Thanks so much for watching! Hopefully this brings back some good memories of Gottlieb, whether it's video games or pinball. Thanks, and take a look at Arcade Decades if it interests you :) www.kickstarter.com/projects/tabletop-book/arcade-decades-80s-edition
I had Exterminator on the Amiga, it is honestly a fantastic game once you get to grips with it, it's much better in coop too where you can focus on half the screen each.
@@Steve-Fish the proprietor throwing a black sheet over it, only for some Joe Shmo to trip over the cable and reset it, causing it to bleep loudly and illuminate like a Christmas tree
Considering how many family arcades have those play to win ticket games, something that no doubt encourages gambling, that is a quaint notion. Imagine what those back then would think of those games.
I can certainly attest that nearly all the arcades in my area dried up and went out of business around 83 and 84. I think the only survivor was the Time Out in a shopping mall that was a bit far away, but if you could get there it was like an oasis in a vast desert. I was too young to understand what was going on but arcades really did get hammered by the crash.
I grew up in a tiny little country town (population 170 people), computers were pretty much unheard of. First saw Q-Bert in about 1988 on an Atari 2600. Was fascinated immediately, although I had no idea how to play a video game. Fast forward to about 1994 and I got my first console. An Atari 2600; second hand with heaps of games. Tbh, I always preferred River Raid over Q-Bert, but Q-Bert is certainly the first game that I remember.
I was only 2 years old when Q*Bert came out, and he was my favorite video game character, full stop. I barely even played the original arcade, but I guess just the design just appealed to me. I had the board game version and a book of riddles called "Q*Bert's Quazy Questions."
Thanks for covering an underrated company! As a pinhead, I've got a huge soft spot for Gottlieb. It's cool to see someone focus on their video work for a change.
everyone blames the crash on ET and Pac-Man cartridges, what actually caused it was the country had a large recession and sales of video games plummeted because they were very expensive luxuries at the time. retailers back then didn't have good data so they solved the drop in sales and thoughts video games were a fad that was over so they started clearancing everything. The reason the Atari 2600 Jr exists is because American consumers still wanted video games and when they couldn't get them they called Atari directly and asked to buy 2600s and games and when Atari ran out of backstock they needed to start making more so they designed a 2600 junior
@@125scratch2 you can find the deets about the 2600 Jr just by googling for the history of the 2600 junior there's lots of good articles and videos. as for the recession well, newspaper articles from the time. there really was a massive massive recession then. remember video games were adjusted for inflation so we're between 100 and $120 USD. it's not like the UK where you are buying them for pocket money on cassettes in America everything was either a floppy disk or an expensive ROM cartridge. think about it think about how many third party publishers were still making great games. two mediocre games from Atari wasn't going to crash the entire industry. never mind that the PC industry managed to keep going thanks to cheaper disc-based media with better profit margins or that as soon as the recession was over Nintendo came in and cleaned up
"A brief history of the video game crash of 1983 If you arent old enough to reckon back to the video game crash of the 1980s, here is a brief overview: the market was flooded with games being almost exact clones of each other, the publishers had/showed very little control over the quality of a final product, consumers did not have confidence in the products and stopped buying as many games, and the computer market had started to grow and release more unique titles than their console counterparts. This caused a quick market decline after developers and publishers decided to make up for the loss by raising the cost of the game to $35 (about $100 today) while at the same time worse and worse products were being released quickly finding themselves in the bargain bin. This led to most companies going under or pulling out from the video game market, most notably Atari whose video game sales had dropped from 3.2 billion to 100 million in 3 years. A few companies were doing things differently such as superior oversight, innovative gameplay, and changing the way games are packed to reduce costs. These companies thrived and revolutionized gaming keeping the market alive. These companies include Nintendo, Activision, and Electronic Arts."
"The video game crash of 1983 (known in Japan as the Atari shock)[1] was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985 in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including market saturation in the number of video game consoles and available games, many of which were of poor quality. Waning interest in console games in favor of personal computers also played a role. Home video game revenue peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash abruptly ended what is retrospectively considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. To a lesser extent, the arcade video game market also weakened as the golden age of arcade video games came to an end. Lasting about two years, the crash shook a then-booming video game industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers and video game consoles. Analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles and software. The North American video game console industry recovered a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of Nintendo's Western branding for its Famicom console, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), released in October 1985. The NES was designed to avoid the missteps that caused the 1983 crash and the stigma associated with video games at that time"
This was a really interesting one! Thank you. I've always liked pinball, but it's never the go-to machine in an arcade for me. With modern retro arcades I find myself being drawn to them now, plus the legendary Pinball FX3 has so many brilliant tables!
And the gameplay on Pinball FX 3 is unmatched. With great joy, I purchased the Addams Family table and other than not standing at a physical machine the gameplay is spot-on!!
Wow! I played an Argus cabinet at Galloping Ghost in Chicago a few months back and had no idea it was unreleased. Just goes to show how wild that place is.
Amazing video! i do have a couple of Gottliebs (Hoops and Genesis) and they are still today my favorite pins. This video made me appreciate them even more.
It's interesting how, in the early days, designing a new game usually meant coming up with an entirely original game concept. Nowadays all you have to do is hybridize two or more existing things, and voila.
Interesting to see some pinball on the channel. I've never been an avid player, but have always thought they were an important part of the arcade experience.
Enjoyable video, nice to see the history of Gottlieb. I must admit I completely missed that Q*bert's Qubes existed before you mentioned it. I guess that tells us just how well it did in the market compared to Q*Bert (and in my case that there was no acorn electron port).
Great overview! Loved Krull and Mach 3 arcade games back in the day. I had the chance to buy a Krull pinball machine but unfortunately passed on that. I did pick up Black Hole, which is a fine pinball machine.
I always found the difficulty of Gottlieb pinball tables very high. Q*Bert is one of my all time favorite video games and a Gottlieb product that was grossly and unfairly underrated and overlooked is Mad Planets. THAT MUSIC!!! Yes it was a hybrid between Asteroids and Galaxian/Galaga but the gameplay was extremely fun. Helps that I was pretty good at it :)
Another great vid and a question that has been bugging me for years. Our local arcade had MACH 3 back in the 80s (though it tended to break down a lot) and for years I've been trying to find out what it was called. Thanks for clearing that up
I've always had a soft spot for the Krull game. Maybe it's because you use the Glaive all over the place, unlike the movie. And I've always loved how Gottlieb's games sound. That crunchiness really stands out.
I always find it endlessly fascinating that the US just seemed to conclide between 1983 and the wide launch of the NES three years later that they were basically done with videogames, while the rest of the world still loved them. In particular there was no crash in Japan or Europe where machines like the Famicom, SG1000, Spectrum and C64 continued to sell like hot cakes. Yet all the while the industry in the US was on its knees with companies going to the wall all over the place and even big players like Atari taking a massive hit. It's especially funny given that the US is the birthplace of commercial computer and video games, and that except for that 2-3 year period has always been one of the biggest markets for them.
MACH 3 gave me a slight case of motion sickness and vertigo as a child. It was a great arcade cabinet, one of those larger sit-down models. Watching footage today, the camera feels just a little shaky, which you would expect if a camera was attached to a jet fighter. It still gives me slight queasiness and messes with my brain. Of course, this makes it a great videogame, haha. I recently read one writer who testified that Three Stooges is really great in multiplayer, and that's where its charm lies. However, I never played it back in the day, although I did see it in a video arcade in Fargo, ND once.
Oh wow... thats absolutely beautiful that the guy responsible for pinball as we know it only left us in 2022.... What a fulfilled life via his mark on the world....
In Sweden from what i know in the late 80s to mid 90´s there where "gang" related economic crimes connected to pinball machines (and regular arcade games) and the places they where placed in. When young i was always sneaking into those shady places to have a go at those games knowingly that my parents would be furious hahah.
Warren Davis has debunked the "Snots and Boogers" myth. The character existed independently from the game, having been drawn up by someone else (wish I could give credit) with the intent of being used in some sort of shooter game. Davis liked the design and dropped him into his block game.
"Snots and Boogers" was Jeff Lee's personal name for his concept/prototype. It was dubbed that because Jeff initially thought the creature should shoot snot out of its nose. All this is from an article by Warren Davis: www.coinop.org/features/qbstory
Reactor is great fun. I disco'd this on a dodgy Pandoras box clone- and yes; i certainly do remember your upload where it featured. Not seen any of the others I sub too - such as gamesack and the like cover this ultra "hIdDeN gEm"
Based on the games, it seems Gottlieb wanted their games to be unique. Then didn’t want to just knock off what was successful elsewhere. Where are the racing games, the vertical shooters, the pac man rip offs? Such games might not win a company style points, but I bet they pay the bills and keep the lights on.
9:42 People find it hard to believe largely because the story you are telling is wrong. They were gambling machines well into the 50s. That was their purpose. They were mostly in bars, not places where they would attract kids' lunch money. Early machines were games of chance. There was absolutely no skill in the games. It was not really until the early 60s that pretty much all new pinball machines were games of skill and amusement.
Early pinball machines were not amusement machines. The goal was not a high score or 5 minutes of amusement. They were gambling machines. This was true into the 1950s. The early flipper games were also gambling machines.
Try playing without flippers I won $5.00 one time. The game was set to tilt with just a touch. I've played alot of video games and pinball. The one I won $5.00 on was in a diner and it was a model before flippers. Had to been from the forties.
@@doug2424 Having been born in 1970, I was a tween when the video game craze was at its peak. So I've played a lot of video games. Gambling machines were still around in some bars (illegally) in the early 90s when I was in my early 20s (21 to drink in the US), but they were generally video poker and slots.
I remember cave man i got good at it and baby pacman. Q*bert atari was terrible.... gottliebs totem pinball had rollover targets that were easy to get stuck on and alittle shaking rolled over points. I consider myself lucky to have lived in the era of pong to today.
Thanks so much for watching! Hopefully this brings back some good memories of Gottlieb, whether it's video games or pinball. Thanks, and take a look at Arcade Decades if it interests you :) www.kickstarter.com/projects/tabletop-book/arcade-decades-80s-edition
Nice work mate your video games history vids are ace, always enjoy watching them and congratulations on the book.
I had Exterminator on the Amiga, it is honestly a fantastic game once you get to grips with it, it's much better in coop too where you can focus on half the screen each.
You said people would find it staggering that pinball was banned to the modern ear, and you’re indeed correct! What the hell!
Just imagining a pinball bust in a 1920's Chicago prohibition speakeasy right now.
@@Steve-Fish the proprietor throwing a black sheet over it, only for some Joe Shmo to trip over the cable and reset it, causing it to bleep loudly and illuminate like a Christmas tree
Considering how many family arcades have those play to win ticket games, something that no doubt encourages gambling, that is a quaint notion. Imagine what those back then would think of those games.
I own a gottleib ice revue machine from 1966, and it's still amazing to play
Ed Krynski's design still holds up
I have a Black Hole and it would be fun to play if it ever worked. The System 80 is as bad as its reputation.
I can certainly attest that nearly all the arcades in my area dried up and went out of business around 83 and 84. I think the only survivor was the Time Out in a shopping mall that was a bit far away, but if you could get there it was like an oasis in a vast desert. I was too young to understand what was going on but arcades really did get hammered by the crash.
I grew up in a tiny little country town (population 170 people), computers were pretty much unheard of. First saw Q-Bert in about 1988 on an Atari 2600. Was fascinated immediately, although I had no idea how to play a video game. Fast forward to about 1994 and I got my first console. An Atari 2600; second hand with heaps of games. Tbh, I always preferred River Raid over Q-Bert, but Q-Bert is certainly the first game that I remember.
I was only 2 years old when Q*Bert came out, and he was my favorite video game character, full stop. I barely even played the original arcade, but I guess just the design just appealed to me. I had the board game version and a book of riddles called "Q*Bert's Quazy Questions."
It's always a good day when Kimble uploads a new video!
Their fascinations with their individual design visions makes me think Tim Skelly and Jeff Minter would’ve gotten along smashingly.
Thanks for covering an underrated company! As a pinhead, I've got a huge soft spot for Gottlieb. It's cool to see someone focus on their video work for a change.
everyone blames the crash on ET and Pac-Man cartridges, what actually caused it was the country had a large recession and sales of video games plummeted because they were very expensive luxuries at the time. retailers back then didn't have good data so they solved the drop in sales and thoughts video games were a fad that was over so they started clearancing everything. The reason the Atari 2600 Jr exists is because American consumers still wanted video games and when they couldn't get them they called Atari directly and asked to buy 2600s and games and when Atari ran out of backstock they needed to start making more so they designed a 2600 junior
Source on that?
@@125scratch2 you can find the deets about the 2600 Jr just by googling for the history of the 2600 junior there's lots of good articles and videos. as for the recession well, newspaper articles from the time. there really was a massive massive recession then. remember video games were adjusted for inflation so we're between 100 and $120 USD. it's not like the UK where you are buying them for pocket money on cassettes in America everything was either a floppy disk or an expensive ROM cartridge.
think about it think about how many third party publishers were still making great games. two mediocre games from Atari wasn't going to crash the entire industry. never mind that the PC industry managed to keep going thanks to cheaper disc-based media with better profit margins or that as soon as the recession was over Nintendo came in and cleaned up
"A brief history of the video game crash of 1983
If you arent old enough to reckon back to the video game crash of the 1980s, here is a brief overview: the market was flooded with games being almost exact clones of each other, the publishers had/showed very little control over the quality of a final product, consumers did not have confidence in the products and stopped buying as many games, and the computer market had started to grow and release more unique titles than their console counterparts.
This caused a quick market decline after developers and publishers decided to make up for the loss by raising the cost of the game to $35 (about $100 today) while at the same time worse and worse products were being released quickly finding themselves in the bargain bin.
This led to most companies going under or pulling out from the video game market, most notably Atari whose video game sales had dropped from 3.2 billion to 100 million in 3 years. A few companies were doing things differently such as superior oversight, innovative gameplay, and changing the way games are packed to reduce costs. These companies thrived and revolutionized gaming keeping the market alive. These companies include Nintendo, Activision, and Electronic Arts."
"The video game crash of 1983 (known in Japan as the Atari shock)[1] was a large-scale recession in the video game industry that occurred from 1983 to 1985 in the United States. The crash was attributed to several factors, including market saturation in the number of video game consoles and available games, many of which were of poor quality. Waning interest in console games in favor of personal computers also played a role. Home video game revenue peaked at around $3.2 billion in 1983, then fell to around $100 million by 1985 (a drop of almost 97 percent). The crash abruptly ended what is retrospectively considered the second generation of console video gaming in North America. To a lesser extent, the arcade video game market also weakened as the golden age of arcade video games came to an end.
Lasting about two years, the crash shook a then-booming video game industry and led to the bankruptcy of several companies producing home computers and video game consoles. Analysts of the time expressed doubts about the long-term viability of video game consoles and software.
The North American video game console industry recovered a few years later, mostly due to the widespread success of Nintendo's Western branding for its Famicom console, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), released in October 1985. The NES was designed to avoid the missteps that caused the 1983 crash and the stigma associated with video games at that time"
The recession of the Carter years was long over when ET2600 was released.
This was a really interesting one! Thank you. I've always liked pinball, but it's never the go-to machine in an arcade for me. With modern retro arcades I find myself being drawn to them now, plus the legendary Pinball FX3 has so many brilliant tables!
And the gameplay on Pinball FX 3 is unmatched. With great joy, I purchased the Addams Family table and other than not standing at a physical machine the gameplay is spot-on!!
Wow! I played an Argus cabinet at Galloping Ghost in Chicago a few months back and had no idea it was unreleased. Just goes to show how wild that place is.
Wiz Warz, too!
Seems mad how Gottlieb was so instrumental in the history of pinball but got completely buried by Stern/Williams/Bally.
Thanks Kim. Love your videos.
Cor Wayne Neyens 1918-2022, he saw some changes in gaming. Love these dropping on a Sunday Kim Justice thank you so much for the interesting videos.
Top work Kim. Another fantastic documentary.
Parker Brothers licensed Reactor and made an excellent port for the 2600, I had no idea that the arcade original was that rare.
Amazing video! i do have a couple of Gottliebs (Hoops and Genesis) and they are still today my favorite pins. This video made me appreciate them even more.
It's interesting how, in the early days, designing a new game usually meant coming up with an entirely original game concept. Nowadays all you have to do is hybridize two or more existing things, and voila.
Cracking video KJ . I never heard of Gottlieb until I got a compilation disk on the ps2 in a supermarket
I always enjoy your documentaries!
Another superb gaming documentary Kim 🕹 👍
Yay, a Sunday treat. Nice one, Kim! ❤
Interesting to see some pinball on the channel. I've never been an avid player, but have always thought they were an important part of the arcade experience.
Enjoyable video, nice to see the history of Gottlieb. I must admit I completely missed that Q*bert's Qubes existed before you mentioned it. I guess that tells us just how well it did in the market compared to Q*Bert (and in my case that there was no acorn electron port).
I've also never been good at Pinball but it was an important presence around me growing up. Great video Kim.
That's my Sunday night sorted ,Cheers Kim, Fantastic as ever.....🎉
Fantastic documentary Kim. Great to get your thoughts on the pins too. Mind blowing bits of kit.
Good one again! Thanks for your hard work!
Great video as always, Kim.
I was thinking of going to Galloping Ghost today and then this pops up!
What a fascinating video, thank you Kim.
Great overview! Loved Krull and Mach 3 arcade games back in the day. I had the chance to buy a Krull pinball machine but unfortunately passed on that. I did pick up Black Hole, which is a fine pinball machine.
Really good video, one of the best 👍 lovely to see a bit of pinball
I always found the difficulty of Gottlieb pinball tables very high. Q*Bert is one of my all time favorite video games and a Gottlieb product that was grossly and unfairly underrated and overlooked is Mad Planets. THAT MUSIC!!! Yes it was a hybrid between Asteroids and Galaxian/Galaga but the gameplay was extremely fun. Helps that I was pretty good at it :)
Another great vid and a question that has been bugging me for years. Our local arcade had MACH 3 back in the 80s (though it tended to break down a lot) and for years I've been trying to find out what it was called. Thanks for clearing that up
Very cool video hitting on a lot of history I was much less familiar with.
Awesome video
Gottlieb was a true player in both pinball and video games.
thank you for the memories
I've always had a soft spot for the Krull game. Maybe it's because you use the Glaive all over the place, unlike the movie. And I've always loved how Gottlieb's games sound. That crunchiness really stands out.
I always find it endlessly fascinating that the US just seemed to conclide between 1983 and the wide launch of the NES three years later that they were basically done with videogames, while the rest of the world still loved them. In particular there was no crash in Japan or Europe where machines like the Famicom, SG1000, Spectrum and C64 continued to sell like hot cakes. Yet all the while the industry in the US was on its knees with companies going to the wall all over the place and even big players like Atari taking a massive hit.
It's especially funny given that the US is the birthplace of commercial computer and video games, and that except for that 2-3 year period has always been one of the biggest markets for them.
Another triumph, Kim!
MACH 3 gave me a slight case of motion sickness and vertigo as a child. It was a great arcade cabinet, one of those larger sit-down models. Watching footage today, the camera feels just a little shaky, which you would expect if a camera was attached to a jet fighter. It still gives me slight queasiness and messes with my brain. Of course, this makes it a great videogame, haha.
I recently read one writer who testified that Three Stooges is really great in multiplayer, and that's where its charm lies. However, I never played it back in the day, although I did see it in a video arcade in Fargo, ND once.
Dude I loved exterminator. At least the home computer conversion.
19:55 So we're up to THREE companies named for the game of Go and that amuses me XD
Oh wow... thats absolutely beautiful that the guy responsible for pinball as we know it only left us in 2022....
What a fulfilled life via his mark on the world....
Thank you, Kim*Beaut!
Did you do one of these awesome retrospectives about SNK (on Arcades) history and games? If not, I hope to watch one someday! 😊
love these vids!
In Sweden from what i know in the late 80s to mid 90´s there where "gang" related economic crimes connected to pinball machines (and regular arcade games) and the places they where placed in. When young i was always sneaking into those shady places to have a go at those games knowingly that my parents would be furious hahah.
Hey Kim, any chance of a Rob Hubbard documentary at some point ?
Cheers Kim :)
Warren Davis has debunked the "Snots and Boogers" myth. The character existed independently from the game, having been drawn up by someone else (wish I could give credit) with the intent of being used in some sort of shooter game. Davis liked the design and dropped him into his block game.
"Snots and Boogers" was Jeff Lee's personal name for his concept/prototype. It was dubbed that because Jeff initially thought the creature should shoot snot out of its nose. All this is from an article by Warren Davis: www.coinop.org/features/qbstory
Nice One, Kim!
Cheers Mate.
Ps: Hello Ledbury 👊 I hope you are very well Mate 😊
great video
An hour long! Sweet.
Hi Ya & best wishes. Thanks for work. Be Happy. Sevastopol/Crimea
Slava Ukraine
I never thought of Krull as a science fiction film. IMO, it's almost purely fantasy. Though Wikipedia calls it science fantasy.
Reactor is great fun. I disco'd this on a dodgy Pandoras box clone- and yes; i certainly do remember your upload where it featured. Not seen any of the others I sub too - such as gamesack and the like cover this ultra "hIdDeN gEm"
"Mylstar" aka rat-slime.... 😆 shows how things haven't changed much when it comes to awful rebranding today....
Based on the games, it seems Gottlieb wanted their games to be unique. Then didn’t want to just knock off what was successful elsewhere. Where are the racing games, the vertical shooters, the pac man rip offs? Such games might not win a company style points, but I bet they pay the bills and keep the lights on.
Oh hell yeah, finally some real cinema
Great video!
How were you emulating those pinball tables?
There's a free program called Visual Pinball that people make tables for, definitely worth looking into.
I wonder if you will do an Atari arcade series?
I’d trade all my video game stuff for just 1 pinball machine.
So many classics to choose from....
9:42 People find it hard to believe largely because the story you are telling is wrong. They were gambling machines well into the 50s. That was their purpose. They were mostly in bars, not places where they would attract kids' lunch money. Early machines were games of chance. There was absolutely no skill in the games. It was not really until the early 60s that pretty much all new pinball machines were games of skill and amusement.
Early pinball machines were not amusement machines. The goal was not a high score or 5 minutes of amusement. They were gambling machines. This was true into the 1950s. The early flipper games were also gambling machines.
Try playing without flippers I won $5.00 one time. The game was set to tilt with just a touch. I've played alot of video games and pinball. The one I won $5.00 on was in a diner and it was a model before flippers. Had to been from the forties.
@@doug2424 Having been born in 1970, I was a tween when the video game craze was at its peak. So I've played a lot of video games. Gambling machines were still around in some bars (illegally) in the early 90s when I was in my early 20s (21 to drink in the US), but they were generally video poker and slots.
Kim, how were you able to get footage of US vs. Them? I couldn't get DAPHNE to record footage.
I used MAME for Us vs. Them, you can play it fine there with the CHD's.
I remember cave man i got good at it and baby pacman. Q*bert atari was terrible.... gottliebs totem pinball had rollover targets that were easy to get stuck on and alittle shaking rolled over points. I consider myself lucky to have lived in the era of pong to today.
45:44
Q*bert is better than Dil*bert, but not quite as good as Ernie and* Bert.