Nintendo Ruined Video Games

[Pacman000]

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/182294/persuasive_games_wii_cant_go_on_.php

Tried searching for the thread's title, & found this via Yandex.

"Before Nintendo came around to rescue video games, the industry was well on its way to becoming just the sort of general-purpose mass medium today's developers and critics like to think they are inventing anew. Ironically, many of those creators are too young to know what came before, and thus see themselves as saviors contributing to a long-withheld maturity, not realizing that such effort is only necessary thanks to their childhood video game idol."

[Chainsawmidget]

Before Nintendo, the videogame industry wasn't "general-purpose mass medium".  It was lying in the gutter slowly bleeding to death. 

[clockworkcanary]

Maybe as far as game consoles are concerned, but the computer video games pre-Nintendo were just fine. Infocom for the win!

[Olivia Bauer]

The console gaming market nearly died in 1983. Atari and its (Pretty weak) competitors didn't have the idea of requiring licensing for video games.
The market for Atari era games got absolutely flooded leading to a severe decline in game prices. People really lost faith in Atari though after the disastrous movie licensed game "E.T." (Which is considered one of the worst games ever made) and a half-assed port of Pac-Man. For two years consoles had a horrible stigma around them until the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the United States in 1985. Without Nintendo the console gaming market could have died.

I think it's safe to say that Nintendo didn't ruin video games. Frankly, Atari games were s**t to begin with. For the time they were cool but they didn't age like wine. They aged like a dead body left out in the sun.