Americana
Three Sizzlers in one issue, all re-releases
A budget label selling older American games cheaply in Britain — and in July 1986, ZZAP!64's best-value awards went to three of them at once.
Americana sold American games in Britain at budget prices, several years after they had come out at home. In ZZAP!64’s July 1986 issue it took three budget Sizzlers — the magazine’s mark for a game worth buying — in a single issue.
Fast facts
- Press evidence in this library: ZZAP!64, 1986–1987, budget prices.
- Published: HES Games, Sentinel, Slamball, Necromancer, Breakdance, Space Warriors, New York City, Beer Belly Burt’s Brew Biz.
- The pattern: almost every title is an American game given a cheap new lease of life in Britain, in ZZAP!’s own phrase.
What three Sizzlers in one issue means
ZZAP!64 described them as they went: HES Games, “an older sports action compilation from AMERICANA given a cheap new lease of life”; Sentinel, “another Sizzler with this cheap re-release of the ‘Star Raider’ type game”; Slamball, “Low Cost Sizzler number 3, another from AMERICANA”.
Sit with what that implies. In July 1986 the best value on the Commodore 64 in Britain was three old American games at budget price, competing against everything new and full-price in the same issue.
Two things caused it. The Commodore 64 arrived in America first and had a two- or three-year head start, so there was already a deep catalogue of proven games that British buyers had never seen. And a game that has finished earning at home can be sold abroad for almost nothing, because the development is long since paid for.
That combination made the American back catalogue a genuine competitor to new British software — not a bargain bin, but the thing that took the awards.
The import routes together
Americana is the third of three ways foreign software reached British shops, and the differences are the interesting part.
Ariolasoft held territory rights to current American titles and sold them at full price, £9.95 and £14.95, as new releases. Alternative took Spanish games at £2.99 as budget stock. Americana took older American games at budget and had them beat the new releases on merit.
Same underlying fact each time — a catalogue that has earned out at home is nearly free to sell abroad — arriving at three different points on the shelf. Anyone reading British magazines of the period is looking at a market being continuously topped up from outside it, usually without saying so.
The scores
| Game | Score | Issue |
|---|---|---|
| Olé, Toro | 57% | 34 |
| The Secret of Levitation | 45% | 29 |
| Things and Doodads | 39% | 34 |
Three titles, none above sixty. That is a smaller and worse record than Atlantis or Alternative posted on the same shelf at the same price, and it is most of what the period record holds on this company.
Stated plainly because the alternative is to imply depth the sources do not support.
Why it mattered
Americana is the second life of a catalogue, and a corrective to the idea that budget meant bad. The cheapest games in the shop were sometimes the best ones, because age and price had nothing to do with quality — only with how long the money had already been made.
It also quietly marks how young the market was. In 1986 a three-year-old game could still be new to most of the people buying it.