£1.99 cassettes, wow the memories come flooding back. British home stores basement in stockport circa 83 - 84 picking up games solely based on the box art, Burger Time, Impossible Mission, Spy Hunter, Time Pilot just to name a few. Great video RMC 👍
I remember Rock Star ate my hamster well. When things start to take off for your band, a headline will pop up, "John Peel backs ....' your band name'..." I named my band 4skin. Luckily, I'm all grown up now, and haven't changed a bit.👍
I had it to, pirate or legit I can't remember. I had a c64 and the mate a spectrum 128k (I think). Well done I remember manic miner, dizzy and back 2 school. Rolling thunder on the spectrum. Good days when life was simpler. Anyone watching who misses all those, check on the mister. Neil's video on it made me go out and buy it. Mainly for home computers. But it has everything.
I grew up in rural Virginia and never saw a computer software shop like this. All of my software came from the occasional jaunt to the nearest big city or via mail order. Thanks for sharing this look into your world!
Very interesting to see the UK game-buying experience of the 80s! Where I lived in the US back then, we didn't have small shops that sold computer software, we had a 30 minute drive to the nearest Toys R' Us. There they had one extremely long aisle of games, Commodore 64 on one side, and Atari and Apple on the other. Very few cassettes too, but lots of floppy disk games in those square sleeves that looks sort of like slightly smaller vinyl record sleeves.
Just discovered your channel, and as someone who has just turned 43 and grew up in the 80’s playing my CPC 464, I watched this video with a massive smile across my face. Thank you.
This takes me back, great video. Around 1988, my mum and her partner at the time opened a small game shop near my school and not once did I get bored of going there on my way home. It was a wonderland. Long after it closed we still had loads of old stock big box games, many still shrink-wrapped. When my mum moved house around 10 years ago I found them and gave them all away to someone off the Retro Gamer forum. Wish I had kept them now, but hopefully he found some joy in them (or made a few quid).
You have to remember that Americans think they are the whole world though, recently watched a series of videos called the dumbest thing an American has ever said to you.
This is fantastic. As a US consumer who purchased his C64 in 1982 when I was 11, the store layout and collection of 1.99 pound games was not our experience. It’s nice to see it and understand it - thank you. I do remember these titles appearing in the backs of magazine- like RUN magazine. I had no idea of these titles as they seemed like ripoffs of arcades and I was worried of being taken as they weren’t that inexpensive in the mags. I wasn’t aware of the scene in the UK. I wish I had. Everyone here had disk drives, and swapped more expensive games all the time. One of my favorite moments was when Archon released with the amazing music intro for Freefall Associates. EA did a nice job with their early games like seven cities of gold, murder on the zinderneuf, mule, racing construction set and others.
I live in the UK born in 84, two older brothers, our first computer was a Spectrum ZX. I always remember game/ video shops and how they changed over the years. I’m still a gamer to this day. We had lots of these titles, nostalgic overload!
I bought my first ever Mastertronic game from a carpet shop of all places, Duck Shoot for the Vic 20. However for a decent selection WHSmith was the place to be so having had the pleasure of experiencing the RMC Shop in person, it took me right back to those 80s days when 8 bits was more than enough! Good stuff!
Looks like WH Smiths software section! Good stuff. Nothing was ever sealed back then as far as I remember though. The tapes were never displayed in the boxes because kids would always nick them. So stuff like the Mastertronic card-backed packaging was something I'd never seen before. Ultimate releases were always big events and always mind-blowers. I remember waiting several hours at our local games store for the courier to bring the first shipment of, iirc, Night Lore. Me and the rest of the 'nerds' had either C64s or Spcecys, although one poor chap only had a Vic-20. Commodore vs. Sinclair 'debates' were often heard in the classrooms. I was a Speccy-man but our 'gang' were split pretty evenly between the two camps. One other addition that would be appropriate for a store display would be a little colour CRT showing one of the games in action. I remember most of the shops back then had one behind the counter or, in the case of Smiths, on a shelf with a Spectrum you could actually try out. Saturday afternoon was always busy in that area of the shop 'cos it was like a free arcade machine. You were likely to also see some hardware. Like Kempston joysticks, joystick interfaces, RAM packs, tape players, etc. This video bought a lot of memories back.
It's amazing the explosion of creativity during those times! I started getting interested in games in the early 90s in France and a lot of those British companies were among the most recognizable. France also had its share of companies like Infogrames, Ubisoft, Delphine, etc. but I don't think it started as early as it did in the UK. Also the Amstrad CPC was very popular in France.
Loved this video! One thing that we have covered on CocoTalk was just how much better the cassette cover artwork in the UK was compared to most of the North American ones, even for the same titles. They just seemed to always present it much better. Also, I wanted to point out that the Dragon actually was a best seller in late 1982-mid 1983 (being consistently 2-3 place for some months in 1983), but that it didn't stay at those positions past 1983 (and the Dragon 64 wasn't as popular). The Register had a cool article in 2013 that covered the sales of micros in the UK in 1983, which was based on published sales data from Personal Computer News magazine. Between June and September of that year, the Dragon 32 was in 2nd or 3rd place in sales (this was a shock to me, as many people - including Dragon owners at the time - did not think that it sold well). But it was outselling the Vic 20, ZX-81, Atari 8 bits, and the BBC most or all of the time during that time period. Here is the article (click on the chart to make it more readable): www.theregister.com/2013/01/03/charted_1983_home_computer_sales_in_uk/
This is incredible. Im from Ireland, and it was the same here with the same games. Magazines like Zzap!, Crash, Commodore Format were on the shelves in my area, and a family right 'round the corner from me had a Spectrum. I remember seeing "Chase HQ" on the spectrum, being very impressed. I got it on the C64, and was horrified as to how horrible it was! I couldnt admit to the Spectrum family that "their" version was brilliant and better! Thats the wonderful thing about the multiple computers at the time. Be it Amstrad, C64, Spectrum, each version of the same game looked, sounded and sometime then, played and ran differently. And Id be in awe looking in say, CVG magazine at how things looked on the Amiga, or Atari ST. The c64 sid chip is still one of my fave sounds in the world. This is a superb lookback at the wonderous world of computer games in the 80s.
Was at the video game museum in Sheffield earlier this year and they had a wall with 15 screens, each running a Donkey Kong on a different hardware platform. It illustrated your point perfectly!
What a brilliant video ! This took me right back to visiting WH Smith on a Saturday morning and inevitably being disappointed when I couldn't find the new release I was looking for. Still, at least you could browse the gaming magazines while you waited for your mum :) As soon as you showed the tape of The Last V8, all those memories came rushing back. I can remember the music and synthesized voices vividly, as well as the intense frustration when I crashed into a small shrub for the 1000th time. Grrr.
As a non British person who had no access to computers at all in the 1980's I would have loved to see some of the stuff actually played. Without any footage it's a trip down somebody else's memory lane that I can't really relate to. Especially as I don't actually know a great majority of these games. I am not saying it's not interesting or entertaining. But it's lots of bones with no meat on.
@@catriona_drummond It's like you say, that you sadly had no access to computers at all... I too am not British, but in Malta we had these shops all over the place.
@@catriona_drummond The purpose was to show a physical shop and games on shelves as seen in the 80's ie as nostalgia trip for those who experienced it. If you want to know about the games themselves, just search for any of these publishers eg "Mastertronic games" or specific game on youtube. There are literally thousands of gameplay videos.
You know, I may not have been born (not even visited) in the UK, but I have to admit: British consoles/computers and games fascinate me. I'd love to tinker with such machines at some point.
Brilliant stuff! So many memories... I'm from Australia, I recall a lot of these titles and companies. The C64 was the almighty machine here in the 80s and took up most of the shelves from memory.
As somebody who worked in a computer store throughout the 80's and early 90's that brings back a lot of memories. Our shop kept the 1.99 cassette games in an old music cassette rotary locked display (you know the type one key at the top released the lock in that section and you could lift the tape out) they were very popular and we ended up with 2 displays each holding about 100 tapes. We also had a section with display computers that we could test the tapes in (as countless people used to bring them back for exchange or a refund after copying them!)
A great episode - over here in Australia the department stores sold Commodore games in a dedicated section but sometimes they hit the shelves 3 months after the UK release date (same with the magazines) I do remember a store in Melbourne that used to import the games from the UK usually a week or two after the release but with extra costs for the luxury. Mastertronic titles I do remember being sold at Target stores for $9.99 instead of what should have at least $5.00 but as usual over here we had to pay extra as we are so bloody far away!
I live in the US, and when I needed to do a silkscreen project for my high school printing class, I used the Firebird logo. It was cool, it was simple enough, and I remember getting a good grade as well as a cool t-shirt. Thanks for the nostalgia!
One of the publishers I remember was Melbourne House (The Hobbit, The Way of the Exploding Fist, Horace goes Skiing) and was absorbed into Mastertronic in 1987
I have been in this very room when visiting Neil at the cave and can confirm it is fantastic and takes you back immediately to the days when all this was new. The whole set up is well worth a visit.
So many happy memories. I remember in Wallasey there was an independent shop called Micro Byte who seemed to have a connection to Bug Byte as they also had their branding and logo on the sign. You could go in and ask to try a game before you bought it, there was always a buzz about the place. I also remember arguing with my dad about buying Elite for the Electron. I didn't like the look of the monochrome graphics - how wrong I was! We played that game for months, we'd take turns to fly a mission each and discuss what to buy and where to sell. I also remember the amount of abject garbage you used to be able to buy, there were so few reviews and especially down at the £1.99/99p price point there were some terrible, terrible games with enticing box art.
Remember the shop well, I bought a cheap Konix clone joystick there, was great. What was the name of the other great game shop there, I remember there been two great shops there, one on Seaview Road, and one on Liscard road. If we travelled further afield the was Computer Adventure World in Birkenhead that was pretty great too... Wallasey was in many ways the Cult Capital of UK gaming, it was the home of Mathew Smith of Manic Minor fame, and Bug Byte themselves funding Mathew Smith to produce Manic Minor and Jet Set Willy.
I'm not sure. Here in Wakefield we also had a Microbyte (if it is the same company). One of the execs there set up 17-Bit Software here in Wakefield, which subsequently became Team17.
This is like a warm blanket. I worked in a Games store in 1990 and saw a lot of these games on the shelf. We sold a lot of Amigas, and the consoles on display were the Megadrive and Super Nintendo. I distinctly remember playing Castle Of Illusion with my co worker and she killed it. Wish i could get in touch with her now. The Dizzy games were bundled with the Amiga and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they were so popular.
Commando was the first computer game I ever played. This video has unlocked so many memories. My mate’s dad did the cover art for a few Codemasters games, including Rockstar Ate My Hamster
Really takes you back. Still have all my games going back to the zx spectrum, must get them out one day. Way of the exploding fist for action was great.
I never knew just how knowledgeable the host is. It's nice when someone who is genuinely passionate about the subject is the one running the UA-cam channel.
Superior Software published a short book in 1987 called "Success in Software" and written by Richard Hanson that gave people advice on how to get their own games published. They sold it through mail order (£1.95), and I still have my copy here in my bookcase.
wow!!!! nostalgia heaven. Late 80s I'd be doing the same, going to my local gaming shop Watchdog to pick up a new spectrum game. Even my mom at the time was a huge fan of the Dizzy games. I can still remember the 'dial up internet' sound as the games loaded. Thank You for this.
Love this so much. Our shops in the US looked like this as well. Such amazing memories of scanning the shelves for a good deal that I could blow my limited kid-funds on, bringing it home, reading every bit of packaging and paper that came with it and then praying that the game would run properly.
What an excellent skip down memory lane, there. I left school in 1980 and by '85 was out of college and in a job so I was in the enviable position of being able to buy pretty much any game that took my fancy in those days. In my home town of Harlow in Essex we had all the big names like WHSmith, Boots, John Menzies etc. and, at one point, no less than three indie computer games shops to choose from (plus Special Reserve, down the road in Sawbridgeworth) so a mate and I would spend most Saturday afternoons trawing around the town for whatever was new and I'd invariably come back with a new game each week for either the Speccy or C64 (and later, Amiga). I sorely miss the days of the UK hobbyist, tiny independents and bedroom coders all fired up by this new technology. Of course, it could never last but it was great while it did.
This was a great video, brought back lots of memories. I'm from a slightly older era and started gaming on the ZX81. J K Greye and Artic created my first games, 3D Monster Maze and Espionage Island.
It's rare I get a hit of nostalgia like this, even though I read Retro Gamer and watch Kim Justice vids. There's something very tactile here, brought back some memories of newsagents and shops I'd long forgotten. As time passes it feels like the only history recorded of 80s gaming is 'the crash' and the NES, so you're really doing a service here!
What an insanely cool way to display your collection. Recreate a shop. I can't believe other UA-camrs don't do this. LGR should do this. His would be insanely massive though. I truly hope RMC makes more videos like this. Next time we need to see the big box games on his left.
My favourite Firebird game, and possibly favourite C64 game ever was The Sentinel. A truly unique game at the time, and other than a couple of later remakes, I can't think of a modern equivalent.
Excellent video! Man i remember we used to buy Amstrad CPC 464 Cassette tapes from Woolworths, Boots the Chemist lol 😂, inShops in Stratford (his games were so expensive! but he had the big name boxed titles), and a proper Computer Game shop on Barking Road, Plaistow - I would also borrow CPC 464 tapes from Holborn Library in London. Amazing times.
Just looking at those shelves and the set up bought back huge nostalgia for me. The downstairs games department at Boots in Coventry town centre or Dixons where I bought a C64. Those were the days.
When I was a small kid here in rural Northumberland, the upstairs of my local Boots had a corner that had a Woolies style tape rack in the middle with one side of it dedicated to C64 budget jewel case tapes, the other side split between Amstrad and Spectrum, with more Amstrad than Spectrum. There were two walls with shelves similar to yours, and one wall was dedicated to cardboard boxed and floppy based 8-bit and PC titles and the other wall was Amiga and Atari ST stuff, big box and budget "dual tape case with a floppy in it" style boxes. This, of course, is a slightly later period than yourself, I'd say '87 to '92, and I guess the change was a reflection of the times(mostly C64, a decent selection of Amstrad, Amiga and ST titles, some token Spectrum and PC games to round it out.
55 now and this brings back memories. Just seeing the artwork and remembering it was very nostalgic. C64 and the Speccy were the consoles of choice then - the amount of pirating from cassette was astronomical at school. Great times.
Working at one of the first WHSmith home computer shops from 1982 for 3 years based in Birmingham city centre, this all brings back so many memories for me. I have played games on a Mattel Aquarius, and Oric 1 and many more mainstream hardware platforms. We sold everything from the ZX81 up to what must have been one of the first IBM PC clones, the Advance A86 which was so basic it didn't even have a hard drive and loaded software from a cassette interface. I even wrote a program for that running at a computer show at the NEC - quite a claim to fame at the time but tell the kids that these days... Lovely walk down memory lane. Thanks.
Great times . Saturday afternoons consisted of chippy dinner , local arcade , then we would all put some money together buy a game & copy it ! Then the following weekend take it back saying it didn't work and exchange it 😂 and repeat the cycle ! The only games we never made copies of was Dizzy ( codemasters) I'm sure they were £3-5 so we didn't bother
especially when you open them up and find a full size physical map, manual, book, trinkets, etc :D nowadays you have to buy the £300 collector's edition to get anything physical
Superb video. Im in my 50s and live in the UK, and the decor and layout of your game-shop corner really reminds me of my local Software Plus store from the mid 80s. I started gaming in seaside arcades in the 70s and been hooked ever since. Of the 8-bit home micro era I had a ZX81, an Atari 400, a 48k Speccy and an Amstrad CPC464. So many great games, fun gaming magazines and good times with friends. I used to love strolling into town on a Sturday and hunting out the best bargains across WH Smith, Boots, Our Price, Dixons, Woolworths, the outdoor markets and independent stores ... I still love searching out bargain games nowadays, old habits die hard I guess, lol :-)
Absolutely fantastic video Neil! This takes me back to the early eighties, boots , whsmiths were the kings of 8 bit retailing I fondly remember the computers and the cassette tape games The 16 bit stuff on your right in video reminds me of the virgin megastores and hmv of the 90s Superb stuff , i can understand why in such a small amount of time you have gained so much praise for your brilliant videos , keep it up ! From a 53 year old male fan of rmc retro !
What a brillant vid. As a 51 year old this brought back a lot of memories for me, especially the names of all the publishers I'd forgotten. I also really like the presenting style... no hype, just a fond commentary. I ended up working on computer games magazines and used to work with the PR lady for US Gold on ST Format, as they were still going at that point a few years later.
ZX Spectrum games were very common in my country. (Portugal). When even had them on sale in coffee shops in a small carousel along with music tapes. And we even had our own ZX Spectrum clone, the Sinclair Timex Computer 048 and 068. Do you have these in the cave?. Great times.
Great video. I recall buying c64 games, oddly, in the fishing tackle shop in my local town in the 80’s, here in Northern Ireland. “Computers & Tackle”, I think it was called. They had a good selection of those budget titles you showcase and recall the shop always had the distinct smell from the fish bait :)
I remember going into Boots (yes they used to sell them) and swapping the price labels around so you got then cheaper, the shop assistants didn't have a clue lol this was waaaaay before the days of bar code scanning 😂😂😂
Heh me and my mates used to do the same (in Boots as well) swap the £1.99 Mastertronic price stickers onto the £7.99 'premium' titles. Like you say the shop assistants didn't have a clue! I ended up working for Gremlin after spending many an hour in Just Micro where they had the systems set up so you could play the games before buying them. One of the assistants there became a producer at Gremlin and when I went for an interview there he recognised me from the shop and I was hired as a tester. First day was testing The Shoe People on the Spectrum!
This is a great idea Neil and its very enjoyable. Another software company I remember which may be from the UK was Durell. They made the excellent Critical Mass game. Please do more of this if you have time, which I'm sure is difficult these days in the Cave with so much going on! Thank you.
Durell were indeed a British software company. Critical Mass was a brilliant game - one I've not thought about for many years. I think I need to load up Vice and give it a go. Saboteur also.
I mostly had an experience of 1980s 8-bit gaming only vicariously, hearing my friends talk about their favourites like Dizzy, Rock Star Ate My Hamster, Chuckie Egg, Boulderdash and Paperboy. We had a Commodore 16/Plus 4 but I wasn't much into computers before I was ten and though I enjoyed a couple of games, it didn't grip me. I did occasionally watch/play games at friend's houses; a couple of mate's had Speccys, another an Amstrad, and a few years later another had an Atari ST (I remember watching, impressed, at my first experience of an open world game- Mercenary. My friend demonstrated the freedom of the game by driving into the sea).
What a fantastic video,thanks.As a 51 year old gamer this was the era i remember most fondly,where it all started off,for me woth the 48k Sinclair Zx Spectrum(Rubber keys).Happy Memories.Spending my pocket money on £1.99 Codemasters games or clubbing together with your friends and getting a £9.99 game on cassette and copying it onto blank cassettes so everyone could get a copy 🙂
Literally a walk down memory lane for me. Mid 80's I lived in Southampton UK. Boots, WHSmiths, all of that rings bells. I really miss those times honestly.
A wonderful video. I was extremely lucky as a young teenager in the 80’s I worked in a games shop selling all those games and many others. I loved the 8bit days but the Amiga days were the pinnacle of gaming for me!
CPC user here. A newsagent in town was on and off with its budget rack, as was Woolworths. Alas we had to travel 10 miles to the next town for a proper software store (Software Plus). Spent my paper round earnings on Codemasters, Alternative Software, Hit Squad, Encore, and Mastertronic tapes. Later Amstrad Action magazine started their regular monthly covertape with at least 1 full game given away. Had the first 23 Action Pack tapes before I moved on to the Amiga 600.
Brought back so many memories watching this! I loves the Crash zx spectrum magazine that had games on the front. Also loved the Julian Gallop strategy games like Rebelstar II, Laser Squad, Chaos etc
I stumbled upon this video the morning - and WOW! We didnt have anything like this in Canada - especially the budget games. What would be fantastic is to find a company to release all of these on a compilation DVD for Windows/MAc/PS4/XBOX/Switch. This seems so foreign but super interesting .
You are right, that shelf sight is a bit foreign to me having grown up in the 80's in Australia. However one universal 80's gaming rule that crosses continents, the box art always looked fantastic and grasped your imagination. You then bought it and usually promptly found the game was shite, but you still played the hell out of it because you damn well paid for it...
Great video, all the cassette boxes and artworks arranged like that bring back waves of comforting nostalgia. I got the Dixons Ocean Top 20 compilation with my Amstrad CPC 464 and that kept me busy all of Christmas 1988. Great memories of playing Freddy Hardest, Game Over, Head Over Heels, Tai Pan, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Arkanoid. Thankfully no Amsoft bundles by that time although used to love playing 3D Stunt Rider on my mates CPC before i got mine. Software Plus was the place to buy games in my local town in the late 80s and they had a Golden Axe arcade machine in there as well which made visiting even more magical.
Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into that video. I lost count of the number of times I said, ‘oh, wow, I remember that one!’ to myself as you took us eighties kids back along Memory Lane. I really enjoyed that. 😊👍🏻🕹👾
I'll put my two pennies worth in, it was an amazing time, without the Internet and only magazines we would go through the games on the shelves and read the back etc and decide what to buy, some of the best games i bought were budget games of either 1.99 or 2.99, my favourite being spellbound by mad games this cost 2.99 for the amstrad cpc it was definatley my best budget purchase.
This brings back memories of Thursday nights at Morrisons and buying a speccy game whilst my parents were shopping. Got some great ones in the £1.99/£2.99 section, especially older ones that were re released like Xenon, Wizball etc.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood was a great game on the C64. I owned that oversize box version with the audio cassette. The cassette went missing years ago and I could never find the EXACT version of the song that was on that tape online. Still looking for it, but that box brought back memories. As did that clamshell of Ghostbusters.
ahhh memorys. I used to make my pilgrimage to Walthamstow market in the 80s. 2 - 3 game shops on the road. Love it! Jet set willy & manic minor! Bards tale!
Loved this - took me right back to my childhood. I worked my work experience in a shop just like this - Castle Computers in Lancaster. I later worked at Electronics Boutique (now Game) in Preston and even that wasn't that far removed in terms of how it looked. Looking back at those times - so magical. Sure I can marvel at how amazing the latest Doom games runs at 144hz at 4K, but the sheer intelligence of people who could cram an entire port of a top tier arcade game into 48K on a Spectrum in mere months is mind boggling to me. Upgrading to a C64 later on - colour and music! Witchcraft :) The funny thing is about so many of those games - I got them free on covertapes. Introduced to the whole Dizzy series from a free covertape. A much missed way to enjoy games!
"C15 Computer Cassette". Strong nostalgia there from the early days of owning a Spectrum. Most of my pocket money was spent in WH Smith in Ormskirk or Boots in Southport who had the best game selection near me. The look of the shop you've put together is spot on, very well done. I think you covered most of the significant software houses, though there are a few earlier ones that were missing - Artic, DK Tronics, Vortex, Melbourne House & Quicksilva all spring to mind, and who could forget Addictive Games, home to Football Manager, Kevin Toms and his lovely beard?
I remember getting some of those compilations on C64 for Xmas and having a great Xmas... Great video and brought back some memories but I noticed you have no MSX games there... My local electronics shop sold MSX and luckily my uncle was the manager so I ended up with a Toshiba MSX which was amazing at the time, my first 2 button gamepad and it was a game changer along with the Konami cartridge games... The Gradius series blew me away on MSX back in the day and the RMC needs some MSX in there!
Lots of memories of these classic games. I also used to get magazines and send away for games advertised in them as the local selection of acorn games was somewhat limited.
Brilliant trip down memory lane - thanks. I had a Dragon 32 back then (yep, it was me that bought it!) and loved some of the games on there, but was always envious of the Spectrum titles like JetPac and The Hobbit that my mates were playing. Moved to the C64 after that and never looked back. Keep up the great work RMC, will definitely pay you a visit one day.
My family had a Philips console to play games on in the 80s. My dad bought the games from a speciality shop since they weren't sold in the big stores where all the spectrum games, etc were. I still remember marvelling over the gorgeous artwork on the box of Quest for the Rings and then the disappointment of the game itself that didn't live up to that picture. That was such a thing, computer games being nowhere near as lovely as the box art. At Primary school they had a grandstand games console with pong and a number of other similar games which must have been old even back then. And that at least made our Philips look state of the art in comparison. I've fond memories of spending the night at my friend's house and playing on the zx spectrum, getting stuck on the Flintstones game and Jet Set Willy, and playing The Hobbit game. And when we finally got an Amiga 500, the graphics of Shadow of the Beast 2 absolutely blowing me away with how beautiful it was, and how amazing the music was. But oh were Amiga games expensive, compared to the price of the spectrum games, they were out of pocket money range and into the birthday/xmas gift category.
My clearest memory of the ZX Spectrum was playing Scuba dive while listening to Faith No More's album The real thing. I also loved Dizzy, Gryzor, Slightly Magic, and finders keepers.
Fantastic video. So may feels. Reminds me of walking home from school after starving myself so I could save my lunch money to buy a spectrum game and going in to superdrug shop if I only had £1.99 and gamble on game by the cover art. Or if I starved for the whole week I could go in whsmiths and splash out on a big box game. Still remember getting the big box R-type was well worth not eating for a week 😂
Wow thanks for a trip down memory lane. Had an Amstrad CPC464 as my first computer. I remember the local newsagent had a revolving stand with the £1:99 and £2:99 games in. Also the computer section at John Menzies/WH Smith, where deciding on what joystick to purchase next could take a while. Usually ended in a zipstick buy. Brought back a lot a childhood memories plus memories of smells for some reason. Like a new boxed game smell, what the shop used to smell like
@24:15 - "Did AT&T released any computer games?" Only if you consider UNIX as one... ;) Anyway, thanks for showing what computer shops were like in the UK. In the States it was more like the right hand side with boxed games that had floppy disks, even for 8-bit systems. In the early days, there were cassette games sold by very small publishers while the big commercial companies released carts. But by the late 80's disk drives were required for computer gaming. Maybe that's while the NES consoles were so popular over here...
Thank you for this. Takes me right back. You retro style shop reminds me of WHSmiths from 82, and is spot on to an independent software supplier I would frequent on the New Kings Road back in 85
Mastertronic's colour system made selecting games really easy: yellow for Spectrum, red for C64, pink for C16/Plus 4, brown for Amstrad, green for Dragon 32/64, white for MSX, blue for Atari, purple for BBC/Electron & light blue for VIC-20 such a brilliant innovation. Even rivals CodeMasters and Alternative used the colour code system too.
That's so like the computer shop I went to as a kid, even down to the colour of the slatted wall and the font on the signs. Happy memories of my dad picking me up once a week from school and taking me there to browse through all the tapes.
Those slat walls were the look of every computer shop everywhere right up until the late 90s when Gamestop started screwing up everything. (Kidding. It was a shift in the market. Gamestop was just the "winner".)
Huge nostalgia when I saw that Overlander box for the Speccy! I remember really wanting that game and saving up my pocket money for a trip to Dixons in Aylesbury. It cost me the princely sum of £8.99 and I never got past the 2nd level!
This video makes me want to see what games I have in my loft. From memory I should have some ZX81, Spectrum 48k title's plus a Cartridge for a commodore 64 🤔 oh and a ton of Amiga 500 games 😢 Good Times 🥳
I got a Toshiba MSX in 1985. Although the quantity of games, especially on cassette, was limited you could buy cartridge games from Konami including Nemesis and Antarctic Adventure. Most of these games were purchased from a local Toshiba dealer. Cassettes were on sale in places like Boots and Woolworths.
Wow! This got the nostalgia juices flowing. Thanks very much for the comprehensive overview of British, games publishers - the only omittance I spotted was Jeff Minter's Llamasoft - remember the weird and wonderful Metagalactic Llamas?
I love "Ricochet" being used as a "greatest hits/platinum" line. It's much more esoteric, nerdy, and fun! This is a fascinating dive into a subset of a culture I didn't know I wanted to learn more about!
I'd wager there were more sales from Magazines! With tape demos, news, basic coding guides to make it yourself! Reviews and advances with the various early systems! It was a lore in itself back then!
This was a brilliant nostaliga trip that spared a lot of forgotten memories. Seeing the magnificent 7 comp from Ocean with so many good games on it brought them flooding back, but the best bit was remembering about Sidewize. I had remembered it in my head as "sidewinder", and have been telling people about the shitty ending for years, and wondered why nothing came up when I google it. Great video, thankyou.
Great to see all of those old publishers and games, I do recall some of the shops (maybe more boots an WH Smith) used to have a special display shelf, so that the top 10 games could be displayed face on, rather than side on - that would be quite a good rotating display ....
I had a Commodore 16 for my first computer. The indoor market in the town centre where I lived, used to have a small stall which had the latest games on cassette for most computers. Every Saturday, I would visit the stall, spending hours pouring over all the games and cover art to help me decide how to spend £1.50 on a new game. The other attraction was because I could watch the latest game release on one of the two small colour tv's mounted on the wall. That stall was ahead of its time!!
I’m in Canada, and the C64 was popular here, more popular than it was in the U.S. per capita. But like the U.S., floppy drives dominated in Canada and datasettes were a rarity, so ultra-cheap games on cassette weren’t really a thing here. Thanks for sharing this bit of nostalgia. :-)
@@Halbared I had a datasette for my C64, but only because it came with it (I bought it second-hand). I used cartridges pretty much exclusively until I could afford a floppy drive for it.
@@ScrapKing73 I don't think I even knew about carts for the 64 till many years later, maybe when the C64GS came out. If I said a percentage, it'd be made up, but the percentage of 64 games in the uk that were tape was just yuge. Shops would be wall to wall tape, with some disks. £1.99 a game was a hard beat.
£1.99 cassettes, wow the memories come flooding back. British home stores basement in stockport circa 83 - 84 picking up games solely based on the box art, Burger Time, Impossible Mission, Spy Hunter, Time Pilot just to name a few. Great video RMC 👍
I remember Rock Star ate my hamster well. When things start to take off for your band, a headline will pop up, "John Peel backs ....' your band name'..." I named my band 4skin. Luckily, I'm all grown up now, and haven't changed a bit.👍
There's a English Oi! band called The 4-Skins which was formed way back in 1979 lol
@@spidervenom14 Did not expect oi references in these comments!
I had it to, pirate or legit I can't remember. I had a c64 and the mate a spectrum 128k (I think). Well done I remember manic miner, dizzy and back 2 school. Rolling thunder on the spectrum. Good days when life was simpler. Anyone watching who misses all those, check on the mister. Neil's video on it made me go out and buy it. Mainly for home computers. But it has everything.
Rock star ate my hamster was a riff on the famous sun headline freddy ate my hamster where comedian freddy Starr supposedly did just that
it was a great game, that
I grew up in rural Virginia and never saw a computer software shop like this. All of my software came from the occasional jaunt to the nearest big city or via mail order. Thanks for sharing this look into your world!
This was the video I didn’t know I needed. I hadn’t seen some of those game covers in over 35 years but they were still instantly familiar. Thank you.
Very interesting to see the UK game-buying experience of the 80s! Where I lived in the US back then, we didn't have small shops that sold computer software, we had a 30 minute drive to the nearest Toys R' Us. There they had one extremely long aisle of games, Commodore 64 on one side, and Atari and Apple on the other. Very few cassettes too, but lots of floppy disk games in those square sleeves that looks sort of like slightly smaller vinyl record sleeves.
Just discovered your channel, and as someone who has just turned 43 and grew up in the 80’s playing my CPC 464, I watched this video with a massive smile across my face. Thank you.
This takes me back, great video. Around 1988, my mum and her partner at the time opened a small game shop near my school and not once did I get bored of going there on my way home. It was a wonderland. Long after it closed we still had loads of old stock big box games, many still shrink-wrapped. When my mum moved house around 10 years ago I found them and gave them all away to someone off the Retro Gamer forum. Wish I had kept them now, but hopefully he found some joy in them (or made a few quid).
Damn those would be worth millions today
You bloody fool he'll have made a fortune 😳😳😳
In the UK all of those cheap games meant a boost in gaming, while in the us it was called the great game crash.
Well observed. I think many people think the videogame crash was global when it reality it was in most part unique to the US market.
You have to remember that Americans think they are the whole world though, recently watched a series of videos called the dumbest thing an American has ever said to you.
This is fantastic. As a US consumer who purchased his C64 in 1982 when I was 11, the store layout and collection of 1.99 pound games was not our experience. It’s nice to see it and understand it - thank you.
I do remember these titles appearing in the backs of magazine- like RUN magazine. I had no idea of these titles as they seemed like ripoffs of arcades and I was worried of being taken as they weren’t that inexpensive in the mags. I wasn’t aware of the scene in the UK. I wish I had.
Everyone here had disk drives, and swapped more expensive games all the time.
One of my favorite moments was when Archon released with the amazing music intro for Freefall Associates. EA did a nice job with their early games like seven cities of gold, murder on the zinderneuf, mule, racing construction set and others.
I live in the UK born in 84, two older brothers, our first computer was a Spectrum ZX. I always remember game/ video shops and how they changed over the years. I’m still a gamer to this day. We had lots of these titles, nostalgic overload!
I bought my first ever Mastertronic game from a carpet shop of all places, Duck Shoot for the Vic 20. However for a decent selection WHSmith was the place to be so having had the pleasure of experiencing the RMC Shop in person, it took me right back to those 80s days when 8 bits was more than enough! Good stuff!
Looks like WH Smiths software section! Good stuff. Nothing was ever sealed back then as far as I remember though. The tapes were never displayed in the boxes because kids would always nick them. So stuff like the Mastertronic card-backed packaging was something I'd never seen before. Ultimate releases were always big events and always mind-blowers. I remember waiting several hours at our local games store for the courier to bring the first shipment of, iirc, Night Lore.
Me and the rest of the 'nerds' had either C64s or Spcecys, although one poor chap only had a Vic-20. Commodore vs. Sinclair 'debates' were often heard in the classrooms. I was a Speccy-man but our 'gang' were split pretty evenly between the two camps.
One other addition that would be appropriate for a store display would be a little colour CRT showing one of the games in action. I remember most of the shops back then had one behind the counter or, in the case of Smiths, on a shelf with a Spectrum you could actually try out. Saturday afternoon was always busy in that area of the shop 'cos it was like a free arcade machine.
You were likely to also see some hardware. Like Kempston joysticks, joystick interfaces, RAM packs, tape players, etc.
This video bought a lot of memories back.
It's amazing the explosion of creativity during those times! I started getting interested in games in the early 90s in France and a lot of those British companies were among the most recognizable. France also had its share of companies like Infogrames, Ubisoft, Delphine, etc. but I don't think it started as early as it did in the UK. Also the Amstrad CPC was very popular in France.
Loved this video! One thing that we have covered on CocoTalk was just how much better the cassette cover artwork in the UK was compared to most of the North American ones, even for the same titles. They just seemed to always present it much better. Also, I wanted to point out that the Dragon actually was a best seller in late 1982-mid 1983 (being consistently 2-3 place for some months in 1983), but that it didn't stay at those positions past 1983 (and the Dragon 64 wasn't as popular). The Register had a cool article in 2013 that covered the sales of micros in the UK in 1983, which was based on published sales data from Personal Computer News magazine. Between June and September of that year, the Dragon 32 was in 2nd or 3rd place in sales (this was a shock to me, as many people - including Dragon owners at the time - did not think that it sold well). But it was outselling the Vic 20, ZX-81, Atari 8 bits, and the BBC most or all of the time during that time period. Here is the article (click on the chart to make it more readable): www.theregister.com/2013/01/03/charted_1983_home_computer_sales_in_uk/
This is incredible. Im from Ireland, and it was the same here with the same games. Magazines like Zzap!, Crash, Commodore Format were on the shelves in my area, and a family right 'round the corner from me had a Spectrum.
I remember seeing "Chase HQ" on the spectrum, being very impressed. I got it on the C64, and was horrified as to how horrible it was! I couldnt admit to the Spectrum family that "their" version was brilliant and better!
Thats the wonderful thing about the multiple computers at the time. Be it Amstrad, C64, Spectrum, each version of the same game looked, sounded and sometime then, played and ran differently. And Id be in awe looking in say, CVG magazine at how things looked on the Amiga, or Atari ST.
The c64 sid chip is still one of my fave sounds in the world. This is a superb lookback at the wonderous world of computer games in the 80s.
Was at the video game museum in Sheffield earlier this year and they had a wall with 15 screens, each running a Donkey Kong on a different hardware platform. It illustrated your point perfectly!
What a brilliant video ! This took me right back to visiting WH Smith on a Saturday morning and inevitably being disappointed when I couldn't find the new release I was looking for. Still, at least you could browse the gaming magazines while you waited for your mum :) As soon as you showed the tape of The Last V8, all those memories came rushing back. I can remember the music and synthesized voices vividly, as well as the intense frustration when I crashed into a small shrub for the 1000th time. Grrr.
This is similar to my memory. Going in WHS to see if my comics were in, check the star wars figures and the games.
I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I hope you do more in this series
As a non British person who had no access to computers at all in the 1980's I would have loved to see some of the stuff actually played. Without any footage it's a trip down somebody else's memory lane that I can't really relate to. Especially as I don't actually know a great majority of these games.
I am not saying it's not interesting or entertaining. But it's lots of bones with no meat on.
@@catriona_drummond It's like you say, that you sadly had no access to computers at all... I too am not British, but in Malta we had these shops all over the place.
@@catriona_drummond The purpose was to show a physical shop and games on shelves as seen in the 80's ie as nostalgia trip for those who experienced it. If you want to know about the games themselves, just search for any of these publishers eg "Mastertronic games" or specific game on youtube. There are literally thousands of gameplay videos.
Wow! So much 8-bit nostalgia. Some of those games bring back many memories. The ZX Spectrum was my first computer. Thanks for sharing.
You know, I may not have been born (not even visited) in the UK, but I have to admit: British consoles/computers and games fascinate me. I'd love to tinker with such machines at some point.
Brilliant stuff! So many memories... I'm from Australia, I recall a lot of these titles and companies. The C64 was the almighty machine here in the 80s and took up most of the shelves from memory.
As somebody who worked in a computer store throughout the 80's and early 90's that brings back a lot of memories. Our shop kept the 1.99 cassette games in an old music cassette rotary locked display (you know the type one key at the top released the lock in that section and you could lift the tape out) they were very popular and we ended up with 2 displays each holding about 100 tapes. We also had a section with display computers that we could test the tapes in (as countless people used to bring them back for exchange or a refund after copying them!)
A great episode - over here in Australia the department stores sold Commodore games in a dedicated section but sometimes they hit the shelves 3 months after the UK release date (same with the magazines) I do remember a store in Melbourne that used to import the games from the UK usually a week or two after the release but with extra costs for the luxury. Mastertronic titles I do remember being sold at Target stores for $9.99 instead of what should have at least $5.00 but as usual over here we had to pay extra as we are so bloody far away!
The extra charge was revenge for flooding the UK with Aussie soaps 😛😂😂 I actually didn't mind some of them 🤣
I live in the US, and when I needed to do a silkscreen project for my high school printing class, I used the Firebird logo. It was cool, it was simple enough, and I remember getting a good grade as well as a cool t-shirt. Thanks for the nostalgia!
One of the publishers I remember was Melbourne House (The Hobbit, The Way of the Exploding Fist, Horace goes Skiing) and was absorbed into Mastertronic in 1987
My main one from them was Mordons Quest a text adventure, had Horace too :) still have them somewhere :)
I have been in this very room when visiting Neil at the cave and can confirm it is fantastic and takes you back immediately to the days when all this was new. The whole set up is well worth a visit.
So many happy memories. I remember in Wallasey there was an independent shop called Micro Byte who seemed to have a connection to Bug Byte as they also had their branding and logo on the sign. You could go in and ask to try a game before you bought it, there was always a buzz about the place.
I also remember arguing with my dad about buying Elite for the Electron. I didn't like the look of the monochrome graphics - how wrong I was! We played that game for months, we'd take turns to fly a mission each and discuss what to buy and where to sell.
I also remember the amount of abject garbage you used to be able to buy, there were so few reviews and especially down at the £1.99/99p price point there were some terrible, terrible games with enticing box art.
Remember the shop well, I bought a cheap Konix clone joystick there, was great.
What was the name of the other great game shop there, I remember there been two great shops there, one on Seaview Road, and one on Liscard road.
If we travelled further afield the was Computer Adventure World in Birkenhead that was pretty great too...
Wallasey was in many ways the Cult Capital of UK gaming, it was the home of Mathew Smith of Manic Minor fame, and Bug Byte themselves funding Mathew Smith to produce Manic Minor and Jet Set Willy.
think there might have been one in Crewe too.
Elite truly was an epic game when it came out! Also, yes; there were some horrible games back then.
I'm not sure. Here in Wakefield we also had a Microbyte (if it is the same company). One of the execs there set up 17-Bit Software here in Wakefield, which subsequently became Team17.
This is like a warm blanket. I worked in a Games store in 1990 and saw a lot of these games on the shelf. We sold a lot of Amigas, and the consoles on display were the Megadrive and Super Nintendo. I distinctly remember playing Castle Of Illusion with my co worker and she killed it. Wish i could get in touch with her now. The Dizzy games were bundled with the Amiga and I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they were so popular.
Commando was the first computer game I ever played. This video has unlocked so many memories. My mate’s dad did the cover art for a few Codemasters games, including Rockstar Ate My Hamster
Really takes you back.
Still have all my games going back to the zx spectrum, must get them out one day.
Way of the exploding fist for action was great.
Hope you kept them in a dry place.
I never knew just how knowledgeable the host is. It's nice when someone who is genuinely passionate about the subject is the one running the UA-cam channel.
I don't claim to know it all but passion is very much the driving force! Thanks for taking the time to watch
Superior Software published a short book in 1987 called "Success in Software" and written by Richard Hanson that gave people advice on how to get their own games published. They sold it through mail order (£1.95), and I still have my copy here in my bookcase.
wow!!!! nostalgia heaven. Late 80s I'd be doing the same, going to my local gaming shop Watchdog to pick up a new spectrum game. Even my mom at the time was a huge fan of the Dizzy games. I can still remember the 'dial up internet' sound as the games loaded. Thank You for this.
Love this so much. Our shops in the US looked like this as well. Such amazing memories of scanning the shelves for a good deal that I could blow my limited kid-funds on, bringing it home, reading every bit of packaging and paper that came with it and then praying that the game would run properly.
What an excellent skip down memory lane, there. I left school in 1980 and by '85 was out of college and in a job so I was in the enviable position of being able to buy pretty much any game that took my fancy in those days. In my home town of Harlow in Essex we had all the big names like WHSmith, Boots, John Menzies etc. and, at one point, no less than three indie computer games shops to choose from (plus Special Reserve, down the road in Sawbridgeworth) so a mate and I would spend most Saturday afternoons trawing around the town for whatever was new and I'd invariably come back with a new game each week for either the Speccy or C64 (and later, Amiga). I sorely miss the days of the UK hobbyist, tiny independents and bedroom coders all fired up by this new technology. Of course, it could never last but it was great while it did.
Back when it was a cottage industry before the Japanese giants took over.
This was a great video, brought back lots of memories. I'm from a slightly older era and started gaming on the ZX81. J K Greye and Artic created my first games, 3D Monster Maze and Espionage Island.
was gonna mention JK Greye - I adored Catacombs
@@UKMrStephen Yep, my brother and I loved Catacombs too.
It's rare I get a hit of nostalgia like this, even though I read Retro Gamer and watch Kim Justice vids. There's something very tactile here, brought back some memories of newsagents and shops I'd long forgotten. As time passes it feels like the only history recorded of 80s gaming is 'the crash' and the NES, so you're really doing a service here!
What an insanely cool way to display your collection. Recreate a shop. I can't believe other UA-camrs don't do this. LGR should do this. His would be insanely massive though. I truly hope RMC makes more videos like this. Next time we need to see the big box games on his left.
My favourite Firebird game, and possibly favourite C64 game ever was The Sentinel. A truly unique game at the time, and other than a couple of later remakes, I can't think of a modern equivalent.
Loved this, I've had my UA-cam icon as the Microdeal guy since day one, many fond memories of so many games in this video
Excellent video! Man i remember we used to buy Amstrad CPC 464 Cassette tapes from Woolworths, Boots the Chemist lol 😂, inShops in Stratford (his games were so expensive! but he had the big name boxed titles), and a proper Computer Game shop on Barking Road, Plaistow - I would also borrow CPC 464 tapes from Holborn Library in London. Amazing times.
I have still got my acetronic
With space invaders and Olympics
It came out around 1978
Just looking at those shelves and the set up bought back huge nostalgia for me. The downstairs games department at Boots in Coventry town centre or Dixons where I bought a C64. Those were the days.
When I was a small kid here in rural Northumberland, the upstairs of my local Boots had a corner that had a Woolies style tape rack in the middle with one side of it dedicated to C64 budget jewel case tapes, the other side split between Amstrad and Spectrum, with more Amstrad than Spectrum. There were two walls with shelves similar to yours, and one wall was dedicated to cardboard boxed and floppy based 8-bit and PC titles and the other wall was Amiga and Atari ST stuff, big box and budget "dual tape case with a floppy in it" style boxes.
This, of course, is a slightly later period than yourself, I'd say '87 to '92, and I guess the change was a reflection of the times(mostly C64, a decent selection of Amstrad, Amiga and ST titles, some token Spectrum and PC games to round it out.
A great nostalgic trip to days of old, I miss those days I could spend hours looking round all the shops at the different machines and software.
55 now and this brings back memories. Just seeing the artwork and remembering it was very nostalgic. C64 and the Speccy were the consoles of choice then - the amount of pirating from cassette was astronomical at school. Great times.
It’s hard to imagine now but I bought all my games from boots, I would spend hours in there looking at the games, now I just go there for strepsills
Working at one of the first WHSmith home computer shops from 1982 for 3 years based in Birmingham city centre, this all brings back so many memories for me. I have played games on a Mattel Aquarius, and Oric 1 and many more mainstream hardware platforms. We sold everything from the ZX81 up to what must have been one of the first IBM PC clones, the Advance A86 which was so basic it didn't even have a hard drive and loaded software from a cassette interface. I even wrote a program for that running at a computer show at the NEC - quite a claim to fame at the time but tell the kids that these days...
Lovely walk down memory lane. Thanks.
What an absolutely wonderful video! Thank you. All the best from Sweden 🙌🏻
Great times . Saturday afternoons consisted of chippy dinner , local arcade , then we would all put some money together buy a game & copy it ! Then the following weekend take it back saying it didn't work and exchange it 😂 and repeat the cycle ! The only games we never made copies of was Dizzy ( codemasters) I'm sure they were £3-5 so we didn't bother
Some of the boxes give a bigger nostalgia hit than actually playing the game would.
especially when you open them up and find a full size physical map, manual, book, trinkets, etc :D nowadays you have to buy the £300 collector's edition to get anything physical
Superb video. Im in my 50s and live in the UK, and the decor and layout of your game-shop corner really reminds me of my local Software Plus store from the mid 80s. I started gaming in seaside arcades in the 70s and been hooked ever since. Of the 8-bit home micro era I had a ZX81, an Atari 400, a 48k Speccy and an Amstrad CPC464. So many great games, fun gaming magazines and good times with friends. I used to love strolling into town on a Sturday and hunting out the best bargains across WH Smith, Boots, Our Price, Dixons, Woolworths, the outdoor markets and independent stores ... I still love searching out bargain games nowadays, old habits die hard I guess, lol :-)
Absolutely fantastic video Neil!
This takes me back to the early eighties, boots , whsmiths were the kings of 8 bit retailing
I fondly remember the computers and the cassette tape games
The 16 bit stuff on your right in video reminds me of the virgin megastores and hmv of the 90s
Superb stuff , i can understand why in such a small amount of time you have gained so much praise for your brilliant videos , keep it up !
From a 53 year old male fan of rmc retro !
What a brillant vid. As a 51 year old this brought back a lot of memories for me, especially the names of all the publishers I'd forgotten. I also really like the presenting style... no hype, just a fond commentary. I ended up working on computer games magazines and used to work with the PR lady for US Gold on ST Format, as they were still going at that point a few years later.
I think we all must be around 51 now Ed😅Happy Days😉
Omg love this video it made my day had a cpc 464 green screen back in 1986 subbed!!
ZX Spectrum games were very common in my country. (Portugal).
When even had them on sale in coffee shops in a small carousel along with music tapes.
And we even had our own ZX Spectrum clone, the Sinclair Timex Computer 048 and 068.
Do you have these in the cave?.
Great times.
Great video.
I recall buying c64 games, oddly, in the fishing tackle shop in my local town in the 80’s, here in Northern Ireland. “Computers & Tackle”, I think it was called. They had a good selection of those budget titles you showcase and recall the shop always had the distinct smell from the fish bait :)
I remember going into Boots (yes they used to sell them) and swapping the price labels around so you got then cheaper, the shop assistants didn't have a clue lol this was waaaaay before the days of bar code scanning 😂😂😂
Heh me and my mates used to do the same (in Boots as well) swap the £1.99 Mastertronic price stickers onto the £7.99 'premium' titles. Like you say the shop assistants didn't have a clue! I ended up working for Gremlin after spending many an hour in Just Micro where they had the systems set up so you could play the games before buying them. One of the assistants there became a producer at Gremlin and when I went for an interview there he recognised me from the shop and I was hired as a tester. First day was testing The Shoe People on the Spectrum!
This is a great idea Neil and its very enjoyable. Another software company I remember which may be from the UK was Durell. They made the excellent Critical Mass game. Please do more of this if you have time, which I'm sure is difficult these days in the Cave with so much going on! Thank you.
And the brilliant Saboteur.
Durell were indeed a British software company. Critical Mass was a brilliant game - one I've not thought about for many years. I think I need to load up Vice and give it a go. Saboteur also.
@@rogerwilco2558 I'm lucky to still have a clamshell copy of it.
I mostly had an experience of 1980s 8-bit gaming only vicariously, hearing my friends talk about their favourites like Dizzy, Rock Star Ate My Hamster, Chuckie Egg, Boulderdash and Paperboy. We had a Commodore 16/Plus 4 but I wasn't much into computers before I was ten and though I enjoyed a couple of games, it didn't grip me. I did occasionally watch/play games at friend's houses; a couple of mate's had Speccys, another an Amstrad, and a few years later another had an Atari ST (I remember watching, impressed, at my first experience of an open world game- Mercenary. My friend demonstrated the freedom of the game by driving into the sea).
What a fantastic video,thanks.As a 51 year old gamer this was the era i remember most fondly,where it all started off,for me woth the 48k Sinclair Zx Spectrum(Rubber keys).Happy Memories.Spending my pocket money on £1.99 Codemasters games or clubbing together with your friends and getting a £9.99 game on cassette and copying it onto blank cassettes so everyone could get a copy 🙂
Literally a walk down memory lane for me. Mid 80's I lived in Southampton UK. Boots, WHSmiths, all of that rings bells. I really miss those times honestly.
A wonderful video. I was extremely lucky as a young teenager in the 80’s I worked in a games shop selling all those games and many others. I loved the 8bit days but the Amiga days were the pinnacle of gaming for me!
CPC user here. A newsagent in town was on and off with its budget rack, as was Woolworths. Alas we had to travel 10 miles to the next town for a proper software store (Software Plus).
Spent my paper round earnings on Codemasters, Alternative Software, Hit Squad, Encore, and Mastertronic tapes.
Later Amstrad Action magazine started their regular monthly covertape with at least 1 full game given away. Had the first 23 Action Pack tapes before I moved on to the Amiga 600.
Brought back so many memories watching this! I loves the Crash zx spectrum magazine that had games on the front.
Also loved the Julian Gallop strategy games like Rebelstar II, Laser Squad, Chaos etc
I stumbled upon this video the morning - and WOW! We didnt have anything like this in Canada - especially the budget games. What would be fantastic is to find a company to release all of these on a compilation DVD for Windows/MAc/PS4/XBOX/Switch. This seems so foreign but super interesting .
You are right, that shelf sight is a bit foreign to me having grown up in the 80's in Australia. However one universal 80's gaming rule that crosses continents, the box art always looked fantastic and grasped your imagination. You then bought it and usually promptly found the game was shite, but you still played the hell out of it because you damn well paid for it...
Great video, all the cassette boxes and artworks arranged like that bring back waves of comforting nostalgia. I got the Dixons Ocean Top 20 compilation with my Amstrad CPC 464 and that kept me busy all of Christmas 1988. Great memories of playing Freddy Hardest, Game Over, Head Over Heels, Tai Pan, Yie Ar Kung Fu, Arkanoid. Thankfully no Amsoft bundles by that time although used to love playing 3D Stunt Rider on my mates CPC before i got mine. Software Plus was the place to buy games in my local town in the late 80s and they had a Golden Axe arcade machine in there as well which made visiting even more magical.
Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into that video. I lost count of the number of times I said, ‘oh, wow, I remember that one!’ to myself as you took us eighties kids back along Memory Lane. I really enjoyed that. 😊👍🏻🕹👾
I'll put my two pennies worth in, it was an amazing time, without the Internet and only magazines we would go through the games on the shelves and read the back etc and decide what to buy, some of the best games i bought were budget games of either 1.99 or 2.99, my favourite being spellbound by mad games this cost 2.99 for the amstrad cpc it was definatley my best budget purchase.
This brings back memories of Thursday nights at Morrisons and buying a speccy game whilst my parents were shopping. Got some great ones in the £1.99/£2.99 section, especially older ones that were re released like Xenon, Wizball etc.
Frankie Goes to Hollywood was a great game on the C64. I owned that oversize box version with the audio cassette. The cassette went missing years ago and I could never find the EXACT version of the song that was on that tape online. Still looking for it, but that box brought back memories. As did that clamshell of Ghostbusters.
ahhh memorys. I used to make my pilgrimage to Walthamstow market in the 80s. 2 - 3 game shops on the road. Love it! Jet set willy & manic minor! Bards tale!
Loved this - took me right back to my childhood. I worked my work experience in a shop just like this - Castle Computers in Lancaster. I later worked at Electronics Boutique (now Game) in Preston and even that wasn't that far removed in terms of how it looked.
Looking back at those times - so magical. Sure I can marvel at how amazing the latest Doom games runs at 144hz at 4K, but the sheer intelligence of people who could cram an entire port of a top tier arcade game into 48K on a Spectrum in mere months is mind boggling to me. Upgrading to a C64 later on - colour and music! Witchcraft :)
The funny thing is about so many of those games - I got them free on covertapes. Introduced to the whole Dizzy series from a free covertape. A much missed way to enjoy games!
"C15 Computer Cassette". Strong nostalgia there from the early days of owning a Spectrum. Most of my pocket money was spent in WH Smith in Ormskirk or Boots in Southport who had the best game selection near me. The look of the shop you've put together is spot on, very well done. I think you covered most of the significant software houses, though there are a few earlier ones that were missing - Artic, DK Tronics, Vortex, Melbourne House & Quicksilva all spring to mind, and who could forget Addictive Games, home to Football Manager, Kevin Toms and his lovely beard?
Durrel did scuba dive which was amazing. Loved that game.
Durrell always had a really nicely animated player character
I remember getting some of those compilations on C64 for Xmas and having a great Xmas... Great video and brought back some memories but I noticed you have no MSX games there... My local electronics shop sold MSX and luckily my uncle was the manager so I ended up with a Toshiba MSX which was amazing at the time, my first 2 button gamepad and it was a game changer along with the Konami cartridge games... The Gradius series blew me away on MSX back in the day and the RMC needs some MSX in there!
Lots of memories of these classic games. I also used to get magazines and send away for games advertised in them as the local selection of acorn games was somewhat limited.
Brilliant trip down memory lane - thanks. I had a Dragon 32 back then (yep, it was me that bought it!) and loved some of the games on there, but was always envious of the Spectrum titles like JetPac and The Hobbit that my mates were playing. Moved to the C64 after that and never looked back. Keep up the great work RMC, will definitely pay you a visit one day.
My family had a Philips console to play games on in the 80s. My dad bought the games from a speciality shop since they weren't sold in the big stores where all the spectrum games, etc were. I still remember marvelling over the gorgeous artwork on the box of Quest for the Rings and then the disappointment of the game itself that didn't live up to that picture. That was such a thing, computer games being nowhere near as lovely as the box art.
At Primary school they had a grandstand games console with pong and a number of other similar games which must have been old even back then. And that at least made our Philips look state of the art in comparison.
I've fond memories of spending the night at my friend's house and playing on the zx spectrum, getting stuck on the Flintstones game and Jet Set Willy, and playing The Hobbit game. And when we finally got an Amiga 500, the graphics of Shadow of the Beast 2 absolutely blowing me away with how beautiful it was, and how amazing the music was. But oh were Amiga games expensive, compared to the price of the spectrum games, they were out of pocket money range and into the birthday/xmas gift category.
My clearest memory of the ZX Spectrum was playing Scuba dive while listening to Faith No More's album The real thing.
I also loved Dizzy, Gryzor, Slightly Magic, and finders keepers.
I played Finders Keepers too. Never did get far in the game, always dying of exhaustion.
The brown and beige styling was certainly a popular “look” back in the day. The thing is, I’m still reminded of it when I visit my local charity shop.
Fantastic video. So may feels. Reminds me of walking home from school after starving myself so I could save my lunch money to buy a spectrum game and going in to superdrug shop if I only had £1.99 and gamble on game by the cover art. Or if I starved for the whole week I could go in whsmiths and splash out on a big box game. Still remember getting the big box R-type was well worth not eating for a week 😂
Wow thanks for a trip down memory lane. Had an Amstrad CPC464 as my first computer. I remember the local newsagent had a revolving stand with the £1:99 and £2:99 games in. Also the computer section at John Menzies/WH Smith, where deciding on what joystick to purchase next could take a while. Usually ended in a zipstick buy. Brought back a lot a childhood memories plus memories of smells for some reason. Like a new boxed game smell, what the shop used to smell like
@24:15 - "Did AT&T released any computer games?" Only if you consider UNIX as one... ;)
Anyway, thanks for showing what computer shops were like in the UK. In the States it was more like the right hand side with boxed games that had floppy disks, even for 8-bit systems. In the early days, there were cassette games sold by very small publishers while the big commercial companies released carts. But by the late 80's disk drives were required for computer gaming.
Maybe that's while the NES consoles were so popular over here...
Thank you for this. Takes me right back. You retro style shop reminds me of WHSmiths from 82, and is spot on to an independent software supplier I would frequent on the New Kings Road back in 85
Great vid ! A real blast from the past, brought back some forgotten memories too
Mastertronic's colour system made selecting games really easy: yellow for Spectrum, red for C64, pink for C16/Plus 4, brown for Amstrad, green for Dragon 32/64, white for MSX, blue for Atari, purple for BBC/Electron & light blue for VIC-20 such a brilliant innovation. Even rivals CodeMasters and Alternative used the colour code system too.
One company that is missing is Micro Power, primarily from the early days of the BBC/Electron but also released a few games for C64/CPC/Spectrum
That's so like the computer shop I went to as a kid, even down to the colour of the slatted wall and the font on the signs. Happy memories of my dad picking me up once a week from school and taking me there to browse through all the tapes.
Those slat walls were the look of every computer shop everywhere right up until the late 90s when Gamestop started screwing up everything. (Kidding. It was a shift in the market. Gamestop was just the "winner".)
Huge nostalgia when I saw that Overlander box for the Speccy! I remember really wanting that game and saving up my pocket money for a trip to Dixons in Aylesbury. It cost me the princely sum of £8.99 and I never got past the 2nd level!
This video makes me want to see what games I have in my loft. From memory I should have some ZX81, Spectrum 48k title's plus a Cartridge for a commodore 64 🤔 oh and a ton of Amiga 500 games 😢 Good Times 🥳
I got a Toshiba MSX in 1985. Although the quantity of games, especially on cassette, was limited you could buy cartridge games from Konami including Nemesis and Antarctic Adventure. Most of these games were purchased from a local Toshiba dealer. Cassettes were on sale in places like Boots and Woolworths.
Wow! This got the nostalgia juices flowing. Thanks very much for the comprehensive overview of British, games publishers - the only omittance I spotted was Jeff Minter's Llamasoft - remember the weird and wonderful Metagalactic Llamas?
What a wonderful trip down memory lane Neil, great vid. I’ll be along again soon to The Cave.
Great set up with the shelving - reminds me of shopping for Spectrum games as a little kid in WH Smith’s and John Menzies.
I love "Ricochet" being used as a "greatest hits/platinum" line. It's much more esoteric, nerdy, and fun! This is a fascinating dive into a subset of a culture I didn't know I wanted to learn more about!
I'd wager there were more sales from Magazines! With tape demos, news, basic coding guides to make it yourself! Reviews and advances with the various early systems! It was a lore in itself back then!
This was a brilliant nostaliga trip that spared a lot of forgotten memories. Seeing the magnificent 7 comp from Ocean with so many good games on it brought them flooding back, but the best bit was remembering about Sidewize. I had remembered it in my head as "sidewinder", and have been telling people about the shitty ending for years, and wondered why nothing came up when I google it. Great video, thankyou.
Great to see all of those old publishers and games, I do recall some of the shops (maybe more boots an WH Smith) used to have a special display shelf, so that the top 10 games could be displayed face on, rather than side on - that would be quite a good rotating display ....
I had a Commodore 16 for my first computer. The indoor market in the town centre where I lived, used to have a small stall which had the latest games on cassette for most computers. Every Saturday, I would visit the stall, spending hours pouring over all the games and cover art to help me decide how to spend £1.50 on a new game. The other attraction was because I could watch the latest game release on one of the two small colour tv's mounted on the wall. That stall was ahead of its time!!
I’m in Canada, and the C64 was popular here, more popular than it was in the U.S. per capita. But like the U.S., floppy drives dominated in Canada and datasettes were a rarity, so ultra-cheap games on cassette weren’t really a thing here. Thanks for sharing this bit of nostalgia. :-)
I had a cassette layer, they took ages to load, I was jealous of disk players. :D
@@Halbared I had a datasette for my C64, but only because it came with it (I bought it second-hand). I used cartridges pretty much exclusively until I could afford a floppy drive for it.
@@ScrapKing73 I don't think I even knew about carts for the 64 till many years later, maybe when the C64GS came out. If I said a percentage, it'd be made up, but the percentage of 64 games in the uk that were tape was just yuge. Shops would be wall to wall tape, with some disks. £1.99 a game was a hard beat.