tendencies of spectrum game industry development
(c) chasm
during last few years the uprising interest for games and gamemaking became more evident, moreover, not only in russia, but also eastern and even western europe. in this article i want to follow the roots of this phenomenon and possible tendencies of its development and its place in the global spectrum scene.
historically was defined, that to the 1994 all major labels such as ocean, codemasters, gremlin, etc. stoped their publishing activity on spectrum and moved towards amiga, pc and game consoles, that started to gain more and more popularity. due to this fact, the software flow that joined western europe with its eastern part and which was strong enough earlier, grew weaker and finally became extinct. i don't know exactly, how it was in other countries of former socialism, such as poland, slovakia, chezh republic, but i guess spectrum (along with c64 and amiga) remained the most popular computer there till the mid 90-ies, and this can be proved by appearance of such games as "twilight", "quadrax", "prva akcia", "sherwood", "adventurer" between 1990-1995, but we all can be sure that in russia spectrum till the end of 90-ies was the most popular computer with thousands of users. at first, it was defined by relatively low prices for spectum clones, that were being produced with good sufficiency (some of them even on big national enterprises), besides, the prices for more progressive computers were still high, and that's why most of people couldn't afford to buy those expensive toys. for example, prices for amiga and pc varied between $300-1000, and a good working pentagon, scorpion costed about $20-100, of course, depending on its configuration. as it is known, the most part of computer users are gamers, so the main software sales for spectrum in ex-ussr were being kept by games. at the beginning, it were games that couldn't reach russia from europe earlier, and later, games, made by russians. of course, the major part of gamers dreamt about more "powerful" machines, which could allow to play more progressive games, comparing with those which were available for ordinary spectrumist till the mid 90-ies, exactly this fact pushed the most of gamemakers to make game conversions of popular games, as it could bring not only mental pleasure, but also real money. we can remember success of such games as "ufo 1, 2", "prince of persia", "mortal kombat", "black raven" (with its prototype -warcraft) and others, however, some original developments gained certain popularity "star inheritance" and its clones, "kolobok zoom", "pussy", "technodrom", "last hero of light force". to the end of 90-ies there was a situation, when second hand pc's became cheaper, and also game consoles as such as sps, 3do and saturn, it made some spectum users leave, and due to this the russian spectrum game industry grew weaker and weaker, cos it couldn't find a customer with enough of money. it can be described with the following table and diagramm, that shows the amount of games, released between 1990 and 2003.
+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+ |y.|90|91|92|93|94|95|96|97|98|99|00|01|02|03| +==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+ |n.|03|07|08|17|33|81|57|39|33|31|21|16|11|09| +==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+==+
and now here we came to the analysis of current sutuation, that appeared in the world spectrum game industry. in the beginning of new millennium, there were very few game releases, however, the activity of studio stall and action, who possess the persistance and continued to make games one after another, is an exclusion. other coders and programmers were being held by demoscene.
this situation resulted in a contest, held by perspective group in the beginning of 2002 and which pushed many programmers to develop their games. by the end, there was released a good compilation of interesting spectrum games. perspective decided not to stop and continued their activity by releasing a new game by action - "imperia 2", however, this action didn't succeed due to the low quality of the game (the publisher didn't check whether it is possible to play or not), and so free version of the game appeared in internet.
in the beginning of 2003 simon ullyatt from uk founds his label - cronosoft, oriented towards gamemaking for retro machines such as spectrum, zx81, c64, vic 20, oric, sord m5, dragon 32 and so on. currently this label distributes following games for spectrum: "egghead in space"; "football glory"; four games pack: "zblast sd", "scrolly stack", "dotathon 2" and "soliyawn"; "rough justice"; "gloop! "; "flashbeer"; "hop'n, 'chop"; "wanted dead or alive". however, i should mention the relatively high (comparing with russian) price 1.5-2.99 pounds and the fact, that all these games are released only on tape (due to the multiple versions of different dos), but it must be appreciated that simon ullyatt looks after the quality of released products.
now i'll try to analize the motivation that keeps gamemakers release games. let's begin with "russians". as i've read before, that it's almost improssible to gain any money for your project. so, what does make them carry their ideas thru titanically difficuilt work? elf asked a few people with this question on cafe'2003. and it appears that the main aspect in gamemaking is to be pleased with having your own game for spectrum. having read the letters from simon ullyatt and some forums at world of spectrum, i suppose, that there is almost equal situation in europe, cos the summs that author of the game gain from selling the project are very small and that's why i can conclude, that moral satisfaction can lead programmers into such actions (it's a pleasure to hold the designed cassette with your own game in your hands), or possibly, the feel of nostalgy also affects, concerning the shaw brothers.
to describe the situation more precisely, we decidied to make a poll, asking people do they play games, what games and will they buy anything. 38 spectrum lovers, active and not, ex-ussr and users abroad were qestioned. among them 22 people do play spectrum games, 16 won't pay a penny for any game, though there were 3 ones, who would like to sponsor the game projects and gamemakers' compos. also, we wanted to learn the playing activity and tastes of players, and here are the statistics of answers on the question "when did you play a spectrum game last time?":
yesterday - 4 3 days ago - 1 a week ago - 5 2 weeks ago - 1 a month ago - 2 2 months ago - 2 3 months ago - 1 4 months ago - 1 6 months ago - 5 a year ago - 3 2 years ago - 3 3 years ago - 1 5 years ago - 1 7 years ago - 1 10 years ago - 1 long time ago - 6
as you can see, people still play spectrum games and by the way, answers as "yesterday" and "a week ago" came mainly from abroad. the most popular games are "dizzy", "dan dare", "black raven", "star inheritance", "your game'02" compilation, "lethargy" and "pussy".
also, the poll results showed the image of a "perfect" game, which gamers would pay for. russian language users are definately for games like "star inheritance" and "black raven" -they are certain hits, and as i can suppose, many of western gamers don't even know about these games. also, the rpg games are popular, like "moon wind" and quality puzzles/logic games. europeans prefer action/adventure games, "dizzy" clones in particular. there were also specific opinions: for example, one our native demands mandatory mouse support, sound improvement (general sound, dma), hdd support and extended screen modes (for example, profi screen). though wouldn't pay more than 1-2 eur for such game :) most of europeans are orthodox - 48kb+tape standart is a stable classics and every game should run on such hardware, though one of the respondents would buy "good games, with more than 500kb size on disk, with mouse support, 512kb memory and zxvgs mode". but one thing that is common for every- one - the game genre is not important, it's only need to be a new game for spectrum, professionally made with a good screenplay.
finally, some words for distributors and developers. as time has showed, commercial distribution of games on the territory of the former ussr is almost unreal, cos the majority of spectrum users don' want to pay money and prefer to wait for free or crack releases of games. speaking about buying games released by cronosoft by russian gamers i can say only one thing, and this can seem too pity for our western mates, - nobody would pay more than 1, 5-3 eur for games of the 80-ies' technical level, and a tape version in addition. i realise, that for western retrogamers it's not so high price for the nostalgy, but for our consumers, spoilt by progressive games, its beyond the sense, cos even "your game'02" compilation and "imperia 2", surely made on a high technical level (higher, than all cronosoft releases), were seld in not more than 30 copies on a price of 3 eur. each.
some words for western game developers - if you want your products to be seen in ex-ussr, you should make a free release, or distribute your game thru perspective label, which would spread your game in tr-dos version, and can't count on any profit.
as the poll made among russian gamemakers showed, they don't even think about commercial distribution of their games, cos they understand that nobody would pay, and getting only moral satisfaction from realizing, that many people can play their game (for example, slip^action said, that he wrote a game and gave an agreement for commercial distribution of his game in the game pack only because he wanted spectrumists get acquainted with his novel, based on "imperia 2").
however, we shouldn't forget about the european spectrum users -the strong tr-dos attachment and russian language don't let them enjoy amazing games in a full scape, cos the only possibility to play these games is the usage of emulator with a total misunderstanding of russian, as like as we when playing the games, with incomprehensible for the most russians izquierda, derecha, arriba, abajo, fuego. to make 128kb game with a tape loader and to translate a game isn't so hard (for example, it can easily be made with "lethargy" by studion stall). then you can ask cronosoft about distribution and then to please yourself with knowing that your game is available for every real machine user all over the world. moreover, as simon ullyatt says, you won't lose the possibility to spread your game in any way you'd like to make it with royalties from every copy sold by cronosoft.
so, retrogaming still alive & speccy never die!!!