A Discussion on the European Gaming Market in the 80s

The European gaming market in the 80s, or rather, the global market was very much different to that of today. While perhaps stating the obvious, it is important to keep mind considering this article will analyze an era which we could define, generally, as “pre-globalization”.

Indeed, forty years ago, well before the digital revolution and on-line markets, each nation had a different and unique approach to the industry: this included the number of “gaming” systems available. This is especially true for Europe, a market that followed quite a different set of rules than the US. In order to try and figure out how the European market worked, along with how it shaped the industry and the public for the following decades, there is one thing to keep in mind: there is no single narrative. There are obvious trends running underneath many of the countries I will touch upon, but – worth repeating – there is no single revealing fact or event that might make it easier for someone to understand the way European consumers behaved during that decade nor what exactly happened that might have changed things overnight.

Let us also keep in mind that computers and consoles used to represent two different – almost completely so – market segments, with very minimal overlap. While it was indeed possible for a child or young teen to possess both, they would still have quite different gaming experiences on the two platforms. Except for the obvious that computers would teach one how to program, generally console games were aimed at a younger crowd and offered less variety: mostly arcade, platformers and sport games. There were no adventure games on consoles, except for a few late ports. There were RPGs, sure, but while many of them would not reach a Western audience, many times they were also plagued by simple text and mediocre translation that would make them quite the inferior counterpart to series like Ultima or Wizardry.

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