Talk:Space Action

Declaring connection to topic
Arne Fernlund, developer of the game is my uncle. As this article was my first contribution to Wikipedia with a user account I'd like to shortly explain the reasoning behind creating it so that there will be no ambiguities later on. I know of this game because someone in my family at some point in my life told me about my uncle developing Swedens first commercial video game, as someone interested in computers at a very early age this naturally provoked interest. After having attended the exhibition at the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology where the game made an appearance I got this proven to me as a fact. When I discovered that there was no article about it on Wikipedia, I found it to be a reasonable thing to create the article given how it has historic relevance to the gaming industry (which back then, didn't really exist). I do not have a financial or professional connection.

-- Erik.Bjareholt (talk) 08:38, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

First Swedish commercial video game?
The article says that Space Action was the first Swedish commercial video game, but I'm quite sure that can't be strictly true. Space Action was published in 1983 and I know that the Swedish computer ABC 80 (from Luxor) had a number of commercial games available for it, sold on cassette tape through Luxor's distributor network. ABC 80 was released in 1978, and I remember these games being available in its early years, probably 1979 or 1980. I don't have any hard evidence supporting my memory of such an early date, but I did find a Luxor price list published in 1982 that lists these games (sold as Spelpak 1 through 3). Since it is a price list, it demonstrates that the games were commercially sold, and since it is from 1982, they were obviously published at least a year before Space Action.

What about the reference given? It is from a local newspaper who interviewed the curator of an exhibition making the claim. It was probably said in good faith, with the curator not being aware of any earlier example. It doesn't really preclude the existence of such an earlier example.

I'm not sure what to do with this information, except posting it here. Space Action was certainly an early Swedish commercial video game, and it might be the first with any significant commercial success. Not agreeing with the absolute claim as currently stated, though.

83.226.33.219 (talk) 00:17, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * You're right, it can not accurately be said that Space Action was the first Swedish commercial video game. Other sources do seem to say "first commercially successful" which might be factually true and backed by multiple references in the section I just added to the talk page. Perhaps that's something to add back into the article? — Erik.Bjareholt (talk) 13:05, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Sources with additional information
There have been multiple references to the game since I wrote most of the article back in 2011. I'll list them here for future reference. All of them are in Swedish, as expected, but are published by what I'd consider reliable sources.

  An article in Sydsvenskan about the opening of a game archive in the city archive of Malmö.  A brief mention of the games inclusion in the city archive of Malmo, less informative than the above source: "Det första arkivmaterialet som samlades in var en intervju med Arne Fernlund, mannen bakom Space Action, ett av de första svenska kommersiella datorspelen"  A little bit more detail here in an article about the Commondore 64 demo scene: "Till exempel var den första svenska kommersiella spelframgången Space Action, programmerat av Arne Fernlund. Det var 4 kb stort. Hans ungdoms historia från 1970-talet känns igen från så många andra begåvande spelutvecklare; han avskydde skolan, var understimulerad och lärde sig i stället det mesta själv, inte minst via datorintresset."  This one has an interview with Arne and has more details of the story. 

I don't really have time to incorporate what is contained in them right now, but a lot of useful info is there if you speak Swedish. I might incorporate them myself in the future.

— Erik.Bjareholt (talk) 13:02, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

Needs translation to Swedish
The subject of this article is of Swedish origin and most of the references are in Swedish. Should probably translate this to Swedish eventually, just noting it down here to remind myself in the future. Erik.Bjareholt (talk) 14:43, 18 August 2021 (UTC)