The only time video games were dominated by motivated individuals was the initial explosion of D&D ripoffs on college mainframes.
Everything commercial has an undercurrent of taking those bright young minds and wringing them dry. Atari 2600 programmers were told they contributed as much as the guy who put the cartridge in the cardboard box. Atari’s best left to found Activision, which was all about excited artistic et cetera, until they did the same shit. Activision’s best left to found Accolade, which was all about et cetera, until Accolade’s best left to found Acclaim, which-- you get the idea.
Even the proto-indie boom on British microcomputers, famously starring a lot of teenage bedroom coders, was about tape duplicators making bank and paying those children a pittance. The kids who rose above that and started proper businesses had even odds for burning out, going bankrupt, or endlessly cranking out shoddy ports of licensed games.
Things are fucked right now. But they were kinda fucked back then, too.
The only time video games were dominated by motivated individuals was the initial explosion of D&D ripoffs on college mainframes.
Everything commercial has an undercurrent of taking those bright young minds and wringing them dry. Atari 2600 programmers were told they contributed as much as the guy who put the cartridge in the cardboard box. Atari’s best left to found Activision, which was all about excited artistic et cetera, until they did the same shit. Activision’s best left to found Accolade, which was all about et cetera, until Accolade’s best left to found Acclaim, which-- you get the idea.
Even the proto-indie boom on British microcomputers, famously starring a lot of teenage bedroom coders, was about tape duplicators making bank and paying those children a pittance. The kids who rose above that and started proper businesses had even odds for burning out, going bankrupt, or endlessly cranking out shoddy ports of licensed games.
Things are fucked right now. But they were kinda fucked back then, too.