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The golden age of video arcade games was a peak era of video arcade game popularity, innovation, and earnings. Although there is no consensus as to its exact time period, most sources place it around the early 1980s.

Overview

During the late 1970s, video arcade game technology had become sophisticated enough to offer good-quality graphics and sounds, but it was still fairly basic (realistic images and full motion video were not yet available, and only a few games used spoken voice) and so the success of a game had to rely on simple and fun gameplay. This emphasis on the gameplay is why many of these games continue to be enjoyed today despite their technology being vastly outdated by modern computing technology.

Relevant time period

Walter Day of Twin Galaxies places it as lasting from January 18, 1982 to January 5, 1986.^[1] Technology journalist Jason Whittaker, in The Cyberspace Handbook, places the beginning of the golden age in 1978, with the release of Space Invaders, which he credits for bringing an end to the video game crash of 1977, sparking a renaissance for the video game industry, and starting a video game revolution.^[2]

Video game journalist Steven L. Kent, in his book The Ultimate History of Video Games, places it at 1979 to 1983.^[3] The book pointed out that 1979 was the year that Space Invaders,^[4] which he credits for ushering in the golden age,^[5] was released in the United States,^[4] and the year that saw the advent of vector graphics technology, which in turn spawned many of the popular early arcade games. However, 1983 was the period that began "a fairly steady decline" in the coin-operated video game business and when many arcades started disappearing.^[3]

The History of Computing Project defines the Golden Age as 1971-1983, covering the “mainsteam appearance of video games as a consumer market” and “the rise of dedicated hardware systems and the origin of multi-game cartridge based systems”.^[6] 1971 was chosen as an earlier start date by the project for two reasons: the creator of Pong filed a pivotal patent regarding video game technology, and it was the release of the first arcade video game machine, Computer Space.^[7]

Other opinions place this period's beginning in the late 1970s, when color arcade games became more prevalent and video arcades themselves started appearing outside of their traditional bowling alley and bar locales, through to its ending in the mid-1980s.^[8]

Business

The golden age was a time of great technical and design creativity in arcade games. Games were designed in a wide variety of genres while developers had to work within strict limits of available processor power and memory. Prior to the golden age, the video game industry was flooded with Pong clones, which led to the video game crash of 1977. The crash eventually came to an end following the success of Taito's Space Invaders, which sparked a renaissance for the video game industry.^[2]

The era saw the rapid spread of video arcades across North America, Europe, and Asia; the number of video game arcades in North America, for example, doubled between 1980 and 1982, by which time there were some 10,000 video game arcades across the region. At this time, video arcade games also started to appear in supermarkets, restaurants, liquor stores, gas stations and many other retail establishments looking for extra income. The sales of arcade video game machines increased significantly during this period, from $50 million in 1978 to $900 million in 1981,^[9] with 500,000 arcade machines sold in the United States at prices ranging as high as $3000 in 1982 alone.^[10] By 1981, the arcade video game industry was generating an annual revenue of $5 billion in North America,^[2][11] equivalent to $12.3 billion in 2011.^[12] In 1982, the arcade video game industry reached its peak, generating $8 billion in quarters,^[13] equivalent to over $18.5 billion in 2011,^[12] surpassing the annual gross revenue of both pop music ($4 billion) and Hollywood films ($3 billion) combined at the time.^[13] The arcade video game industry would continue to generate an annual revenue of $5 billion in quarters until 1985.^[14] Music based on arcade games also sold well, such as the "Pac-Man Fever" song selling over a million singles,^[15] and the Pac-Man Fever album selling over a million records.^[16]

Prior to the golden age, the best selling arcade video game, Pong, had sold over 19,000 units,^[17] and generated a revenue of $14 million in 1974.^[18] In contrast, the best selling arcade games of the golden age, Space Invaders and Pac-Man, had sold over 360,000^[19] and 350,000^[20] units, respectively, with both games also each generating revenues of more than $1 billion from quarters;^[21][22] Space Invaders achieved this figure within three years of release,^[21] while Pac-Man did it within 15 months^[23] and is estimated to have grossed over 10 billion quarters ($2.5 billion) during the 20th century.^[22][24] Many other arcade games during the golden age also had unit sales at least in the tens of thousands, including Ms. Pac-Man with over 115,000 units, Asteroids with 70,000,^[25] Donkey Kong with over 60,000,^[26] Defender with 55,000,^[27] and Galaxian with 40,000 units.^[28] A number of arcade games also generated revenues in the hundreds of millions, including Defender with more than $100 million^[29] and Donkey Kong with $280 million,^[30] in addition to many more with revenues in the tens of millions, including Tron which grossed more than the film it was based on (which grossed over $30 million),^[31] Dragon's Lair with $48 million, and Space Ace with $13 million.^[32]

The most successful arcade game companies of this era included Taito (which ushered in the golden age with the shooter game Space Invaders^[5] and produced other successful arcade action games such as Gun Fight and Jungle King), Namco (the Japanese company that created Galaxian, Pac-Man, Pole Position and Dig Dug) and Atari (the company that introduced video games into arcades with Computer Space and Pong, and later produced Asteroids). These companies wrestled for the top slot in American arcades for several years. Other companies such as Sega (who later entered the home console market against its former arch rival, Nintendo), Nintendo (whose mascot, Mario, was introduced in 1981's Donkey Kong), Bally Midway Manufacturing Company (which was later purchased by Williams), Capcom, Cinematronics, Konami, Centuri, Williams and SNK also entered around this era.

Technology

Arcades catering to video games began to gain momentum in the late 1970s with games such as Space Invaders (1978), Gee Bee (1978) and Galaxian (1979) and became widespread in 1980 with Pac-Man, Missile Command, Defender, and others. The central processing unit in these games allowed for more complexity than earlier discrete circuitry games such as Atari's Pong (1972).

During this period, arcade video games began shifting away from single-screen titles towards scrolling games.^[33] Early examples were Sega's side-scrolling shooters Bomber (1977)^[34] and Secret Base (1978).^[35] Namco's Rally-X in 1980 introduced multi-directional scrolling,^[36] as well as a radar tracking the player position.^[37] Sega's Space Tactics that year was a space combat game allowing multi-directional scrolling from a first-person perspective.^[38] The following year, Namco's Bosconian allowed the player's ship to freely move across open space that scrolls in all directions.^[39] By the early 1980s, scrolling had become popular among arcade video games and would make its way to third-generation consoles, where it would prove nearly as pivotal as the move to 3D graphics on later fifth-generation consoles.^[33]

The Golden Age also saw developers experimenting with vector displays, which produced crisp lines that couldn't be duplicated by raster displays. An early example of vector graphics was Sega's 1978 release Space Ship, a multi-directional shooter space combat game.^[40] A few of these vector games became great hits, such as 1980's Battlezone and Tempest and 1983's Star Wars from Atari, as well as 1982's Star Trek from Sega. Another notable example was Sega's 1981 release Eliminator, the only four-player vector game ever created,^[41] and featuring color vector graphics as well as both cooperative and competitive multiplayer.^[42] However, vector technology fell out of favor with arcade game companies due to the high cost of repairing vector displays.

Developers also experimented with laserdisc players for delivering full motion video based games with movie-quality animation. The first laserdisc video game to exploit this technology was 1983's Astron Belt from Sega,^[43][44] soon followed by Dragon's Lair from Cinematronics; the latter was a sensation when it was released (and, in fact, the laserdisc players in many machines broke due to overuse). While laserdisc games were usually either shooter games with full-motion video backdrops like Astron Belt or interactive movies like Dragon's Lair, Data East's 1983 game Bega's Battle introduced a new form of video game storytelling: using brief full-motion video cutscenes to develop a story between the game's shooting stages, which would years later become the standard approach to video game storytelling. By the mid-1980s, the genre dwindled in popularity, as laserdiscs were losing out to the VHS format and the laserdisc games themselves were losing their novelty,^[45] due to their linearity and, in many cases, depending less on reflexes than on memorizing sequences of moves.

New controls cropped up in a few games, though, arguably, joysticks and buttons remained the favorites for most manufacturers. A racing wheel was included in racing video games such as Road Race^[46] and Night Driver, Fonz introduced a motorcycle handlebar with vibrating force feedback technology,^[47] Atari introduced the trackball with 1978's Atari Football, Paperboy used a bicycle handlebar, and Hogan's Alley introduced tethered light guns to the arcade video game market. Other specialty controls, such as pedals in racing games, and a crossbow-shaped light gun in Crossbow, also debuted in this era.

Gameplay

With the enormous success of the early games, dozens of developers jumped into the development and manufacturing of video arcade games. Some simply copied the "invading alien hordes" idea of Space Invaders and turned out successful imitators like Namco's Galaxian, Galaga, and Gaplus, though they took the shoot 'em up genre further with new gameplay mechanics, more complex enemy patterns, and richer graphics.^[48][49] Galaxian introduced levels and boss encounters, and was the first game to have all of its graphics in RGB colour,^[50] while Galaga was one of the first games with a bonus stage.^[51] Sega's Secret Base in 1978 introduced two-player cooperative gameplay,^[52] while their 1980 release Space Tactics was an early first-person space combat game with multi-directional scrolling as the player moved the cross-hairs on the screen.^[38]

Others tried new concepts and defined new genres. Rapidly evolving hardware allowed new kinds of games which allowed for different styles of gameplay. In 1980, Namco released Pac-Man, which established the maze chase genre, and Rally-X, the earliest multi-directional scrolling game^[36] with a radar tracking the player position on the map.^[37] Games such as the pioneering 1981 games Donkey Kong and Qix in 1981 introduced new types of games where skill and timing are more important than shooting as fast as possible, with Nintendo's Donkey Kong in particular setting the template for the platform game genre.^[53] Namco's Bosconian in 1981 introduced a free-roaming style of gameplay where the player's ship freely moves across open space, while also including a radar tracking player & enemy positions.^[39] Bega's Battle in 1983 introduced a new form of video game storytelling: using brief full-motion video cutscenes to develop a story between the game's shooting stages.^[45] Other examples of innovative games are Atari Games' Paperboy in 1984 where the goal is to successfully deliver newspapers to customers, and Namco's Phozon where the object is to duplicate a shape shown in the middle of the screen. The theme of Exidy's Venture is dungeon exploration and treasure-gathering. One innovative game, Q*Bert, played upon the user's sense of depth perception to deliver a novel experience.

Popular culture

Some games of this era were so popular that they entered the popular culture. The release of Pac-Man in 1980 caused such a sensation that it initiated what is now referred to as "Pac-Mania" (which later became the title of the last coin-operated game in the series, released in 1987). Released by Namco, the game featured a yellow, circle-shaped creature trying to eat dots through a maze while avoiding pursuing enemies. Though no one could agree what the "hero" or enemies represented (They were variously referred to as ghosts, goblins or monsters), the game was extremely popular; there are anecdotes to the effect that some game owners had to empty the game's coin bucket every hour in order to prevent the game's coin mechanism from jamming from having too many coins in the receptacle. The game spawned an animated television series, numerous clones, Pac-Man-branded foods, toys, and a hit pop song, Pac-Man Fever. Though many popular games quickly entered the lexicon of popular culture, most have since left, and Pac-Man is unusual in remaining a recognized term in pop culture, along with Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., and Frogger.

Strategy guides

The enormous popularity of video arcade games also led to the very first video game strategy guides; these guides (rare to find today) discussed in detail the patterns and strategies of each game, including variations, to a degree that few guides seen since can match. "Turning the machine over"—making the score counter overflow and reset to zero—was often the final challenge of a game for those who mastered it, and the last obstacle to getting the highest score.

List of most popular games

The games below are some of the most popular and/or influential games of the era.^[54]

The end of the era

The Golden Age cooled as copies of popular games began to saturate the arcades. Arcades remained commonplace through the early 1990s and there were still new genres being explored, but most new games were fighting games, shooters, maze games, and other variations on old familiar themes.

New generations of home computers and home video game consoles also sapped interest from arcades. Earlier consoles, such as the Atari 2600 and Mattel's Intellivision, were general-purpose and were meant to play a variety of games, and often could not measure up to video arcade game hardware, which was built for the singular purpose of providing a single game well. In fact, the glut of poor-quality home video game systems contributed in no small way to the video game crash of 1983.

But the debut of the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985) began to level the playing field by providing a reasonably good video arcade experience at home. In the early to mid 1990s, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis in North America) greatly improved home play and some of the technology was even integrated into a few video arcade machines. By the time of the PlayStation (1995) and the Nintendo 64 (1996), both of which boasted true 3D graphics, many video game arcades across the country had gone out of business.

The video arcade game industry still exists today, but in a greatly reduced form. Video arcade game hardware is often based on home game consoles to facilitate porting a video arcade game to a home system; there are video arcade versions of Dreamcast (NAOMI, Atomiswave), PlayStation 2 (System 246), Nintendo GameCube (Triforce), and Microsoft Xbox (Chihiro) home consoles. Some arcades have survived by expanding into ticket-based prize redemption and more physical games with no home console equivalent, such as skee ball and whack-a-mole. Some genres, such as dancing and rhythm games (such as Dance Dance Revolution) continue to be popular in arcades.

The relative simplicity yet solid gameplay of many of these early games has inspired a new generation of fans who can play them on mobile phones or with emulators such as MAME. Some classic arcade games are reappearing in commercial settings, such as Namco's Ms. Pac-Man 20 Year Reunion / Galaga Class of 1981 two-in-one game,^[80] or integrated directly into controller hardware (joysticks) with replaceable flash drives storing game ROMs.

Legacy

The Golden Age of Video Arcade Games spawned numerous cultural icons and even gave some companies their identity. Elements from games such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, and Centipede are still recognized in today's popular culture.

The success of these early video games has led many hobbyists who were teenagers during the Golden Age to collect some of these classic games. Since few have any commercial value any longer, they can be acquired for US$200 to US$750 (though fully restored games can cost much more).

Some fans of these games have companies devoted to restoring the classic games, and others, such as Arcade Renovations, which produces reproduction art for classic arcade games, focus solely on one facet of the restoration activity. Many of these restorers have set up websites full of tips and advice on restoring games to mint condition. There are also several newsgroups devoted to discussion around these games, and a few conventions, such as California Extreme,^[81] dedicated to classic arcade gaming.

See also

• Arcade cabinet
• Arcade game
• List of video arcade games
• List of video game consoles
• Video arcade
• Timeline of video arcade game history

References

External links

• The KLOV Top Video Games Lists by Greg McLemore and friends
• Reference to the term 'Golden Age'
• The Dot Eaters, Videogame History 101