How one game killed one company.
Way back when the games Industry was in its infancy, there were many UK software houses. Many were filled with self taught once - were - bedroom programmers. Many became highly successful and highly profitable.
This Doc focuses on Imagine and ocean software and a particular game for the spectrum called "Bandersnatch" It`s a great bit of historic video, and fascinating to watch because the company Imagine, folds within 18 months of its birth..... and we get to see it. What should`ve have been a regular BBC documentary on how a game gets from the drawing board to the shops, turned into the slow death of a company captured on film.
The Culprit? the very game we see being coded. it becomes more expensive the more work that goes into it. It was marketed well ahead of its release,
The Game is so advanced that it needs to be purchased with various stuff that has the required chips to run the game - quite new back then - and look how we `re so used to various peripherals for current game systems today! But this is the early 1980`s. £40 is a lot of paper. Right at that point in time, given the market, making a game more expensive than usual makes for nervous retailers AND parents who are, at the end of the day, are the ones who are going to fork out the money for it.(and it is worth noting that generation did not grow up with computers)
Again, top bit of vintage British life.... and check them haircuts.
(the game resurfaced years later on the Amiga and the Atari ST)
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