Most of the surviving titles published by IPC, Fleetway, and DC Thomson were merged into each other in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the popularity of comics waned further in response to a surge in the popularity of television (a popularity which received another major boost from the late 1970s onward as domestic videocassette recorders became available), and due to the popularity of video games (as inexpensive home computers such as the ZX Spectrum, mainly used for gaming, became available from 1980). Although new comics titles were launched in this period, none seemed to find a sustainable audience.