During the early '80s, the primary home computer game systems were the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum and the Apple II. The ZX Spectrum in particular quickly became the most popular home computer in the UK and many areas of Western Europe, whilst the Commodore 64 become the most popular home computer of its day in the USA and the best-selling single computer model of all time internationally.
The early '80s also saw the rise of a number of computer game publishing houses; whilst many released good quality, original games, there were also some that published cheap, simple clones of existing arcade titles. Text adventures such as Zork were still very popular during this period, as early computers often lacked the graphical capabilities for more sophisticated games. One of the first graphic adventures to be released for home computers was Mystery House, for the Apple II, which featured static monochrome drawings alongside the typed commands of text adventures. The creators, Roberta and Ken Williams later went on to found Sierra On-Line, a major producer of adventure games.
In 1983, the home video console market crashed (see Second Generation of Video Consoles), enabling the home computer and personal computer market to take over. The IBM compatible PC released in 1984 became a technically competitive gaming platform, with its new 16-color EGA display standard enabling its graphics to approach the quality seen in popular home computers like the Commodore 64. However, the PC's relatively high cost and substandard sound capabilities limited its popularity in gaming.
By 1984, the first true modern adventure game was released, featuring colour graphics and a third person perspective that enabled the on-screen player-controlled character to be moved in front of and behind objects on a 2D background drawn in perspective, creating the illusion of pseudo-3D space. The King's Quest series from Sierra still used text commands; however, this feature was removed in the 1987 game Maniac Mansion by Lucasarts, which used a point-and-click interface. This idea was quickly taken up by other publishers such as Sierra, which led to the modern mouse-driven adventure games.
Modern style 3D graphics were brought into home computing games in 1984 with a game called Elite, written by Ian Bell and David Braben. The space-based program used wireframe 3D graphics with full 6 degree freedom of movement, which ensured that it was soon ported from its original platform of the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron to virtually every home computer system of the day including the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64, along with the new-era 16-bit machines such as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST.
In 1987, the VGA standard was developed for IBM's new PS/2 line, giving PCs the potential for 256-colour graphics. Although this was a huge leap forward compared to 8-bit machines such as the ZX Spectrum, it still lagged behind the newer home computers such as Commodore Amiga, which had built-in sound and graphics hardware. However, although the new16-bit machines were technically superior and were host to many technically excellent games, the IBM PC compatible machines were relatively cheaper and became more prominent in the market.
In the late 80s, sound cards were introduced to address the issue of poor sound capabilities in IBM PC compatibles, with AdLib creating a sound card based on the Yamaha YM3812 sound chip in 1987. This was followed in 1989 by Creative Labs' Sound Blaster card, which which took the chip and added new features while remaining compatible with AdLib cards. However, due to their initial high cost, sound cards did not become widespread until the 1990s.
Although shareware gaming first appeared in the late 1980s, its major successes came in the 1990s.
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