Commercial Breaks - A documentary about Imagine and Ocean Software (Full Uncut Version)
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- Опубликовано: 25 авг 2024
- I'm uploading this video as Google Video is closing down at the end of this month and wanted to have a place online for people to watch it.
But I'm tempted to create a new channel dedicated to archiving video game TV shows, would anyone be interested in that?
Fantastic bit of history showing a behind the scenes of software houses Ocean and Imagine circa 1983/4. Following text from home.iprimus.co... In early 1984 the Imagine team were working on a spectacular project known as Bandersnatch. The game was to come in an A4 sized box containing around 30 'goodies' including a required additional piece of hardware for your Spectrum computer. The retail price of Bandersnatch was expected to be around £40 and it was to be a completely new concept in computer games. Apparently 10 professional artists were working on the graphics alone. Bandersnatch was never released. On the 9th of July 1984, Imagine went bust after only 18 months of operation. Interestingly, its demise was documented by a BBC television program.*** *** Note. This is the very video that the text is talking about. :-)
Imagine being locked out of their own offices is now Legendary. Every history of the bedroom coder era mentions it.
Also the complaint about “everyone is producing the same games, we need to differentiate ourselves!” But 3/4ths of them are platformers with a little guy jumping around a screen
As a friend in the game industry recently told me, “Ideas are ten to a dozen; execution is everything.”
Such an awesome watch. "I don't think the odd chap copying a tape from his friend is the problem..." at around 17:40 is a remarkable thing to watch considering the current stance on piracy by most publishers.
Also, it's really precious how honest a look this gives into what goes behind the scenes in game and software development in general. The meetings, the programmer frustrations, the finance worries etc.
Also still very relevant in current times as well, if not more so. And I would wet myself if I ever saw an Ocean truck drive by. A man dreams.
Thanks for posting this.
I find myself more and more reminiscing the old Commodore 64 days.
If you archived video game TV shows, you would seriously be my hero... Thanks for posting this one!
bloody hell £40 for a game back then! FUCK THAT! My pocket money was £3 per week in 1983
Funny to hear them refer to the oldest programmer on the team John Gibson as "grand dad". Heck I was almost 30 when I had finished my masters degree and was ready for work. Times have changed. :)
The good old days :)
Cheers for uploading this little blast from the past, it can act as a tribute to some of the greatest people I ever worked with and some amazingly fun times in the early days of my games software career.
R.I.P
Johnathan Smith aka Joffa
Steve Cain
Wow what a wonderful insight in to 80's software companies Ocean and Imagine.
I think they were certainly ahead of their time, as eventually Rockstar did what ocean unfortunately couldn't.
Brilliant documentary 👍
Amazing documentary, hard to believe there was once a time where games were taken seriously by the media!
Just for context the £40 they're talking about at the time would equate to easily 3 times that much in today's money, or £120 minimum, which is approaching $200 US.
Yeah, who's going to spend that much money on a game? When the going rate for a full-priced game at the time was 9.99 and budget/rerelease titles were going for 1.99-2.99?
Thanks Kimble.
27:02 Digging the Ocean vintage Ford Transit! Just as classic as the games :)
I remember watching this on TV back in '84 I think. I must have been 12 years old but I watched it in awe because I had recently been bought a ZX Spectrum. Great times (but not for Imagine)
Guys like Ian Hetherington certainly didn’t think they were. But Imagine’s closure and bailout would lead to the establishment of Psygnosis.
Thank you for sharing this!
Excellent upload, Larry.
R.I.P. Joffa Smith.
Cheers, I loved this, really interesting. Great memories!
This channel is great, thank you for making it
Great documentary, thanks for uploading this!
Thanks for uploading! Very interesting insight into how the UK game industry ran in the 80s.
i would definitly be interested in a channel dedicated to video game tv shows great upload btw
RIP Joffa Smith
he was an Ocean programming legend.
Ian Weatherburn also.
He also made some great games on the SNES, GBA, and Megadrive
That was quite an interesting watch, thanks for uploading it. :D
A great watch.
Ocean were awesome back in the days of Amiga. I remember saving up a tenner and shooting down to Toys R Us to pick up a copy of whatever they had in their £10 range, almost always some Ocean release like Batman. Robocop 3 just blew me away as a kid. Everyone has nostalgia for something but if you ask me you can't beat a bit of Amiga was some classic Ocean game.
This was quite an interesting documentary. You would think with all the folk working at Ocean they would test a game before releasing it. Robocop was impossible to complete on the C64 !!
The time constraint on level 2 was so tight that no matter how perfectly you played it was impossible to get through and advance. It boggles the mind that they would release a game like that.
What a joke.
When the CPC version was so good to play and fun lol XD !
That time limit was intentional because the game wasn't finished - and they released it anyway.
They did the same with the Amiga 500 version of Dennis the Menace where you reached a gap that couldn't be jumped, because the game wasn't finished.
Highlander was intentionally made bad because a calculation error meant that if they sold too many copies the royalties would bankrupt them.
Yeah, Ocean did some crappy things...
Thanks for posting - really intersting to watch.
Something interesting I noticed. Look at the level designs that OCEAN are discussing at 9:27 for Hunchback 2: they exactly match the first level of Donkey Kong Jr (an arcade game from 1982).
Maybe they intended to rip it off? Certainly they drew it for some kind of inspiration. You can compare yourself against the screenshot for Donkey Kong Jr on Wikipedia.
There was a lot of copying of other games going on in those days. I guess its like learning to play a guitar, you typically start by copying others work.
Ocean actually got the rights to port Donkey Kong, which they done so in 1986, so they were definitely familiar with the series. A lot of the time back then though it seems that copyright infringement was rife and often went unpunished.
This is just from what I've seen from other documentaries on here, so might need correcting a little. I'm not actually old enough to have remembered much of these days, but god I wish I was a teenager in this exciting period for the gaming industry!
Barry dodds retro gaming podcast brought me here.
Fascinating! Looks like the dark ages! Now PS4 30 years on, hard to believe!
2018 and Black Mirror anyone?
Brill documentary which shows the roots of the gaming industry,in all its glory a time of incredible leaps,without which today's multi billion dollar gaming industry wound,nt of happened,and the games back then where amazing considering the confines of the machines memory limitations, remember a game on the spectrum called SIR FRED,damn that game was hard! JET SET WILLY was genius and LORDS OF MIDNIGHT was off the scale an immense epic ,great memory,s thanks for the posting.
RIP John ”Grandad” Gibson.
My favorite part is the business stuff, the people trying to sell games to merchants and fielding questions about the products, and the owners talking about games with the programmers and getting excited about the upcoming Christmas sales. The people at Imagine seem like utter fools who got their whole company shuttered because they were too cool for finance.
Thanks old chap, very good!!
Fascinating. The more things change, the more they stay the same, it would seem. :)
It's the music from "Highnoon" on the Commodore 64, an old Ocean title.
Hey, sorry for the delay, I've just seen your kind answer. Thank you!
RIP "Joffa" Smith
I love the fact that from 23:00 onwards... They demonstrate (OCEAN) how you ACTUALLY market and publish a good game out to the public.. Nothing too BIG... No stupid promises.. No 35 fucking items in the box.. just a simple game.. did well last year... will do well again... SIMPLE!!! Imagine were simply fuckwits out of their depths..
Its funny that they didnt understand the concept of replayability back in the 80s.. Swapping out ... or unlocking a character and giving that character a different set of movements or abilities meant they could play the game in a new way... this was such a foreign concept to these people..
so awesome....
19:26 Basil Fawlty
Back in the 80s the only company i'd buy a game from was Ocean. They were the best at game as far as i was concerned
It's a shame there weren't any serious interview shows about all the classic developers/designers of the time back then Jeff Miner, Ian Bell / David Braben / Archer McClean, Steve Turner, Andrew Braybrook, John Twiddy, Rob Hubbard, Mike Singleton etc I guess many of them may only have vague recollections about the fine details of what they did day to day now and some are no longer with us (and yes I was C64 centric).
£39.95 for an 8 bit system cassette game in 1984? Elite only cost £14.95 .The people at the top of Imagine were never serious about releasing the game..
28:01 Bruce Lee 😃
one of my all time C64 favorites !
well as you probably know , it re-appeared later as something else.
FUCKING HELL!!! If PUD PUD was accepted.. id hate to see the other 99% that were turned down!!
Black Mirror Bandersnatch
Just a 'silly question'. Does anybody know the title of the music briefly heard from 15:26? It really rings a bell. Maybe a traditional English song?
"When a Felon's Not Engaged In His Employment" -- Gilbert and Sullivan
Rip Mr ward
at the risk of being hunted down, I would say that bandersnatch was known to be a no go from the start. I think it was a planned demise and not the great vision as advertised. I'd guess this abrupt end involved a large back pocket sum for somebody at the top table. Sorry folks :(
I think Charlie Brooker has seen this documentary.
Piracy having ABSOLUTELY ANY impact on the sales of a game has LONG been put to bed as a myth... Along with the horse shit excuse that PIRACY PUTS THE PRICES UP!!! There have been (to date) several platforms completely devoid of piracy... and yet through their entire fucking lifespan.. they didnt once reduce the cost of games.. The only people that PIRATE GAMES are the ones who were NEVER going to buy it in the first place.. Only difference would be ... less people get to play your game.. Its why i love people like ED MCMILLEN.. publicly asking people IF THEY MUST.. pirate his games to play them... because he just wants people to experience what he has made!!! A fucking wonderful attitude!!!
brucey from imagine blamed playground pirates for their downfall... errr yer, their accounts are now open for the public to look at... BEST LAUGH I'VE HAD IN AGES!!! .. notice ocean + many others survived ? and nothing the management p*****g money down the drain on a game that was over charged!!! or the fact they tired up all the duplication houses and DIDN'T pay bills.. big up DC Ward / Joffa Smith RIP / Tony Pomfret
I feel really bad for the employees of Imagine. They should have been allowed to pick up their personal items.
Why was this uncut?
Ian Weatherborn later committed suicide in 1989 at just 23 years old.
The only thing that comes across loud and clear about his company.. is they didnt have a fucking CLUE about what they were doing... WHO HAS 35 items in a fucking box????
not sure think about 1983ish
Anyone here because of Black Mirror?
Playing the dark!
Birmingham Distributer sez "I smell shite!"
What was going on with the guy locking those dudes out? I couldn't quite follow.
@siskavard bailiffs entered the premises to collect a debt. As the business was unable to pay, they could seize goods that belonged to the business to sell to pay the debt. To prevent the debtors/employees removing valuable items the premises were secured & but they were probably letting 1 in at a time at the other entrance to collect personal items.
A friend worked at a gym & the bailiffs were slow to close the exits, staff were off out the back with gym equipment to sell in case they weren't going to get paid.
Black mirror brought me here.
Or was it a game loader....lol....I forget....Might have been Highnoons loading music.
smoking at the office...
Business gets tougher, before analyzing why exactly someone jumped to the solution, believing it is MORE competitiveness. An example of capitalist folly. Perpetual growth dictate. When fear reigns, humility is never an option.
And it seems to be an ongoing challenge, maybe a perpetual one. Friction is still intensifying.
The MEGAGAME!!!Yeah...no.
@PlatformThirtyTwo Neinen ze problemmo :D
bandersnatch :)
B L A C K M I R R O R
:)
Haha I worked with most of these
What a train wreck. Reminds me of No Man's Sky.
Nothing changed, I worked for Ocean briefly in the late 90s..I got a job there and moved my ass down to San Jose only to be told they were moving to France a month later../Facepalm lol