Editing Video game (section)

===History===
The early history of the video game industry, following the first game hardware releases and through 1983, had little structure. Video games quickly took off during the [[golden age of arcade video games]] from the late 1970s to early 1980s, but the newfound industry was mainly composed of game developers with little business experience. This led to numerous companies forming simply to create [[video game clone|clones]] of popular games to try to capitalize on the market.<ref name="down many times"/> Due to loss of publishing control and oversaturation of the market, the North American home video game market [[1983 video game crash|crashed in 1983]], dropping from revenues of around {{USD|3 billion|long=no}} in 1983 to {{USD|100 million|long=no}} by 1985. Many of the North American companies created in the prior years closed down. Japan's growing game industry was briefly shocked by this crash but had sufficient longevity to withstand the short-term effects, and [[Nintendo]] helped to revitalize the industry with the release of the [[Nintendo Entertainment System]] in North America in 1985.<ref name="down many times">{{cite book | last = Ernkvist | first = Mirko | chapter = Down many times, but still playing the game: Creative destruction and industry crashes in the early video game industry 1971–1986 | year = 2008 | pages = 161–191 | title = History of Insolvancy and Bankruptcy | publisher = Södertörns högskola | editor-first= Karl | editor-last=Gratzer | editor-first2=Dieter | editor-last2=Stiefel | isbn = 978-91-89315-94-5 }}</ref> Along with it, Nintendo established a number of core industrial practices to prevent unlicensed game development and control game distribution on their platform, methods that continue to be used by console manufacturers today.<ref name="down many times"/>

The industry remained more conservative following the 1983 crash, forming around the concept of publisher-developer dichotomies, and by the 2000s, leading to the industry centralizing around low-risk, [[AAA (video game industry)|triple-A]] games and studios with large development budgets of at least {{USD|10 million|long=no}} or more.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Demaria |first1=Rusel |last2=Wilson |first2=John |title=High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games |date=2002 |edition=1st |publisher=McGraw-Hill Osborne Media |isbn=0-07-222428-2}}</ref> The advent of the Internet brought digital distribution as a viable means to distribute games, and contributed to the growth of more riskier, experimental [[independent game development]] as an alternative to triple-A games in the late 2000s and which has continued to grow as a significant portion of the video game industry.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.pcgamer.com/from-shareware-superstars-to-the-steam-gold-rush-how-indie-conquered-the-pc/ | title = From shareware superstars to the Steam gold rush: How indie conquered the PC | first = Richard | last = Cobbett | date = 22 September 2017 | access-date = 25 September 2017 | work = [[PC Gamer]] | archive-date = 9 September 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210909121952/https://www.pcgamer.com/from-shareware-superstars-to-the-steam-gold-rush-how-indie-conquered-the-pc/ | url-status = live }}</ref><ref name="indie dreams"/>