Despite this, arcades would remain commonplace through to the early 1990s as there were still new genres being explored. In 1987, arcades experienced a short resurgence with Double Dragon, which started the golden age of beat 'em up games, a genre that would peak in popularity with Final Fight two years later. In 1988, arcade game revenues in the United States rose back up to $6.4 billion, largely due to the rising popularity of violent action games in the beat 'em up and run and gun shooter genres. After yet another relative decline, US arcade video game revenues had fallen to $2.1 billion by 1991, by which time the sales of arcade machines had declined, with 4000 unit sales being considered a hit at the time.
One of the causes of decline was new generations of personal computers and video game consoles that sapped interest from arcades. In the early 1990s, the Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis in North America) and Super Nintendo Entertainment System greatly improved home play and some of the technology was even integrated into a few video arcade machines.
Read more about this topic: Golden Age Of Arcade Video Games
Famous quotes containing the words the end of, the, era and/or aftermath:
“We are, to put it mildly, in a mess, and there is a strong chance that we shall have exterminated ourselves by the end of the century. Our only consolation will have to be that, as a species, we have had an exciting term of office.”
—Desmond Morris (b. 1928)
“The key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young orators describe; the key to all ages is—Imbecility: imbecility in the vast majority of men, at all times, and even in heroes, in all but certain eminent moments: victims of gravity, customs and fear. This gives force to the strong,—that the multitude have no habit of self-reliance or original action.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.... Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)
“The aftermath of joy is not usually more joy.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)