CLASSIC VIDEO GAMES

THE GOLDEN AGE 1971–1984

Brian R. Eddy

SHIRE PUBLICATIONS

In Frogger, when in attract mode when the frog reaches the last log before his home, the player can control the final jump without putting any money in the game.

CONTENTS

During development, Tapper had a digitized burp sound effect designed to match the action of bar patrons, but it was so obnoxious that developers removed it before production.

IN THE BEGINNING: AN INDUSTRY IS LAUNCHED (1971–77)

VIDEO GAMES MOVE TO THE MASSES (1978–79)

A PHENOMENON IS BORN (1980)

FUELING THE FIRE (1981)

THE PEAK OF THE INDUSTRY (1982)

THE LAST HURRAH (1983)

THE CRASH: THE END OF THE FAD (1984)

Computer Space is widely recognized as the first commercial coinoperated arcade game.

IN THE BEGINNING: AN INDUSTRY IS LAUNCHED (1971–77)

A RCADE GAMES HAVE BEEN AMUSINGYOUNG AND OLD alike for more than a century. Though electronic games were invented as early as the late 1940s, it wasn’t until decades later that the Golden Age of video games would be born, as arcade games like coin-operated pinball gave way to electromechanical games and later to fully electronic video games. The birth of the first commercial standup video arcade game occurred in 1971 with the release of “Computer Space.” Most games of this era were very simple with black-and-white graphics and color screen overlays. They introduced players to the idea of playing a game on a video screen. Some initial successes in this time period, like “Pong,” alerted the public to this new form of entertainment, but it had yet to reach mass appeal. Games started showing up in bars, pool and pinball halls, bowling alleys, and other places of entertainment. Although the games were simple, it was the start of a trend.

COMPUTER SPACE

Computer Space was created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, who later formed Atari. Widely considered the first commercial video game, it was produced by Nutting Associates, and it set the format for future video arcade machines by putting a stand-alone game with a video screen in an upright cabinet that accepted money for play. Computer Space featured a cabinet unique even by today’s standards, as it was made of fiberglass and had a flowing, wraparound design in a variety of colors, most in a sparkly metal flake paint.

The coin box in Computer Space was a paint-thinner can.

Computer Space was based on a computer game called “Space Wars” that was developed in 1961 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology using one of the first minicomputers, the PDP-1. (Space Wars was never available to the public.) In Computer Space, the player controlled a rocket ship with a thrust button and two directional rotation buttons. Against a backdrop of stars, enemy flying saucers would move across the screen and try to shoot and destroy the player. In turn, the player pressed a button that would shoot missiles in an attempt to destroy the enemy saucers. The game was played in rounds that lasted ninety seconds. If the player had the most kills, he could continue for another ninety seconds; if not, it was game over. This sequence continued until the player lost to the enemy saucers.

In 1975, Magnavox sued Atari for patent infringement on the similar Odyssey home pong game. They won, so Atari and others had to pay a licensing fee to Magnavox.

Initially released as a one-player game, Computer Space later was released in a twoplayer version, and the directional rotation buttons were changed to joysticks. This version allowed players to compete head to head. While the game was popular on college campuses, it was not a success for the general public and sold only 1,500 units. The game play was considered too complex to grasp for an average player who was just having a pint at a pub.

PONG

In 1972, Bushnell and Dabney formed Atari, Inc., with money raised by the profits from Computer Space. “Pong” was the company’s first game, and it is considered the first commercially successful arcade game, eventually selling 35,000 units. The game was created by Atari employee Al Alcorn and was inspired by a similar game on the Magnavox Odyssey home video game system, which Bushnell had seen in a demonstration while visiting Magnavox.

Pong is a video version of tennis for one or two players. Each player has a paddle on the opposite side of the screen used to hit a ball back and forth. If one player misses, the other scores a point. The player with the most points wins. The simplicity and head-to-head competition of this classic game made Pong an instant hit. For many, it was the first video game they ever played. Pong’s success led to it being widely cloned by others in the arcade and home market, and it remains one of the most famous arcade games ever made.

Western Gun, the predecessor to Gunfight, was designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, who later went on to design “Space Invaders.”

GUNFIGHT

In 1975, Midway Manufacturing, a pinball and mechanical coinoperated device maker established in 1932, released the popular game “Gunfight,” which was based on the Japanese Taito game “Western Gun.” The game was black and white but included a yellow screen overlay to simulate color. A western-themed shootout, Gunfight featured a unique controller layout with two joysticks. Players moved the character on screen and provided a trigger to shoot a gun at their opponent; the other controlled the aim of the gun. Players could square off against the computer or a human opponent. The one with the most hits won.

Gunfight’s controller was shaped like the grip of a gun.

Gunfight is notable for a number of firsts in an arcade game: It was the first to be controlled by a central microprocessor instead of separate circuits, and it was the first successful Japanese arcade video game to be exported to North America. It also was the first arcade video game to feature a gun on screen, a trend that would continue into the foreseeable future.

NIGHT DRIVER

In late 1976, Atari introduced “Night Driver,” the first arcade driving game to feature first-person perspective graphics. This made players feel like they were in the car looking through the windshield when driving. The simple game consisted of black-and-white markers to define the road as it moved toward the player. In Night Driver, the player used a steering wheel to control the vehicle, a gas pedal to move forward, and a four-position gear shifter to go as fast as possible down a winding road at night. The longer the player drove without crashing, the faster the car would go, the more points scored, and the harder it became to maintain control through the turns. This increasing speed led to an adrenalin rush for players trying to survive as long as they could before crashing. When time ran out, the game was over. Night Driver came in two popular formats: an upright cabinet and a flagship sit-down fiberglass cockpit.

Night Driver was available in a sitdown cockpit version with full car controls.

Due to technology limitations, the car the player is driving in Night Driver was not drawn on the screen. Instead, it was printed on a plastic insert placed on top of the video screen.

BREAKOUT

Also in 1976, Atari introduced a black-and-white ball-and-paddle game with a color overlay. “Breakout” was similar to Pong, but turned on its side. The player used a paddle controller to keep a ball in play and hit it toward a wall of bricks. When the ball hit a brick, it would rebound and the brick would disappear. The goal was to score the most points by removing all the bricks before missing three balls with your paddle. The format of this game spawned countless variations and clones and is still a popular game play format today. It also spawned a sequel, “Super Breakout,” in 1978.

The highest score a player could achieve in Breakout is 896, which is done by clearing two walls of bricks, after which the game ends.

Breakout was developed by Atari’s fortieth employee, Steve Jobs, who was aided by video game enthusiast Steve Wozniak. The two later would go on to found Apple Computer, using parts “borrowed” from Atari to build their first Apple I computer prototype.

Breakout was available in an upright cabinet and a fun, circular sit-down cabinet design.

Space Wars is one of the only video arcade games to require two players; there is no single-player option.

SPACE WARS

Released in 1978, “Space Wars” essentially was an updated version of Computer Space based on the same PDP-1 minicomputer video game of the same name originally developed in 1961 at MIT. It had one significant difference: It was the first arcade video game to use a vector graphics display. Up to this point, all games used a Raster monitor, which paints the screen with dots like a television. Vector displays work much like an oscilloscope by drawing discrete lines for every object on the screen. This allowed very fluid motion and created a whole category of games. Shortcomings in the technology eventually led to the raster method being the dominant display technology within a few years.

The Space Wars cabinet was much wider than most arcade machines so that two people could play side by side. This made the machine heavy and difficult to move.

Computer Space, Pong, and just a few other games launched the Golden Age of arcade games as players began flocking to this new version of entertainment. During the course of the next decade, the popularity of video games would explode, bringing lasting pop culture icons into the mainstream.

Asteroids was one of the highestselling vector screen arcade games ever made.

VIDEO GAMES MOVE TO THE MASSES (1978–79)

THE LATE 1970S MARKEDTHE START OF the golden age of arcade machines, during which some of the most prolific and engaging games were created. As more powerful electronics and color graphics became possible, the mass market started to take notice. Everyone wanted to try this new form of entertainment. Arcade games started popping up all over the world. The first video arcades opened, providing dedicated venues to play coinoperated video games and socialize with friends.

ATARI FOOTBALL

Released in 1978 by Atari, “Football” is considered the first game to accurately emulate a sport in an arcade video game. Player characters were represented in black-and-white graphics as Xs and Os. Players selected either offensive or defensive plays and then controlled one of the characters on each team by furiously rolling a trackball. It was physically exhausting to play as players needed to spin the trackball as fast as possible after each play to win the game. Football was the first video game to feature a scrolling screen to show the entire football field, and it was one of Atari’s first games with a trackball. Atari Football was released in two-player and four-player configurations. Considered a success for the time, Atari produced nearly 15,000 units, and the game spawned a series of sport games by Atari, including baseball and basketball games.

During development, Atari tried to strike a deal with the NFL to call the game “NFL Football,” but the deal fell through.

Football’s trackball was an effective but brutal controller.

LUNAR LANDER

In 1979, Atari introduced “Lunar Lander.” Considered the first arcade simulation game, it realistically depicted the landing of a spacecraft on the moon. It used actual Newtonian physics to put the player in control of the thrusters to land the spacecraft. Players used buttons to rotate left and right and a large mechanical thruster to control the speed and trajectory of the spacecraft while trying to conserve fuel. The physics engine made the game engaging and created a unique challenge, but it was too difficult for many players and was not big success, selling only 4,830 units.

Lunar Lander was inspired by the game “Moonlander,” written by Jack Burness in 1973 as a demo for a 1960s DEC PDP-11 minicomputer to show off the vector graphics display.

The control panel on Lunar Lander contained a custom-designed thruster controller for a realistic feel.

Though its sales were far from stellar, Lunar Lander made a mark on the industry by introducing a couple of unique features. One was the ability for the player to change the level of difficulty at any time during game play. Another feature allowed the player to add coins at any time during play to add more fuel, allowing the existing game to continue. This was Atari’s first game to use a vector display, which led to the creation of the highly successful “Asteroids” game series.

SPACE INVADERS

Released in 1979 by Taito and distributed in America by Midway, “Space Invaders” was the first blockbuster arcade video game hit, selling more than 160,000 units worldwide. It was created by Japanese developer Tomohiro Nishikado. With a joystick, the player controlled a laser cannon that moved horizontally at the bottom of the screen. A button allowed the cannon to shoot a laser bullet upward to hit and destroy multiple rows of aliens. The aliens marched back and forth across the screen, slowly advancing from the top to the bottom. The goal was to eliminate all the aliens before getting shot three times or letting the aliens reach the bottom of the screen. An everincreasing sound effect played an important part by creating tension as the aliens moved faster and faster toward the player’s laser cannon.

Space Invaders contributed many firsts to the industry, including the use of animated characters and the ability to display a high score. Its impact was further felt by the sheer quantity of spin-offs, clones, and remakes made to this day on every game platform imaginable. Space Invaders also had a big effect on pop culture. It is referenced in multiple television shows and merchandise and is still touted in many video game and cultural exhibitions.

Space Invaders’s primitive invader graphics have become a recognizable form in pop culture.

The popularity of Space Invaders in Japan created a shortage of the 100 yen coin.

ASTEROIDS

In 1979, Atari showed Taito that it wasn’t the only company that could create a great shooting game. “Asteroids” was Atari’s second vector display game, and it proved to be a big hit, selling more than 70,000 units and producing three sequels. Designed by Ed Logg, the object of the game was to use buttons to control the rotation, thrust, and firing ability of a spacecraft to shoot and destroy asteroids and saucers. The player needed to avoid colliding with anything or getting hit by the saucer’s counterfire. Asteroids quickly became part of America’s pop culture and soon spawned endless ports and clones. The game features a unique wrap-around, 360-degree playing field. It also enhanced the high-score function of Space Invaders by being the first game to enable players to enter their initials along with a qualifying high score.

GALAXIAN

In 1979, Namco put a spin on the Space Invaders formula and introduced enemy attack formation to the arcades with “Galaxian,” which was distributed in the United States by Midway. Players again used a joystick and fire button to control a laser cannon that moved horizontally at the bottom of the screen. But this time, instead of just marching side to side, the aliens had attack patterns that would allow them to swoop down from above and attack the player in an unpredictable fashion. If the player’s ship was hit three times by alien fire, the game was over. Bonus ships could be earned at set scoring intervals. The game featured a mesmerizing scrolling and twinkling star field background. Galaxian was the first game with true multicolor graphics, and it set a new standard for the look of games in the coming years. Its success also spawned seven sequels, such as “Galaga” and “Gaplus.”

Asteroids was so popular that some operators had to install larger coin boxes to hold more change.

Galaxian’s color graphics made it stand out among the competition.

By the end of the 1970s, new games were breaking records—and breaking the rules with unique features and designs. The next decade would push the industry from fad to phenomenon.

In Galaxian, the player’s ship is called the “Galaxip.” This enemy flagship was featured in many future Namco games, including the ice cream sundae bonus item in “Pac-Man.”

Tempest designer David Theurer said the game’s design came from a dream he had in which monsters crawled out of a hole in the ground.

A PHENOMENON IS BORN (1980)

BY 1980, THE ARCADEVIDEO GAME MARKET was firmly established, and the games really started to take off, marked by an explosion in the number of games developed, experimentation in game design, and an advance in technology with almost every new release. Most games released during this year sported bright, colorful graphics as black-and-white games could no longer compete for the public’s attention. A large number of dedicated arcades started to open up anywhere there was space: shopping centers, restaurants, and even department stores. Arcades were a place for friends to socialize and play the latest video games. They were so popular that some cities would not allow children in the venues during school hours because too many were skipping school. “Pac-Man” was introduced in 1980, and it pulled in female players, which really helped bring video games to the mass market.

BATTLEZONE

Atari released another hit vector game in 1980 called “BattleZone,” designed by Ed Rotberg. It put the player in control of a super tank. The player’s goal was to shoot enemy tanks, fast-moving super tanks, and mysterious UFOs before they were hit themselves. Players had three tanks with which to score as many points as possible, with up to two bonus tanks being earned at set point intervals. The game used a vector display and featured the first truly interactive three-dimensional background. This gave it a novel look, which was enhanced by adding screen overlays with red at the top and green at the bottom of the screen.

A version of BattleZone called “The Bradley Trainer” was made for the U.S. Army. It was designed as a target training simulation for gunners on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

During development, BattleZone was known variously as “Future Tank” and “Moon Tank.”

The controls and cabinet also were unique. Players would control the tank with two joysticks, each controlling a tread just like a real tank. One joystick also contained a fire button to shoot missiles at enemies. The original cabinet had a periscope-like cover over the screen, adding to the feel of being in a tank. This feature was removed in later models, however, a change that was welcomed by many operators because it allowed nonplayers to see the screen and be attracted to play while improving the ergonomics for players who could not reach the periscope window. A small version of the cabinet known as a “cabaret” also was produced without the periscope.

BERZERK

“Berzerk” was released by Stern Electronics, formed in 1977 in Chicago to enter the pinball and video game business. Players used a joystick to control a green humanoid figure, and a fire button allowed the player to shoot a laser weapon at enemies. The game took place in simple labyrinthine rooms filled with a large number of robots who would shoot at the player. Each room had multiple escape routes. The goal was to score as many points as possible by destroying as many robots as possible before dying three times. There were multiple ways to die: getting shot by a robot, touching the walls, or being touched by the “Evil Otto” character.

The robot enemies in Berzerk made human mistakes by sometimes running into each other and the deadly walls, shooting each other, or getting squashed by Evil Otto.

Evil Otto, a bouncing smiley face, would appear at times and head directly toward the player. Evil Otto was unique because there was no way to kill him; the player’s only choice was to avoid him. This added a strong tension to the game and landed Evil Otto on multiple “top video game villains of all time” lists.

Berzerk contains 64,000 different maze layouts.

Berzerk also was one of the first games to contain speech synthesis. The robots could say more than a dozen phrases, such as, “The humanoid must not escape” and “Coins detected in pocket.” As with Space Invaders and Asteroids, Berzerk soon became entrenched in popular culture, showing up in music, television sitcoms, various magazine articles, and even a board game.

CENTIPEDE

In 1980, Atari introduced a unique game based on swarms of killer insects. It eventually would become their second-highest selling game after Asteroids. Designed and programmed by Ed Logg and Dona Bailey, “Centipede” was the first arcade game to be codesigned by a woman. Many experts attribute this to Centipede being the first game to have a large female following.

The game play was quite novel. The player controlled a blaster at the bottom of the screen while multisegmented centipedes entered at the top. The playfield was littered with mushrooms, and when the centipede hit one or completed a row, it dropped down one level, getting closer to the player. Controls were simple; a trackball was used to smoothly move the blaster around the bottom quarter of the screen. A fire button allowed missiles to be shot at the insects. When the centipede was hit in a middle segment, it would split into two separate centipedes, making it even more difficult for the player to track and shoot. As the player progressed through the game, spiders, scorpions, and fleas joined in the mix to stop him. The only way to die was to be touched by an insect. The goal of the game remained simple: destroy the centipede before it destroyed you. Centipede spawned clones for years to come, including a much more challenging 1982 sequel called “Millipede.”

A grasshopper is present on the cabinet side artwork and originally was planned to be in the game. It never made it into Centipede, but it can be seen in test mode when cycling through the graphical objects in the game.

Milton Bradley released a board game based on the video game, during which two players race against each other to be the first person to the opponent’s home base with a centipede.

DEFENDER

Williams Electronics, known for its pinball machines, had long failed to have a hit in the video game business. That all changed in 1980 with the introduction of “Defender.” Designed by Eugene Jarvis with help from fellow programmers Larry DeMar, Sam Dicker, and Paul Dussault, it was Williams’s first video game since 1973 and their first big hit.

Defender is considered one of the crowning achievements in the golden age of arcade games for its elegant design. In this popular game, the player took control of a spaceship to try to destroy aliens attacking a planet. The player also needed to protect astronauts from being abducted by aliens. The aliens took many forms, each with a distinct personality that required different tactics to be defeated. If the player’s ship was hit three times, the game ended. If all the astronauts were abducted, the planet would explode and the astronauts turned into deadly, fast-acting mutant aliens. The player then had to destroy all the mutants to continue the game.

The control layout for Defender is one of the most complex schemes ever made for an arcade video game. It used a joystick for vertical movement and five buttons to control reverse direction, fire lasers, launch smart bombs, thrust, and hyperspace. Although this made it intimidating for many players, others reveled in the hard-core nature of the game and the challenge it provided. Defender became Williams’s best-selling game; roughly 60,000 units were sold with estimates of more than $1.5 billion in revenue—one quarter at a time. It also spawned two sequels: “Stargate” in 1981 and “Strike Force” in 1991.

In the Defender sequel “Stargate,” the alien enemy’s name was revealed as “The Irata,” which is Atari spelled backward.

The success of Defender prompted Williams to release a pinball version in 1982.

PAC-MAN

The first mega-hit game, “Pac-Man” is considered the most successful arcade game of all time, selling more than 350,000 units and becoming the most widely known video game in history. Pac-Man has an amazing 94 percent recognition among American consumers and has become a cultural phenomenon and icon like no other game before or since.

The game was developed in Japan by Namco and distributed in the United States by Midway. It originally was released in Japan to a lukewarm response, but it became an instant hit when released in May 1980 in the United States.

Pac-Man brought a new format to gaming. Until then, most games were based on shooting or sports, both decidedly male oriented. Pac-Man succeeded in creating a game that appealed both to men and women. This brought in a whole new audience of players, which helped turn it into the cultural phenomenon that it became.

The game play is nonthreatening and deceptively simple while still being challenging. Controls are ultra simple; there are no buttons to press, just a joystick used to guide the Pac-Man character through a maze while eating dots placed in the pathways. Once the player ate all the dots in a maze, he progressed to the next level of difficulty. While in the maze, the player was chased by four colorful ghosts nicknamed Binky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde. If any of the ghosts touched the player, he lost a life. Lose three lives, and the game is over. The player also was able to turn the table on the ghosts by eating one of four power pills located in each of the corners of the maze. This turned the ghosts blue, and the player could eat them and send them back to their home in the center of the screen. This gave the player a few minutes of safety to gobble up dots on the screen without the fear of losing a life.

The lighthearted theme of Pac-Man made the game a hit, especially with women. Pac-Man spawned an endless array of licensed products, from t-shirts to toys, coffee mugs to Halloween costumes, and even an animated cartoon series. Numerous hit songs were written about it, including “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner & Garcia and a parody by Weird Al Yankovic called “Taxman.” The term “Pac-Man defense” even has been adopted in the legal world to refer to a hostile takeover target that attempts to reverse the situation and take over its would-be acquirer instead, which is a reference to Pac-Man’s power pellets. Even the powerhouse search engine Google caught Pac-Man fever. On Pac-Man’s thirtieth anniversary in 2010, it released a spot-on version of Pac-Man with the maze woven around the Google logo.

Pac-Man is one of only three video games on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. (the others are Pong and Dragon’s Lair).

Pac-Man was played by so many people it was soon mastered and found to have a glitch. Once a player gets to level 256, the infamous “kill screen” maze appears, where half the screen is a normal maze and the other half is random characters and images. This effectively ends the game as there is no way to get past this glitch.

The original name for the game by Namco was “Puck-Man.” Midway changed it when they brought it to the United States because the company feared the “P” would be vandalized by scratching off a bit of the letter to spell a common swear word.

Pac-Man’s continued popularity spawned more than thirty sequels, including “Pac-Man Plus,” “Super Pac-Man,” “Baby Pac-Man,” “Professor Pac-Man,” and endless clones on various gaming platforms. Pac-Man will forever epitomize the premier pop-culture arcade game.

Released at the same time, both Rally X and Pac-Man are maze games and run on the same hardware platform.

RALLY X

“Rally X” was released by Namco in 1980, the same year as Pac-Man. The game was easy to play as it only had a joystick and one button. The player controlled a blue car that drove through a large maze. The car automatically moved in the direction it was facing, and the player simply used the joystick to change the direction. Because the maze was much larger than the screen, it would smoothly scroll the screen in any of the four directions needed. This was a first in video games at the time. The player was pursued by three to eight red cars, and if any of them touched the player’s car, the player would lose a life. This continued until the game was over. The player also had a button to launch a smoke screen that momentarily stopped any pursuing red car. The goal was to find one of ten flags scattered around the maze before all the player’s cars were destroyed. If the player survived three stages, he would get to play a bonus round, the first arcade game to offer one. In this round, the red cars were stationary, and the player had a short amount of time to find all ten randomly placed flags.

Rally X also was the first game to feature full-time background music, and it was one of the first to have a simple radar screen that showed the position of all the flags and enemies on a small overview screen. Even though it did not obtain large success, its large number of “firsts” made Rally X an important game.

Rally X was introduced at the American Machine Operators of America trade show along with Pac-Man and Defender. Rally X was considered to be the hit of the show and was expected to be the next big game. Instead, Pac-Man took off faster than anyone expected, and Rally X, while still a solid game, was obscured by its massive success.

TEMPEST

Atari introduced “Tempest” to arcades as the first multicolor vector graphic game. The sharpness of the colors and smooth movement of the vector technology led to a simple but unique game stunning in its appearance.

The player used a paddle controller similar to Breakout or Pong but with a satisfying weighted feel to the rotation movement. It became known as a “spinner” controller and was used on a few other games like “Tron” and “Discs of Tron.” While stunning, the game may have been too abstract for some people. Players would use the spinner to move a claw-shaped spaceship around the perimeter of one end of various extruded tube-shaped surfaces. Players engaged a fire button to shoot at and destroy various enemies: Flippers, Tankers, Spikers, Fuseballs, and Pulsars. Each enemy had a distinct personality and mode of attack. Some would emerge from the opposite end of the shape and rapidly move toward the player, while others would shoot at the player or split in two once shot by the player. If any enemy came in contact with the player, he would lose a life. The game was played in waves. Once all the enemies were destroyed on a level, they would “warp” to a new level by riding down the extruded surface while trying to avoid or shoot any spikes in the way. There were sixteen different shapes for levels. Some wrapped around on each other and allowed easier escape from enemies, while later ones had a hard stop on the right and left sides, which made it easy to get trapped by some enemies. The goal was to survive as many levels as possible before losing all three lives.

In the final sixteen levels of Tempest, the tube shapes become invisible, adding a new level of challenge because players don’t know where they are moving unless they have memorized all the shapes.

Early versions of Tempest would only score up to 999,999 because the developer thought that no one would reach it. This was increased in later versions as advanced players proved they could easily surpass this initial limit.

Tempest was the first game to allow users to select their own starting levels. It has attracted a cult following among players over the years because of its unique and challenging game play and visual appeal.

With the popularity of games like Pac-Man and Defender, 1980 may well have unleashed a watershed moment in the industry. Players couldn’t get enough, and manufacturers were more than willing to fan the flames and meet the demand for new and more unique games.

The original Donkey Kong game was sketched as a licensed Popeye game, but Nintendo couldn’t secure the rights so it was reworked into Donkey Kong.

FUELING THE FIRE (1981)

BY 1981, PLAYERSWERE CLAMORING FOR MORE GAMES. Everyone was playing arcade games and bringing their friends to play with them. With the advent of games like Pac-Man the previous year, playing video games became more socially acceptable, and it was common for kids to go to the arcade for an outing with friends or even on a date. Some operators had to place limits on how many times in a row people could play a game without giving others a try. Stacking quarters on the game to show how many times you were going to play became a common tactic to commandeer a favorite game.

Capitalizing on the exploding video game market, destination entertainment center Chuck E. Cheese, a chain of restaurants that combined video games, food, and an animatronics show, went public in 1981. Buyers of arcade machines now had more choices of games to purchase and started buying as many as they could so they would not miss out on the next hit game. In a month or two, a good game could earn back the money it cost to purchase (typically around $3,000). Everything after that was profit to fuel the fire of buying more new games and keeping players happy. By 1981, the video game industry was generating $5 billion annually, and profits were still rising.

DONKEY KONG

When “Donkey Kong” was introduced in 1981, it became the now-legendary Nintendo’s first hit video game. Formed in 1889, Nintendo had been involved in many businesses, from a Japanese Hanafuda card maker, to a taxi company, to a toy company. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the company tried its hand at video games.

Donkey Kong was the first game developed by Shigeru Miyamoto, who went on to become one of the most famous and influential video game designers of all time. In Donkey Kong, players used a joystick to control a character through four different play screens. A button made the character jump so it could avoid obstacles. The first screen had the player’s character trying to climb up platforms to get to the damsel in distress at the top. The player needed to avoid touching the rolling barrels by jumping over them or by smashing them with a hammer.

Donkey Kong’s game play ends at level 22 because a bug causes the game to kill the player after a few seconds of play.

Nintendo was sued by Universal City Studios, which alleged that Donkey Kong violated their trademark of King Kong. Although there were some similarities, Nintendo ultimately won the lawsuit.

Donkey Kong brought many new elements to video games. It was the first game to bring a narrative story to games by telling the tale of a princess stolen by a giant ape. Although it was a simple story, it has since become a classic tale told in countless games.

The game also was the first platform game with a jump button. Platform games became a common format soon after this game. These involve the player’s character moving and jumping between various platforms to stay alive. At the time it was released, Donkey Kong was the most complicated video game ever made; each of the four stages was like developing a full game.

The main character in the game originally was a carpenter called Jumpman. It was only after the release of the arcade game “Mario Brothers” in 1983 that the character’s name was changed to Mario and he became a plumber. Since then, Mario and Donkey Kong have become two of the longest running, most recognizable, and most successful characters in video game history, appearing in hundreds of games as sequels and spin-offs. They also have been licensed on countless products, including t-shirts, lunch boxes, plush toys, and pajamas.

It often goes unnoticed, but when a player completes a level in Frogger, the noses of all the frogs turn into hearts and their eyes light up.

FROGGER

“Frogger” was developed by the Japanese company Konami and was licensed for worldwide distribution by SEGA/Gremlin. Konami would go on to become a major player in the video game world, but at the time it did not have strong distribution channels.

Like Pac-Man, Frogger had a whimsical universal theme that appealed to both men and women. This, along with unique game play, helped it achieve great success and widespread popularity. The game was simple to play but difficult to master. The goal was to get a frog from one side of the road to a dirt medium and then over a river and into its home. To do this, the player used a joystick to move the frog in one of four directions to dodge cars and jump on logs and alligator backs while avoiding snakes, alligators’ snapping mouths, and fast otters. Bonuses were awarded for snatching bugs that momentarily appeared, escorting lady frogs home, and getting five frogs safely home. Once five frogs were placed in their homes, the level reset and the difficulty increased with more vehicles and faster-moving logs. Once three frogs were hit, the game was over.

Frogger has been a player favorite ever since it was released. Oddly, no arcade sequels were ever made, but more than thirty versions of the game have been released for home game systems. It also spawned countless clones like “Freeway,” with a chicken crossing the road, that are still being made today.

GALAGA

Developed by Namco, “Galaga” was a sequel to the 1979 game Galaxian, and the game play was largely the same. The player controlled a spaceship located at the bottom of the screen with a joystick that moved the spaceship left and right. At the beginning of each stage, a twinkling star field background was empty. Then enemy aliens entered the screen in smooth, flowing formations, settling into predefined spots in a large group formation. Once all of the enemies arrived on screen, some of them descended in formations to attack the player’s ship by shooting at or trying to collide with it. The player used a fire button to launch missiles toward the aliens to destroy them.

Galaga runs on the same hardware as Pac-Man and has a similar “split screen” bug. After level 255, the game wraps back to level 0, where the game will frequently lock up and need to be reset.

Namco produced a very small version of Galaga that was about the size of a seventeen-inch monitor for use on buses and airplanes.

A unique twist was the addition of the tractor beam. Occasionally, a boss Galaga alien ship would swoop down and deploy a tractor beam that pulled in the player ship. The player could then allow his ship to be captured and taken to the top of the screen. A reserve ship would be given to the player. When the boss Galaga was destroyed, the fighter would rejoin the player’s ship attached to the side for double the fire power. Once all the aliens were destroyed, the player would advance to the next level. If three of the player’s ships were destroyed, play ended.

Galaga was one of the first games with a bonus stage. After every few levels, the player would play a challenging stage where patterns of aliens would momentarily fly on and off the screen, taunting the player to hit all of them. Having double fire power during these stages was essential to success.

This top-selling game made several appearances in pop culture over the years, including in the 1982 movie WarGames and the ABC television series Lost (2004–10), which featured a submarine called Galaga. The game has become a timeless classic, and many machines are still making money. It also spawned translations on practically every game system ever made.

TURBO

“Turbo” was developed and sold by SEGA (Service Games of Japan), which got its start developing coin-op machines in the 1950s. The company later became a big player in the home console market, releasing the popular Genesis, Saturn, and Dreamcast game consoles.

Turbo has a gas pedal but no brake pedal. To slow down, players needed to downshift or remove their foot from the gas pedal.

One of SEGA’s bigger hits up to this point, Turbo was a three-dimensional racing game. The player’s goal was not to win a race but to pass a set number of rival racers (usually thirty) before time expired. If completed, the player progressed to the next stage; otherwise the game was over.

Gorf originally was intended to be a tie-in with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but after reading the script, the designers decided it would not work as a video game. The spaceship design still resembles the Starship Enterprise from the top down.

In the ports to home game systems, the third level, which was like Galaxian, was left out of the game due to licensing issues.

Gorf was “frog” spelled backward because designer Jay Fenton’s nickname was “Frog.”

Turbo’s game play was unique in that it was centered entirely on the passing of cars instead of a track that looped back on itself with a start–finish line. Turbo also was the world’s first full-color, raster sprite scaling racing game viewed from the now-common third-person perspective (meaning, action is viewed above and behind the player’s car). Although Turbo was not a huge success for SEGA, it sold well enough to later spawn two sequels: “Turbo Outrun” and “Turbo Outrunners.”

GORF

“Gorf” was a multistage shooter developed by Midway games. In typical shooter fashion, the player controlled a spaceship at the bottom of the screen that would shoot missiles toward waves of enemies at the top of the screen. The controller on this game was unique because it had a fire button built into a pistol grip. The player’s goal was to defeat the Gorfian Empire in five separate missions.

Gorf was the first game to feature distinct multiple levels of game play. The first mission was similar to Taito’s Space Invaders. The second mission pit the player against two squads of diving ships, and each squad had a special ship in the center that fired long laser beams at the player as it moved. The third mission was similar to Namco’s Galaxian. The fourth mission had the player fight a number of enemies that spiraled toward the player shooting fireballs. The fifth mission had the player fight the Gorfian Flagship.

Gorf enjoyed some very memorable moments. It was widely recognized as one of the first games with synthesized speech, and it would heckle and threaten the player during the game. It also ranked players with a name based on how many waves were completed: Space Cadet, Space Captain, Space Colonel, Space General, Space Warrior, and finally Space Avenger. Gorf also was the first game to allow players to start with more ships by depositing more quarters before starting a game.

MS. PAC-MAN

“Ms. Pac-Man” was released by Bally (which was Midway at the time) and became the best-selling sequel of all time. But the game almost was never made.

Ms. Pac-Man was selected as the spokesman game character for the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations. The character now wears a pink ribbon in addition to her traditional pink bow.

The original Pac-Man was created in 1980 by Namco and licensed to Bally/Midway to distribute in the United States. Bally became impatient waiting for the sequel, “Super Pac-Man,” from Namco and decided to make its own unauthorized sequel by buying the rights to a similar game called “Crazy Otto” developed by General Computer Corporation. Bally changed the graphics to fit the Pac-Man universe and proceeded to build and sell the game without Namco’s approval. It proved so successful that Namco eventually adopted it as an official title.

The game play was nearly identical to that of Pac-Man, but improved in many ways. In Ms. Pac-Man, there were four different mazes and the ghosts’ movement was much more random, which made them appear to be smarter. In the original Pac-Man, patterns could be followed to beat the game every time because the ghosts always responded in the same way. In Ms. Pac-Man, the ghosts would mix up their response so it was impossible to define patterns that worked every time. Other minor additions like more fruit, different intermission sequences, and two warp tunnels added just enough for the game to feel fresh again.

Like Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man has become a cultural icon, appearing in more than fifteen television shows, including Friends and The Simpsons. It also was a central character in the Pac-Man animated TV series. The game remains popular today and still can be found in locations everywhere making money.

The orange ghost is named “Clyde” in Pac-Man but is named “Sue” in Ms. Pac-Man.

STARGATE

“Stargate” was Williams’s sequel to the widely successful game Defender. Designed by the same development team, it built upon the success of Defender. Despite being difficult to play, the game had a large following. In fact, Stargate is recognized as one of the hardest games of all time to play and master.

A Stargate machine is featured in an episode of the TV comedy series News Radio. Eugene Jarvis, the game’s creator, had a role on the episode as “Delivery Guy #3” and was seen at the end hauling the game away.

Stargate’s game play was similar to Defender’s but added a number of key features. Yet another button was added, for a total of six buttons to keep track of during play. The new button added an Inviso feature that temporarily rendered the player’s ship invisible, invulnerable, and deadly to the touch. This was handy in the chaotic game play of Stargate. The joystick still moved the player’s ship up and down, and the other five buttons remained the same. The big new feature was the inclusion of a series of concentric rectangles called the Stargate. If the player entered the Stargate, it would instantly transport him to the area where landers were abducting his men. The radar at the top of the screen announced alert messages about what was happening in the game. Four new aliens also were added, each with a unique function designed to destroy the player’s ship.

Although Stargate ultimately may have been too difficult for mass appeal, it still managed to gather a strong following in arcades, eventually selling more than 27,000 units.

After just more than a decade, electronic arcade games had become entrenched in the mainstream, as hundreds of manufacturers produced more and more games for more and more players. Arcade video games had become ubiquitous, mainstream icons of popular culture.

One of the new enemies in Stargate, the “Dynamo,” breaks into several small “Space Hums” when shot. This is in homage to the song “Dinah-Moe Humm” by Frank Zappa.

The Pooka characters became an icon for Namco, appearing in many future Namco games such as “Pac-Man World”.

THE PEAK OF THE INDUSTRY (1982)

THE TOPYEAR IN THE GOLDEN AGE OF ARCADE VIDEO GAMES can be tied squarely to 1982, both in regard to the sheer quantity of games being developed, produced, and sold as well as to the public’s excitement about this form of entertainment.

By 1982, video games had become a social and cultural phenomenon, as evidenced by this cover of Time magazine.

In January 1982, Time magazine ran a cover story titled “Gronk! Flash! Zap! Video Games Are Blitzing the World,” which was right on the money. Hundreds of companies were developing games, each looking to cash in on the fast-growing market. Players craved more and more new games. Operators jockeyed to get the latest hit games on location before the competition, knowing they would be the first to attract a big crowd—and a coin box full of money.

Games could be found everywhere, from dedicated arcades to restaurants and ice cream shops, from convenience stores, grocery stores, and drug stores to bars, bowling alleys, and malls. Anywhere there was a three-foot-by-five-foot spot could accommodate an arcade game. Even big retailers like Sears, Roebuck and Co. opened arcades inside its large department stores.

The year brought new game-play themes and experiences, along with constant advancement in graphics and processor power, which were highly guarded trade secrets. Getting a game to market as fast as possible without the competition finding out and stealing the idea became pivotal to success.

DIG DUG

“Dig Dug” was created by powerhouse developer Namco, a Japanese game maker that had great success in the early 1980s creating some of the most well-known games. Dig Dug featured a unique theme and game play different from any other game at the time.

The player used a joystick to move the Dig Dug character to dig tunnels underground. Enemy monsters, Pookas and Fygars, lived in cleared-out pockets of dirt. The goal was to eliminate the monsters by quickly pressing a button to use an air pump that inflated and blew them up. Players also could drop rocks on top of them. A level was completed once all the monsters were destroyed.

Dig Dug ends on level 256 because a bug causes a Pooka to be placed right on top of the player, killing him instantly.

Following in the footsteps of Pac-Man, Dig Dug successfully appealed to men and women alike. Colorful cartoon graphics and quirky game play made this game a hit for Namco, selling more than 12,000 units. It remains a popular game, having been translated to every game system imaginable. A number of sequels have been attempted, but none has achieved the success of the original.

JUNGLE KING (AKA JUNGLE HUNT)

“Jungle King” was developed and distributed by Taito, which soon after the game’s release was sued for copyright infringement by the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs, owner of the Tarzan character. The game’s main character is a barechested man who wears a loin cloth, swings from vines, and does the Tarzan yell. Taito lost the lawsuit, subsequently changed the name of the game to “Jungle Hunt,” and rereleased the game with the main character dressed as a jungle explorer who swung from ropes—and didn’t do the Tarzan yell.

The game was unique and popular because of the variety of game play it featured, including a light but rewarding “damsel in distress” story told along the way. The game play was split into four sections, each with a different objective. In section one, the explorer needed to jump and swing from rope to rope while avoiding monkeys that wanted to knock him down. In section two, the explorer swam while avoiding crocodiles and grabbing air bubbles to gain oxygen. In section three, the explorer had to dodge and jump over boulders of various sizes that were rolling and bouncing toward him. In the final section, the explorer had to evade cannibals while attempting to save a woman from being lowered into a flaming cauldron. If successful, the player was rewarded with a cute intermission scene of the damsel saying “I love you!” to her savior. The game also was unique because when players died, play would restart at the beginning of the current section they were in instead of having to go all the way back to the beginning like most games at the time.

Taito released a version of Jungle Hunt called “Pirate Pete,” which was exactly the same except the main characters were dressed as pirates.

Milton Bradley released a board game based on Jungle Hunt in 1983.

The first choice for the ostrich character in Joust was an eagle, but the designer believed the bird lacked graceful land mobility and thought that a flying ostrich was more believable than a running eagle.

JOUST

Hot on the success of Defender and Stargate, Williams launched a new team to develop games based on the same hardware. After proposing a couple of ideas for new games, the team settled on “Joust,” considered the most plausible match for the hardware’s capabilities. John Newcomer led the team, and Bill “Pfutz” Pfutzenreuter programmed the game.

On paper, the idea sounded bizarre: players would ride on flying ostriches while jousting against enemies riding on vultures. Considering that ostriches can’t fly and were not historically used in jousting, the game was, to put it mildly, an odd combination. But the team ended up executing an exquisite, perfectly tuned game.

Player control was simple. A two-way joystick chose the direction of movement, and a single button, when repeatedly tapped, would flap the ostriches’ wings and allow them to fly. The player then jousted with enemies that appeared. The jouster with the highest jousting pole won the encounter. If the player cleared all the enemies, he would move on to the next wave. Occasionally a bonus “egg wave” was awarded, during which players had a short time to collect eggs before they hatched into enemies.

A unique sit-down cocktail model of Joust was released where two players sit on one side, instead of the usual one at each end. This allowed the screen to be oriented correctly for them to play at the same time.

One of the best features of the game was the multiplayer aspect. Two players could play either cooperatively to complete waves together or competitively against each other to get the highest score. It was truly one of the first really fun multiplayer games, and, in retrospect, Joust was a precursor to the modern-day multiplayer deathmatch style of game play.

Joust was one of Williams’s top selling games, with 26,000 units produced. As with other popular Williams games, Joust was translated to just about every home game system available and still remains a fun and challenging game. A sequel, “Joust 2,” was released in 1985.

MOON PATROL

“Moon Patrol” was developed by Irem, a lesser-known Japanese developer that had a few hits in the 1980s like “Kung Fu Master” and “R-type.” Moon Patrol was licensed to Williams for distribution in the United States.

In this 1982 game, the player took the role of a Luna City police officer, driving a patrol vehicle assigned to Sector Nine, the home of the “toughest thugs in the galaxy.” Even though it is essentially a shooter, controls were a bit different than most games in this genre. The player used a two-way joystick to control the speed of a moon buggy, a single-fire button that simultaneously shot missiles forward and straight up, and a jump button that allowed the buggy to leap into the air. The goal was for players to make it to the end of a level without getting hit by jumping over craters, rocks, and land mines while simultaneously shooting at rocks in front of and alien flying saucers above them. Aliens shot missiles at the player, who could dodge them by slowing down or speeding up. This dual threat from above and in front of the player made the game challenging as the player had to watch two sections of the screen at the same time.

Moon Patrol was one of the earliest side-scrolling shoot-’em-up games, which became a popular format. It also was one of the earliest arcade games to introduce parallax scrolling, which featured multiple, two-dimensional planes of images, mountains, and rocks layered on top of each other but moving at different speeds. This aspect lent an illusion of depth to the scene and is still used widely in games today.

The game’s unique controls, colorful graphics, and catchy background tune attracted players of all ages. Although Moon Patrol was not Williams’s highestselling game, it brought a fresh game play style that made it a fan favorite.

Moon Patrol’s success led to the release of a bootleg version called “Moon Ranger” the same year.

Q*BERT

“Q*bert” was developed, produced, and sold by D. Gottlieb & Co., which was owned at the time by Columbia Pictures. Coca-Cola acquired Columbia Pictures in 1982 and, in 1983, transferred the assets of Gottlieb to a new subsidiary called Mylstar Electronics. Q*bert was Gottlieb’s fourth video game and the only one of the company’s games to be considered both a commercial and critical success, selling around 25,000 units.

During development, Q*bert was briefly named “Snots and Boogers” and “@!#?@!?”

The game’s main character is a funny but endearing orange blob with legs, a big nose, and a lot of personality. Players used a joystick to move this character on a three-dimensional pyramid of cubes. The goal was to change the color of every cube in the pyramid by jumping on top of them while avoiding obstacles and enemies. The premise was simple and unique, but it was the personality of the main character that really won over players.

Whenever the player was caught by an enemy or mistakenly jumped off the pyramid, synthesized speech would emit a gibberish sound likened to swearing, echoing the player’s own sentiment about losing a character. When Q*bert fell off the pyramid, the player would hear a loud thwack. This sound actually was produced by a pinball knocker solenoid that created a rather loud physical sound inside the cabinet whenever the device was activated.

The Q*bert character became something of a 1980s icon and was one of the most successfully merchandised games (like Pac-Man and Donkey Kong). It appeared on countless products, including lunchboxes, sleeping bags, board games, stuffed animals, Frisbees, a tabletop “mini arcade” game, and even a full-size pinball machine. In 1983, an animated television series was produced as part of CBS’s “Saturday Supercade.” Q*bert has become firmly entrenched in pop culture, referenced in various television shows, including Family Guy, Futurama, and The Simpsons. A sequel was made in 1983, “Q*bert Qubes,” but that game never came close to reaching the success of the original.

Early in development, Q*bert shot bullets from its tubular nose, but this aspect was removed because the designer felt it complicated the game play.

Williams was sued by Walt Disney Productions for copyright and patent infringement regarding Williams’s use of “Tron” in Robotron. Williams won the lawsuit, and in 1982 Walt Disney released the movie Tron.

ROBOTRON: 2084

“Robotron 2084” was released by Williams Electronics, which once again enlisted the hit design team of Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar to create another remarkable game.

Robotron is considered one of the most intense gaming experiences ever created. The object of the game was to save the last human family and kill anything or anyone who got in the way. The game featured a unique control scheme that used two joysticks: one to move the player’s character and another to rapid fire a laser in any direction it is pointed. This allowed players to run in one direction while shooting in a different direction. This simple and elegant design allowed players a lot of freedom in how they played the game.

Robotron is played in waves. During each wave, players had to destroy all the enemies—the Robotrons—with the exception of the indestructible Hulks and rescue as many human family members as possible before being killed. The game featured five main enemies: Grunts, Spheroids, Quarks, Brains, and the Hulks. Each had a unique personality and attack pattern. What made this game so intense is that there literally could be more than a hundred enemies, all converging on the player trying to destroy him. Players had to keep moving and shooting in all directions in order to save the humans and survive.

Robotron was a big success for Williams, selling 19,000 units. Its now-classic game play has landed it on many “top video games of all time” lists, and it often is touted as one of the best examples of game play design and execution. The game has crossed over into pop culture and been referenced in songs by the Beastie Boys and Lou Reed. It also has been translated to every imaginable home game system.

The human characters in Robotron are named “Mommy,” “Daddy,” and “Mikey.” The inspiration for the Mikey character was from the 1970s commercial for Life cereal.

ZAXXON

“Zaxxon” was developed and sold by SEGA. It was SEGA’s first big video arcade game hit, partly because of its eye-popping threedimensional graphics. Zaxxon was the first arcade game to use an isometric view, which is a method of displaying an image that simulates a 3D view from a third-person viewpoint. This made it one of the most impressive-looking games of the time.

A Zaxxon unit appears in the 1983 movie WarGames.

In this popular game, players used a flight stick control to pilot an attack shuttle through the levels and a fire button to shoot missiles to destroy enemy fighters, surface-level fuel tanks, and gun placements. An altimeter gauge helped players constantly monitor their altitude in order to skillfully navigate through wall openings under electronic barriers and to dodge rockets. The player’s ship could be destroyed if it was hit by enemy fire or ran into brick walls or objects. It also was possible to run out of fuel and crash to the surface. Players needed to destroy enemy guns and ships while also shooting fuel tanks to gain more fuel to continue playing. There are two unique bases to play, and in later rounds players could duel with the large evil enemy, the robot Zaxxon.

In addition to its unique look, Zaxxon was one of the first games to feature shadows, and it was the first arcade game advertised on television. Zaxxon’s popularity spawned a sequel named “Super Zaxxon,” a board game by Milton Bradley, and multiple table-top versions from Bandia and Coleco. It also was translated to most game consoles and computers over the years, including Nintendo’s Wii console. The game’s success propelled SEGA to become one of the largest players in the video game business.

In 1985, SEGA released “Future Spy,” which used the same isometric game play and hardware as Zaxxon but in a more realistic military setting. It did poorly, selling fewer than 1,000 units.

TRON

“Tron,” developed and released by Bally/Midway Games, was based on the Walt Disney Productions movie Tron, which was released at the same time. This was one of the most successful movie-licensed arcade games ever made.

The cabinet had an incredible appearance. Black lights caused the translucent blue joystick and the fluorescent paint circuit lines to glow. In a darkened arcade, the effect was quite eerie and inviting and perfectly matched the look of the movie. The game featured a unique but intuitive control set up with a flight stick-like joystick with a trigger button and a separate spinner to control aiming in some of the games.

Tron consisted of four subgames inspired by the events in the film: Light Cycle, MCP (Master Control Program), Battle Tanks, and I/O (Input/Output). A fifth stage, a disc-throwing battle game, could not be completed in time and had to be left out. It later was made into a sequel called “Discs of Tron.”

By 1982, industry competition was growing evermore fierce, as manufacturers strove to produce new, unique games that introduced trendsetting features and as players sought the next hot, new thing. The frenetic pace, however, could not be sustained.

The Tron game was an integral part of the movie marketing campaign. In fact, the tag line of the promotional material was “See the movie. Play the game.”

Tron featured twelve levels of difficulty, and instead of just being designated by numbers, the levels were given names of programming languages: RPG, COBOL, BASIC, FORTRAN, SNOBOL, PL1, PASCAL, ALGOL, ASSEMBLY, OS, JCL, and USER.

One of the last great vector games, the technology featured in Star Wars was soon outpaced by the raster method.

THE LAST HURRAH (1983)

BY 1983, THE MARKET WAS STARTING TO WANE. The mad rush to play new games had worn off. Video arcade games had been on a fast ride up in popularity since first appearing in the 1970s, but 1983 marked the first year of a downturn. Some arcades were forced to close. But even though some players were losing interest, the business was still profitable for many developers because the gaming industry had amassed a large following of fans.

At the time, no one knew whether 1983 marked just a temporary dip or the start of a steady decline. Most video games took three to twelve months to develop, so many games introduced in 1983 actually were in the works while the market was still booming. This led to a healthy supply of new games for the start of 1983, but by the end of the year, sales were down, and many smaller companies were forced to close. Several innovations in gaming helped keep the market viable for another year, but just as fast as the trend started, it was about to end.

The animation staff used their own voices for their characters instead of hiring professional actors in order to keep costs down for Dragon’s Lair.

DRAGON’S LAIR

“Dragon’s Lair” was created by Cinematronics, a developer that primarily made vector graphic games and did not have any big hits aside from Space Wars in 1977. But that was soon all about to change.

Cinematronics teamed up with veteran ex-Walt Disney animator Don Bluth (The Secret of NIMH, An American Tale, Titan A.E.) to create a truly unique experience in arcade games. Dragon’s Lair was the first game sold based on using a laser disc to display images. (“Astron Belt” by SEGA is considered the first game developed to use a laser disc. It was shown first at a trade show, but Dragon’s Lair was the first to market.) The laser disc allowed the game to feature jaw-dropping graphics on par with the best animated movies. Not since Pac-Man had a game created such a sensation. In its August 8, 1983, issue, Newsweek called it “this summer’s hottest new toy: the first arcade game in the United States with a movie-quality image to go along with the action.” This success is even more amazing since Dragon’s Lair was one of the first games to cost fifty cents to play, double the normal quarter.

It took six years and more than $1 million to create the animation for Dragon’s Lair.

The object of the game was to help the main character Dirk reach the dragon’s lair, slay the enemy Singe, and rescue Daphne the princess. Players used a joystick not to control the onscreen hero but to direct him. As an animated scene played, the player had to make split-second decisions about which direction the character should go. Based on this input, the game would then play either the next scene if the player chose correctly fast enough or a death scene if he did not.

Ultimately, this simplistic linear game play was its downfall. Players lost interest once they found out they just needed to memorize the pattern to beat the game. Its high popularity, though, allowed it to be translated to most computer and video game systems over the years, including the iPhone in 2010. It also spawned two sequels, “Space Ace,” released during the market crash in 1984, and “Dragon’s Lair II,” released in 1991, but neither did as well as the original.

SPY HUNTER

“Spy Hunter” was developed at Midway by George Gomez, the same designer behind the previous year’s hit game, Tron.

It was planned that the player also would get to fly a helicopter in Spy Hunter, but this feature had to be omitted due to lack of memory.

In Spy Hunter, players were secret agents who used a steering wheel with four weapon buttons, a gas pedal, and a gear shifter to control a car or boat that was rigged with a variety of weapons. The view of the game was from above, like looking down from a helicopter right above the action. The player drove on a vertically scrolling road or river to get as far as possible while eliminating enemy vehicles attacking them. Enemies could bump players off the road, smash into them, or shoot them with guns or torpedoes.

Players had a few tricks up their sleeves to help them win. Their vehicle had unlimited short-range machine guns, they had the ability to drop a limited supply of oil slicks to make enemy vehicles behind them spin out, they could put out a smoke screen to slow them down, or they could use surface-to-air missiles to shoot them down. At times an ally would appear in a weapons van and position itself in front of the player. If players could quickly line up and drive into the van, their weapon supplies would be recharged.

The car the player drives in Spy Hunter is known as the G-6155 Interceptor. The birthdate of designer George Gomez is 6-1-55.

The James Bond theme song was the original music used in Spy Hunter, but Midway was unable to secure the license so it was changed to the theme from Peter Gunn before shipping.

Spy Hunter was known for its appealing music, which was the theme from the television show Peter Gunn, which ran from 1958 to 1961. A lot of players were unfamiliar with the show, so the music became iconic to the game and was referred to by many fans as the theme from Spy Hunter.

STAR WARS

Atari pulled out all the stops to create the arcade game “Star Wars,” which was officially licensed from Lucasfilm Ltd. and released along with the third film, Return of the Jedi. Not since Tron had a movie-licensed game done so well. It was instantly popular among players and critics alike.

Atari chose to make Star Wars a vector game, a technology that uses lines to draw the screen instead of the more common raster technology that uses dots to produce detailed images. This was one of the last great vector games ever made as the technology soon was outpaced by the more versatile raster method. But the format was perfect for the game. The full-color 3D vector images provided silky smooth and fluid game play.

The controller for Star Wars is a derivative of the military version of the BattleZone arcade game.

The player used a flight yoke-like controller with fire buttons and took on the role of Luke Skywalker piloting an X-Wing fighter. The game provided three experiences. It started in outer space above the Death Star, where players engaged in a dogfight with enemy TIE fighters and Darth Vader. Then it went down to the surface of the Death Star, where a barrage of laser turrets and towers tried to eliminate the player. Finally, the player was put in the famous trench scene from the Star Wars movie. He needed to survive the journey down the trench by shooting TIE fighters and avoiding obstacles to get a shot in the exhaust vent and blow up the Death Star. No other game put players in so much control and let them celebrate such an iconic moment from the movie.

A Star Wars upright model appeared in the 1984 movie Gremlins.

The game included authentic sounds and music from the movie, and was Atari’s first game to include digitized speech. Such classics as Obi-Wan Kenobi’s “Use the force, Luke” and Luke Skywalker’s “I can’t shake him!” were taken straight from the movie. Numerous translations were made to home game systems, but none replicated the smooth feel of the vector graphics found in the arcade game. Two sequels were released: “Return of the Jedi,” which was a raster-based game, and “The Empire Strikes Back,” which went back to the vector format.

TAPPER

“Tapper” was developed by Marvin Glass and Associates, a toy design firm based in Chicago which dabbled in video games in the early 1980s; it was released by Midway. The game featured a unique cabinet and fresh game play.

The player controlled a bartender who needed to serve patrons before they became irate and made their way down the bar to the kegs. To do this, the player used a joystick to position the bartender at one of four bars and then pulled down on the mock beer tap controller to fill a mug of beer to the top. Once filled, the tapper was released and the mug slid down the bar to a waiting patron. If a patron was not there to catch it or if a customer made it to the end of the bar without being served, the player lost one of three lives. It also was possible to move down the bar to pick up tips left by patrons. This move launched a dance show during which all the patrons would pause and watch, thereby giving the player a few moments to catch up serving. There were four different bars to visit, and after each one was completed, the player was treated to a bonus round during which the bartender shook all the beer cans in a row except one and shuffled them around. If the player chose the unshaken can, he won a bonus.

Only the first one hundred or so of Tapper’s cabinets featured color graphics.

Tapper’s game play was unique, and so was the cabinet. Originally made only for bars, the game actually looked like a mini bar, complete with a brass foot rail on the bottom and two drink holders on the sides. The game initially was branded with Budweiser in the game graphics and on the cabinet, but in order to expand the market, it was rebranded with new graphics as “Root Beer Tapper” so it could be placed in all-ages locations. This was one of the first games to feature a branded alcohol product in the actual game.

Although no sequel was made for the arcade, Tapper was translated to many home systems and recently to the iPhone in a new form as “Tapper World Tour.”

TRACK AND FIELD

“Track and Field” was developed and sold by Japan-based Konami Corporation. Konami had some big successes in the market, including Frogger, “Time Pilot,” and “Gyruss,” and had, in fact, released more than twenty-five arcade games. Even still, only about one in five games hit big, and Track and Field was one of them. Its release right before the 1984 Olympics helped spark its popularity.

Released to coincide with the 1984 Olympics, Track and Field was called “Hyper Olympic” in Japan.

In later versions of Track and Field, a trackball replaced the run buttons.

Not since Atari’s Football in 1978 had there been a sport game that created such fierce competition among players. Track and Field created an intense rivalry with just three buttons and a lot of sweat. Players competed in six different Olympic sports: 100-meter dash, long jump, javelin throw, 110-meter hurdles, hammer throw, and high jump. All the events required an incredible combination of fast button mashing and timing. Most required the player to run by alternating the right and left buttons: The faster the players tapped, the faster they ran. The game was a brutal test of endurance as players frequently found themselves out of breath after only a short time of intense playing.

Players came up with some novel approaches to try to beat both their friends and the game. Some would balance a pencil between their middle finger and tap one end really fast to alternately hit both run buttons. Some might have a friend tap the left run button as they tapped the right one or used the “thumb and pinky” method to alternately hit the run button and use their other hand to hit jump. The game also could be played with up to four people in teams of two, which created an even more competitive environment.

Though 1983 marked the advent of a number of popular games, the popularity of the industry itself was waning. By the end of the year, it was looking like the arcade game phenomenon was nothing more than a fad.

Launched in 1980, Pac-Man went on to sell more than 350,000 units. Today, it still enjoys a 94 percent recognition rate among American consumers.

THE CRASH: THE END OF THE FAD (1984)

BY THE END OF 1983, IT WAS APPARENT that games were not earning as much as they once had been. Hundreds of developers were pumping out poorquality clones and rushing to market with shoddy games. These games flooded the market and failed to earn much money. At the same time, the home game market also crashed because of a glut of poor-quality games.

After years of chart-topping growth, the industry collapsed faster than anyone could have imagined. By 1984, the fad was over. Sales plummeted. Massive layoffs hit. Many believed the video game industry was done and over and that the fad had run its course as people moved on to other forms of entertainment. During the rest of the 1980s, video games and the companies that made them struggled to survive. Arcades that had sprung up just a couple years earlier closed, and many other venues removed their games in favor of products that could make more money.

But arcade games left a lasting mark on the world of pop culture, a mark that still persists. Classic games such as Pac-Man, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Centipede, Robotron, and Dragon’s Lair made permanent impressions in players’ minds and continue to influence the development of games.

The invention of a new form of entertainment rarely happens, and even though the market crashed hard in 1984, the arcade video game had too much appeal to just die quietly and fade away. So although business was difficult for the rest of the decade, it slowly came back and surged again in the 1990s.

Donkey Kong quickly became one of the most popular games, appearing in countless sequels, spin-offs, and licensed products.

One of Atari’s early successes, Centipede spawned numerous clones.

An iPhonecompatible version of Dragon’s Lair was launched in 2010.

Frequently named one of the top video games of all time, Robotron now is available on numerous home game systems.

At the same time, the home gaming market also was dormant for a few years, but started growing rapidly in the late 1980s due to advances and cost reductions in the technology, as well as the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment system. This success continued to open the market to more players, and by late 1980s, the market was ready to take off again.

History has shown that the games themselves may not, in fact, have been merely a fad. It was more likely that mainstream players grew tired of the hype and poor quality and moved on to other things. But the arcade game trend also created countless dedicated fans, and the market slowly returned. Today, the arcade market remains very small, with only a handful of new games released each year. Instead, the game market largely has moved to other venues: home consoles, the Internet, and mobile phones. Although small and relegated mainly to family fun centers or the occasional bar, the arcade video game market still survives—and still puts a smile on the face of players everywhere.

Published in Great Britain in 2012 by Shire Publications Ltd,

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© 2012 Brian R. Eddy

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Shire Library no.    639. ISBN-13: 978 0 74781 042 1

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COVER IMAGE

Several games have been particularly influential in the history of video arcade games, including, from top left, Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Q*bert, andTrack and Field.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CREDITS

All photos courtesy of the author. All video game graphics, logos, artwork, and promotional images are the property of their respective copyright holders.

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