Re: Did EGA Save PC Gaming?

On Sun, 21 Jul 2024 21:48:07 -0400, in comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action, Mike
S. wrote:

On Sun, 21 Jul 2024 15:52:36 -0500, Zaghadka <zaghadka@hotmail.com>
wrote:
>

But prior to the 90s, gaming on the IBM-PC was hella expensive and weak
sauce to boot. _VGA_ changed that, not EGA. EGA gaming was for people
with too much money and too little common sense, and they kept PC gaming
on life support until it was comparable to an NES**** for 5 times the
price.

>
The first games I played on the PC were all from Sierra. Police Quest
2, Space Quest 3, CodeName: Iceman, King's Quest 4 and Leisure Suit
Larry 3. All of these games are very late 80's. They were all EGA
games and I played them with a Gameblaster sound card.
>
Maybe I was just lucky? My father brought home a PC from work with EGA
for me. I had to buy the sound card myself IIRC. My C-64 could not
compete with this setup at all. I have no idea if that first PC I had
was expensive but it most definitely was not 'weak sauce' for gaming.

Fair. Here's the argument that made me arrive at that conclusion. I was
giving it more of a long view...

Being an action group, I was thinking of stuff like Wolf3d or anything
side-scrolling. Commander Keen, where Carmack finally figured out how to
hack a PC into smooth sidescrolling is 1990 (EGA). SNES had 256 colors a
year later in the US (2 years later for you). Jazz Jackrabbit (1994),
OTOH, was finally comparable to the SNES at the time. In the 90's we
finally got _parity_, which I was narrowly considering the real standard
for PC gaming. It's the start of the hobby afaic. Compared to those
systems, an EGA PC with a Gameblaster is totally inadequate. It is less
than, and playing catchup with, an NES. Then the same with an SNES in the
early 90's, and literally can't do what those systems can do. A PC can do
Sierra games, which an NES could not. Did those "save" PC gaming? Nope.
The real saving grace for PC gaming was the death of IBM dominance.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/from:1985/genre:action/platform:dos/until:1989/sort:title/page:1/
535 action games total during the era. Check screenshots.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/from:1990/genre:action/platform:dos/until:1994/sort:title/page:1/
1,176 action games during the comparable 90s era. Check screenies too.

Commander Keen (1990):
https://www.mobygames.com/game/216/commander-keen-1-marooned-on-mars/screenshots/dos/888/

Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988):
https://www.mobygames.com/game/7300/super-mario-bros-3/screenshots/nes/31691/

That's the comparison I was making. Sierra was a lot of fun, tbs. Good
times. Wasn't considering that. Everyone had an NES or a SEGA Master
System if they wanted to "game."*

To "PC" game, because these were also contemporary "personal computers,"
you had a C=64, Atari ST, Amiga, or Speccy (thanks JAB!). An MSX in
Japan. That's what kept enthusiasm going. I never accepted IBM ownership
of the term. To call them the source of PC gaming in the 80's is, IMHO,
silly. I regard the Z-80, the 6502, and the Motorolla 68000 as primary
contributors to continuity of computer gaming. IBM was for work. The
80286 was simply not a gaming chip. The 8086 was a footnote.

And yes, you were very, VERY lucky. That was an expensive machine your
dad brought home to you. Part of the "weak sauce" analysis is that it's a
$6,000 machine.**  Probably CGA, because that's an introductory price, so
more than that for EGA (did Spalls say EGA cost $500? That's an
additional $1,500 today). That's close to $19,000 in today's cash. If a
gaming machine cost us $19,000 today, there would be very few of us in
this group. There would certainly be no sub-groups. It'd be csipg only.
Most of us would be using consoles.

Even in the 90's people tended to be gaming on their work machines. By
then they were down to $1,500 ($3,400 in today's dollars) for a 1992 100%
PC compatible Compaq.***  Robust machines less than $2,000 "saved" PC
gaming. It can be argued that it _made_ PC gaming.****  That's VGA.  EGA
was a stopgap. Possibly a speed bump as it was offered for too long as a
cheaper alternative to VGA.*****

But that is by a "today" definition of the PC gaming market, which is a
narrow, if not parochial, choice. I get your point. But point-and-click
adventure games are a niche in today's market.

Tbs, those early days on the IBM PC/AT were not golden. Fun? Yeah. But PC
gaming in EGA was a side-effect, not a thing PCs were bought for. For all
intents and purposes, IBM-PC/AT gaming has little to no relation to
today's PC gaming market.

--
Zag

No one ever said on their deathbed, 'Gee, I wish I had
spent more time alone with my computer.' ~Dan(i) Bunten


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*     Remarkably, you could play KQ1 on a SEGA Master System. Who knew?

**    Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_Computer_AT

***   Remember the days of less than 100% IBM-PC compatibility?

****  Arguably, DOOM is the seminal "killer app" for the current market.

***** And can anybody tell me why MCGA existed? Microchannel
architecture? What was up with IBM in the late 80's? Did they buy a bunch
of surplus machine guns that could only shoot feet?