Becoming a mass market entertainment form had long been an ambition of the computer and video games industry, and five years ago it was just about there. There were national television programmes such as Gamesmaster and Bad Influence, devoted to gaming, many of the tabloids were giving up full colour pages in their Saturday editions to the latest releases and Sega, through their many sponsorship deals, were everywhere.

But, to mix metaphors, cuddling up with the media can be like putting one's head in a lion's mouth, as so many 'stars' from other entertainment forms will testify; they build you up and then they knock you back down again. The issue that was being used as a stick to beat the 'interactive entertainment' industry, as it was starting to pompously call itself, was the price of games.

The Sun, never a publication to shy away from biting anyone, had started a 'The Sun says: Put Your Prices Down' campaign, and a desperately unpopular government began to take notice of this populist stance. The Monopolies & Mergers Commission were instructed to undertake an official inquiry into the pricing and distribution of games, to see if there was evidence of illegal cartels in operation, and there was an overall feeling of suspicion that consumers were being ripped off.

Sega were the company with most to lose through this unwanted attention, as their Mega Drive can probably now be referred to as the PlayStation of its day. So Sega's marketing machine leapt into action with a campaign they called 'The Price Is Right', which saw forty Mega Drive titles, including The Revenge of Shinobi, Toejam and Earl and Joe Montana Football, reduced to impulse-buy prices of £14.99 and £19.99, and the promotion was backed up by extensive national advertising.

However, the campaign was undermined by the fact that all the reductions were of a clearance nature, and once they'd sold out, which they did, very quickly, no more copies were duplicated. Also, new releases of average quality - such as Cool Spot, out this week five years ago - still weighed in at a hefty £44.99. Still, it was a brave attempt to divert attention from an issue which eventually resolved itself. The waning appeal of the Mega Drive meant many consumers just stopped buying games altogether, and those who did were being serviced by a growing number of shops which specialised in software that was pre-played - that's second hand to you and me...