Top Game?

[gaga64]

I'm just doing a little research into various systems, and I was wondering if anyone knew (or knows where I might find) what the best-selling C64 game was?

Whilst I'm asking, does anyone know for sure how many C64 units were sold - reports seem to say either 22,000,000 (slightly more than the GameCube) or 30,000,000 (slightly more than the Wii and Mega Drive)?

Cheers for your time.

[Joxe]

I think it will be hard to track down the most sold game since there were a lot of piracy on the games and statistics wasn't tracked like it is today. Take into account that it were more than 20000 games on the platform.

I wild guess would be one of the major names like Elite or The Last Ninja.

[mike6581]

It's hard to say what was the biggest selling game on the C64, or most distributed at least as each market was so compartmentalised. I'd say the biggest selling game in the UK was probably Paperboy as so many people had that game it was crazy. I can't speak for the rest of the world though.

I'm not sure it'd be Elite or The Last Ninja as even back in the day, there were casual gamers and speaking from the experience of my C64/Spectrum/CPC owning friends of the era, gamers of this ilk rarely if ever spent pocket money on anything other than a film/coin-op conversion or Codemasters game... and only if the games in question were on budget at the time (£2.99).

[gaga64]

Fair enough. Cheers anyway. Food for thought at least.

[Joxe]

Well, I wasn't around when the Commodore were so I had no idea, it's just that are the games that came to mind first that I see as big games. By the way Mike, you seem pretty into the Commodore since you have one of the SID chip models in your name and I've only seen you on this forum :)

[mike6581]

I was a proper C64 nut as a kid and absolutely adored the machine. As a kid, having a computer with games that cost as little £2.99 and were actually pretty good for the time was great. You could actually buy it with a couple of week's worth of pocket money, whereas my poor NES owning friend had to make do with the odd game at birthday or Christmas.

The weird thing, certainly in the case of the British games industry, is how the history is almost being re-written to marginalise the impact of the home computers of the era (Spectrum/C64/CPC then ST/Amiga). Until about 1992, the games consoles were certainly a minority format, that's why I'm glad some C64 games are on VC for people to discover who weren't there the first time - like you. Also, as the C64 is American, the consensus spread about, including in literature about Commodore, is that the C64 was more or less a spent force by 1985, which wasn't true at all in the UK. It was still a huge selling machine until 1993, with quality games still appearing each month.

I have posted elsewhere though! I'm a proper NES and SNES nut too... Particularly Castlevania and Mario Kart.

As for the SID chip, the thing is a work of genius.

[Joxe]

Impressive. I'm simply too young to have had a C64 (born in 1989) so my first console I owned were a PSX (although I've played the others before). Even though I weren't around I still think that the Commodore is a great piece of machinery and I also think that it has created the PC-worshipping Sweden I live in today (the Commodore were big here aswell). Although the first that lured me to like the Commodore was the music that is great, favorite song is Cybernoid by Jeoren Tel, think I got to buy that game just for the music ;)

[mike6581]

It's good to see someone getting into a machine retrospectively, it's probably the truest form of retro gaming! For me, half of it is about the nostalgia involved. It's great that the C64 was included on the VC in Europe as it helps show people who weren't around at the time that gaming in Europe didn't begin with a fat plumber or a kid in a green suit with a sword.

As for SID tunes, download SID Play for your PC and HVSC. Sid Play is a pretty near perfect SID emulator and HVSC is every single piece of C64 music ever made! There's loads of great tunes on that machine. Jeroen Tel was a genius, as too were Rob Hubbard, Matt Grey and Ben Danglish and many of the other composers, it's amazing to think how much they could squeeze out of three voices and the handful of kilobytes they were given!

It's a shame that so much of modern game music often either licenced pop music, orchestrated stuff or industrial metal and techno.

[Joxe]

Already done that! ^_^
The HVSC is a treasure chest that you don't need a map to find.

Even though I agree with you that chip music got a lot more charm I think there's place for orchestrated music as well since there are some games that fit into that kind of music. Although I also miss some real chip tunes for the games today.

Speaking of which, do you know some way to create your own SID music? It would rather fun to try, or do you need a C64 to do that?

Going off-topic I see ^_^

[merman]

Some of the biggest sellers would be American games like Beach Head, Leaderboard, Impossible Mission, and of course the classic Ghostbusters. If you were to include budget re-releases then some of Ocean's titles would also have done well.

Mike's comment on the marginalising of the home computers - yes, there is a lot of revision going on, most notably from Apple fans. Commodore sold $1 billion worth of hardware in 1983 during the "crash". Commodore were also first to sell one million units (VIC-20). Check out "On the edge - the rise & fall of Commodore" by Brian Bagnall

[Joxe]

Dunno if it's true but I think it's mostly because Europe didn't suffer as much as America from the crash and that Commodore actually grew in Europe while all the others (like Atari) fell in America.

Think I've read something like that somewhere in a games magazine, they had some article about the commodore, got to find that one again.

[mike6581]

That's a fair point about games like Beach Head, I expect that sold in ludicrous amounts as it was available from the dawn of the C64 right to the end.

As for the re-writing of the history of computing, it's yet more conclusive proof that Steve Jobs is a cretin. Though half the trouble was that Commodore were a magnet for the most talented computer engineers on the planet yet somehow, the people who employed them were complete idiots. How you could have the Amiga in 1985 and not take down the PC and Mac of the era I don't know. The computing world would've been a better place if they had.

As for writing SID tunes, there's actually quite a few options out there. Option 1 is the Elektron SidStation (which I've got) which is a real SID chip inside a MIDI-controlled synthesizer. The other alternative is HardSID, a PCI sound card where you can plop up to 4 SID chips on there and control it through your favourite sequencing package. The cheapest alternative is the variety of VSTi plug-ins out there that emulate the SID chip. Some are free, some you have to pay for. However, be aware that much of the sound of classic SID tunes was achieved by mind-blowing programming, switching sounds constantly mid-song. When you actually get a SID in it's raw state, it's suprisingly civilised - though still capable of some incredible sounds.

As for chip tunes, the problem with them these days is that the chips in question aren't synthesizers, they're sampler players. The SID chip is probably the pinnacle of "chip tune" technology as it was desgined as a synthesizer, not as a sound chip. The C64 was the only gaming/computing platform ever to have proper envelope shapers and a real low-pass filter. Basically, the SID chip is closer to a MiniMoog than a Soundblaster Audigy!

[Joxe]

Thanks for the info! Was just wondering if you knew some easy way, had some program called Goattracker which I never got to work. Might download it again and test since if I got it right it's a free way of software produce SID tunes which would be a neat thing to at least try. Maybe not Comic Bakery or Commando the first time I try ^_^

Googled it: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13367

Edit: Seems like it needs one of the hardware sound cards to work properly, can't test it on Linux either since the Linux folder is empty.

[merman]

Thanks for the info! Was just wondering if you knew some easy way, had some program called Goattracker which I never got to work. Might download it again and test since if I got it right it's a free way of software produce SID tunes which would be a neat thing to at least try. Maybe not Comic Bakery or Commando the first time I try ^_^

Googled it: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13367

Edit: Seems like it needs one of the hardware sound cards to work properly, can't test it on Linux either since the Linux folder is empty.

Goattracker doesn't need any additional hardware... not sure about its compatibility with Linux though.

[Joxe]

Well, never got it to work before, it sounded, but it were just short "clicks". Maybe I was doing it wrong though. Might try it out again on my Windows boot.

[mike6581]

If all you're getting is clicks it might be because of the instrument sound you've created, if the envelope or filter is fully closed you'll often just get a clicking sound. I'm assuming it uses hex values as it's representing the envelope in four digits, when the SID chip has 16 discrete values. Try setting the attack/decay to 0F and the sustain/release to F0 and the Filt Control to FF (or F0). That'll at least get it to make a beep in theory.

[Joxe]

Ok, got it to work on Linux and saw one of the examples and I can understand why you said it was hard ^_^

There's a lot of thing you need to configure to just get by the "clicking" part but if you do you can create some wonderful songs. But I think some more training is needed for this one, and there aren't any "How to" on the internet. I guess you need to be born in the 70s for knowing this one :D

[mike6581]

Once you get your head round it, it wouldn't be too bad though if you've never used a tracker before that's another hurdle as they're a black art. Getting it to sound like Jeroen Tel would require the mind of a boffin though, I really don't know how those guys did it. They milked every single possible piece of power out of that chip.

Best bet might be to download a free VSTi of the SID and a VSTi player, so you don't need Cubase, and then if you have a MIDI keyboard you can play your own SID-ditties that way!

[Joxe]

Yeah, I suppose it's a lot easier, using a tracker is more like coding the music whereas you kind of need to know every tune that you can make before it starts to sound good. In a way it's almost the same as writing notes and knowing how it will sound on a Piano or Guitar.

Man, this thread has really gone off-topic, why don't we start a C64 Music thread? ^_^

[kelvingreen]

Last Ninja is often cited as the top-selling C64 game, but I'm not sure how accurate a claim that is.

[gaga64]

Last Ninja is often cited as the top-selling C64 game, but I'm not sure how accurate a claim that is.

Really? Where have you seen it cited?

Also, I love that this topic has spun way off topic since I started it.

[Joxe]

Yeah, sorry, is the Wannabe Retro guy in me that did that ;)

[gaga64]

Hey go for it. Take one limited topic and turn it into something loosely related that people are actually enjoying talking about.

I just wish I had something more interesting to say in my own thread, other than "thanks". All I'm doing is cataloguing various details of all sorts of consoles, for my own pointless perusing - mostly it's about comparing hardware sales and thinking things like "PS3 finally outsold the Master System" and "the DS should outsell the GBA in the next 2 years".

Yes, I know it's a sad train of thought...

[kelvingreen]

Really? Where have you seen it cited?
Pretty much every article about the game mentions its high-selling status, but as I mentioned, I've seen no hard numbers on it, so I don't know how accurate a claim it is.

[timp29]

The Last Ninja II was the only c64 game I ever bought. The rest were pirated :/. Don't hate me I was between 6-10 years old :P