ruth_n_a

=Plan of the Investigation (100-150 Words) Tips]=

This investigation will assess the factors that led to the North American video game industry crash in 1983. I chose this topic due to my personal enthusiasm for video games and the immense importance of the crash in video game history: without the downfall of Atari, Nintendo would never have been successful worldwide and the gaming scene today would be drastically different. In addition, the glaring mistakes of the biggest contemporary competitors (especially Atari) are still relevant today when discussing the future avoidance of such a disaster.

I have evaluated the two key interpretations of the crash in my analysis: namely, the notion that Atari (and Warner) was almost entirely to blame for the crash, and the counterargument that external factors such as Activision and Commodore had the bigger impact.

To keep the scope of the study manageable I have carefully selected sources to include //Replay: The History of Video Games// by Tristan Donovan, //Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System// by Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost and contemporary articles from the crash published in //InfoWorld// and //New York Magazine//.