5 ms·

I was actually going through a list last night of Amiga/Atari games. Lots of memories.. Beverly Hills Cop, Barbarian, Commando, Leisure Suit Larry etc. Did any

by dev360 11y ago

I was actually going through a list last night of Amiga/Atari games. Lots of memories.. Beverly Hills Cop, Barbarian, Commando, Leisure Suit Larry etc. Did any of these game developers make money from the games? All I can remember was borrowing floppy disks from friends or downloading from BBS, we barely had places that sold games in Sweden.

snorrah 11y ago
Check out the documentary From Bedrooms To Billions - it goes into good detail about the early home computer game development scene, well worth a watch.
- dev360 11y ago
  Will check that out!
Numberwang 11y ago
Sjötofta BBS, ah the memories.
Keyframe 11y ago
They did make money, but in the later years most of them moved on to consoles where money was at.
sanoli 11y ago
I'm sure they made a pretty decent living, by any reasonable standard. The thing is, in the last decade or two, the bar has risen far, and people talk about "did they make money" as in "did they make 100 million or more", which is sadly way beyond what is needed to live a very good life. (I think it is sad only because the people who make 5 million over 25 years think they need to make more, and don't enjoy it as much).
bhaak 11y ago
I remember an interview with the developer of the Amiga port of Great Giana Sisters and he said he couldn't live from it but the paycheck was good enough for a decent car. But remember that this was obviously contract work. On the Amiga you had an impressive range of freeware developers to commercial developers. The commercialization had already reached levels where companies had their own development teams but you also still had companies that just paid some developers to develop a game for them.
SwellJoe 11y ago
Electronic Arts made a little bit of money, I think.
justinhj 11y ago
It was easier to make money back then. The barrier to entry making a game was higher since to get good performance you needed to write in assembly language. You had to rtfm as there was no internet to ask questions on. So a smallish number of developers were going after a booming demand for games. My first game in the industry was on Amiga and PC and made a decent profit for the company I worked for despite that I basically taught myself to program making it.

by dev360 11y ago

snorrah 11y ago

Check out the documentary From Bedrooms To Billions - it goes into good detail about the early home computer game development scene, well worth a watch.

dev360 11y ago
Will check that out!

Numberwang 11y ago

Sjötofta BBS, ah the memories.

Keyframe 11y ago

They did make money, but in the later years most of them moved on to consoles where money was at.

sanoli 11y ago

I'm sure they made a pretty decent living, by any reasonable standard. The thing is, in the last decade or two, the bar has risen far, and people talk about "did they make money" as in "did they make 100 million or more", which is sadly way beyond what is needed to live a very good life. (I think it is sad only because the people who make 5 million over 25 years think they need to make more, and don't enjoy it as much).

bhaak 11y ago

I remember an interview with the developer of the Amiga port of Great Giana Sisters and he said he couldn't live from it but the paycheck was good enough for a decent car. But remember that this was obviously contract work. On the Amiga you had an impressive range of freeware developers to commercial developers. The commercialization had already reached levels where companies had their own development teams but you also still had companies that just paid some developers to develop a game for them.

SwellJoe 11y ago

Electronic Arts made a little bit of money, I think.

justinhj 11y ago

It was easier to make money back then. The barrier to entry making a game was higher since to get good performance you needed to write in assembly language. You had to rtfm as there was no internet to ask questions on. So a smallish number of developers were going after a booming demand for games. My first game in the industry was on Amiga and PC and made a decent profit for the company I worked for despite that I basically taught myself to program making it.