1980 wasn't about 30 years ago, though. 30 years ago is 1992 which is Wolfenstein 3D, Civilization, and Final Fantasy type games. It's on the cusp of games like Warcraft, C&C, Ultima Online, Quake, Diablo, and Everquest. Games that are, more or less, like what we have now but with much much worse graphics.
In 1992 (and pretty much in a good part of the 90s) it was still possible and practical to build a small dev team (under 10) and push out incredible titles. IIRC Both ID Software and the team that worked on Diablo were relatively small-ish.
