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The Golden Age of Arcade Games was a peak era of arcade game popularity and innovation. Most opinions place this period’s beginning in late 1979 or 1980 when the first color arcade games appeared and arcades began to become prevalent, and its ending in the mid-1980s. However, some people refer to the golden age as the entire period when arcades were prevalent in general, placing its start at the 1978 release of Space Invaders and its end in the mid-1990s with the release of home gaming systems which were equal to or more powerful than typical arcade hardware, such as Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo’s N64.

Overview

During the early 1980s, 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 This emphasis on the gameplay is why many of these games continue to be enjoyed today despite having been vastly outdated by modern computing technology.

The Killer List of Videogames (KLOV) web site has compiled a (subjective) list of the “Top 100 (arcade) Video Games.” Fifty of them (including all the games on its Top 10 list) were introduced during the period from 1979 to 1984.

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. The era also saw the rapid spread of video arcades across North America and Japan.

At this time, arcade games started to appear in supermarkets, liquor stores, gas stations and many other retail establishments looking for extra income. Popular games occasionally caused a crush of teenagers, eager to try the latest entertainment entry.

Probably the most successful arcade game companies of this era were Namco (especially in Japan) and Atari (especially in the United States). Other notables include Nintendo (whose mascot, Mario, was introduced in 1981’s Donkey Kong), Bally Midway Manufacturing Company (who later was purchased by Williams), Capcom, Cinematronics, Konami, Sega, Taito, Williams, and SNK.

Technology

Arcades began to gain momentum in the late 1970s with games such as Gee Bee (arcade game) (1978) and Galaxian (1979) and became widespread in 1980 with Pac-Man, King and Balloon, Tank Battalion, and others. The central processing unit in these games allowed for more complexity than earlier discrete circuitry games such as Atari’s Pong (1972).

The Golden Age saw developers experimenting with new hardware, creating games which used the crisp lines of vector displays as opposed to standard raster displays. A few of these games became great hits, such as 1980’s Battlezone and Tempest and 1983’s Star Wars, all from Atari, but vector technology fell out of favor with arcade game companies due to the high cost of repairing vector displays. (Vectrex, a home video game system with a built-in vector display, was released in 1982.)

Developers also experimented with laserdisc players for delivering movie-quality animation. The first game to exploit this technology, 1983’s Dragon’s Lair from Cinematronics, was three years in the making. It was a sensation when it was released (and, in fact, the laserdisc players in many machines broke due to overuse), but the genre dwindled in popularity because the games were fairly linear and depended 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. Atari introduced the trackball with 1978’s Football. Spy Hunter included a life-like steering wheel and Hogan’s Alley introduced tethered light guns to the arcade 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 arcade video games. Some simply copied the “invading alien hordes” idea of Space Invaders and turned out successful imitators like Galaxian, Galaga, and Gaplus, while others tried new concepts and defined new genres. Rapidly evolving hardware allowed new kinds of games which surpassed the shoot-em-up gameplay of the earliest games.

Games such as Donkey Kong and Qix introduced new types of games where skill and timing are more important than shooting as fast as possible. Other examples of innovative games are Atari Games’ Paperboy 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 in order to deliver a novel experience.

Some games of this era were so popular that they entered the popular culture. 1980’s release of Pac-Man caused such a sensation that it initiated what is now referred to as “Pac-Mania.” This 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 really agree what the “hero” or enemies represented (sometimes they were referred to as ghosts, other times goblins or just 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, a cartoon series, Pac-Man branded foods 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 unique in remaining a recognized term in pop culture, along with Donkey Kong, Mario Bros., and Frogger.

The enormous popularity of arcade games also led to the very first video game strategy guides; these guides (rare to find today) discussed in exacting detail the patterns and strategies of each game, including variations, to a degree that few guides seen since can match. “Turning the machine over” by 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.

Most popular games

The games below were some of the most popular and influential games of the era. All occupy a position in the KLOV’s “Top 100 Videogames” list

Space Invaders (1978)

Asteroids (1979)

Galaxian (1979)

Lunar Lander (1979)

Battlezone (1980)

Berzerk (1980)

Centipede (1980)

Defender (1980)

Missile Command (1980)

Pac-Man (1980)

Star Castle (1980)

Tempest (1980)

Warlords (1980)

Wizard of Wor (1980)

Donkey Kong (1981)

Frogger (1981)

Galaga (1981)

Ms. Pac Man (1981)

Qix (1981)

Vanguard (1981)

Burgertime (1982)

Dig Dug (1982)

Joust (1982)

Moon Patrol (1982)

Pole Position (1982)

Q*Bert (1982)

Robotron 2084 (1982)

Time Pilot (1982)

Tron (1982)

Xevious (1982)

Zaxxon (1982)

Dragon’s Lair (1983)

Elevator Action (1983)

Spy Hunter (1983)

Star Wars (1983)

Tapper (1983)

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 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 couldn’t measure up to 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 arcade experience at home. In the early to mid 1990s, the Super Nintendo and the Sega Genesis greatly improved home play and some of the technology was even integrated into a few arcade machines. By the time of the Sony PlayStation (1994) 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 arcade game industry still exists today, but in a greatly reduced form. Arcade game hardware is often based on home game consoles to facilitate porting an arcade game to a home system; there are arcade versions of Sega Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation 2, and Microsoft Xbox 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, part of the Bemani series) continue to be popular in arcades, particularly in Japan.

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 , or integrated directly into controller hardware (joysticks) with replaceable flash drives storing game ROMs.

Legacy

The Golden Age of 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 phenomenal 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$500 (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 restorationers have set up websites on the Internet full of tips and advice on restoring games to mint condition. There are also several newsgroups devoted to discussion around these games.

References

The Official Price Guide to Classic Video Games by David Ellis (2004), ISBN 0-375-72038-3

The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon–The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World by Steven L. Kent (2001), ISBN 0-7615-3643-4

The Golden Age of Video Game Arcades (a 200-page story contained within Twin Galaxies’ Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records) by Walter Day (1998), ISBN 1-887472-25-8

An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, typically installed in businesses such as restaurants, pubs, video arcades, and Family Entertainment Centers. Most arcade games are redemption games, video games or pinball machines.

History

The first popular “arcade games” were early amusement park midway games such as shooting galleries, ball toss games, and the earliest coin-operated machines, such as those which claim to tell a person their fortune or played mechanical music. Although none of these were coin-operated games themselves, the old midways of 1920s-era amusement parks (such as Coney Island in New York) provided the inspiration and atmosphere of later arcade games.

In the 1930s, the earliest coin-operated pinball machines were made. These early amusement devices were distinct from their later electronic cousins in that they were made of wood, did not have plungers or lit-up bonus surfaces on the playing field, and used mechanical instead of electronic scoring readouts. By around 1977, most pinball machines in production switched to using solid state electronics for both operation and scoring.

In 1972, Atari was formed by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari essentially created the coin-operated video game industry with the game Pong, the smash hit electronic ping pong video game. Pong proved to be popular, but imitators helped keep Atari from dominating the fledging coin-operated videogame market. Nonetheless, video game arcades sprang up in shopping malls and small, “corner arcades” appeared in restaurants, grocery stores, bars and movie theaters all over the United States and other countries during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Games such as Space Invaders (1978), Galaxian (1979), Pac-Man (1980), Battlezone (1980), and Donkey Kong (1981) were especially popular.

By the late-1980s, the arcade video game craze was beginning to fade due to the reputation of arcades as being seedy, unsafe places as well as the advances in home video game console technology. The last gasp of the youth arcade subculture, as it once was, may have been the advent of two-player fighting games such as Street Fighter II (1991) by Capcom, Mortal Kombat (1992) by Midway Games, and Fatal Fury(1992) and King of Fighters (1994-2005) by SNK.

By 1996, 32-bit home video game consoles and computers with 3D accelerator cards had reached technological parity with arcade equipment—arcade games had always been based on commodity technology, but their advantage over previous generations of home system was in their ability to customize and use the latest graphics and sound chips, much as PC games of today do. Declines in arcade sales volume meant that this approach was no longer cost-effective. The arcades also lost their status as the forefront of new game releases. Given the choice between playing a game at an arcade three or four times (perhaps 15 minutes of play for a typical arcade game), and renting, at about the same price, the exact same game—for a video game console—the console was the clear winner. Fighting games were the most attractive feature for arcades, since they offered the prospect of face-to-face competition and tournaments, which correspondingly led players to practice more(and spend more money in the arcade), but they couldn’t support the business all by themselves.

To stay in business, the arcades themselves were reinvented as “fun centers” such as Chuck-E-Cheese, with arcade games being supplemented by a variety of other attractions, most notably the redemption game. Many old video game arcades have long since closed and classic coin-operated games have become largely the province of dedicated hobbyists.

Today’s arcades have found a niche in games that use special controllers largely inaccessible to home users. An alternative interpretation(one which includes fighting games, which continue to thrive and require no special controller) is that the arcade game is now a more socially-oriented hangout, with games that focus on an individual’s performance, rather than the game’s content, as the primary form of novelty. Examples of today’s popular genres are rhythm games such as Dance Dance Revolution (1998) and DrumMania (1999), and rail shooters such as House of the Dead (1998) and Time Crisis. However, with the increase of Internet cafes opening (which also provide gaming services), the need for video arcades and such arcade games are reduced, and many have been shut down or merged with the cafes as a result.

Technology

Virtually all modern arcade games (other than the very traditional midway-type games at county fairs) make extensive use of solid state electronics and integrated circuits. Coin-operated arcade video games generally use multiple CPUs, additional sound and graphics chips and/or boards, and the latest in computer graphics display technology. The newest arcade video games tend to also have interactivity as part of the game design, making the game player feel like they are more kinesthetically connected to the game itself. One form of interactive technology, virtual reality, has failed to truly become popular in arcade games, but this is due to technical limitations preventing games from being able to achieve convincing virtual reality in the first place.

Emulation

Many older arcade games are enjoying a revival among fans, thanks to emulators such as MAME, which can be run on modern computers and a number of other devices.

Locations

In addition to restaurants and video arcades, arcade games are also found in bowling alleys, college campuses, dormitories, laundromats, movie theatres, supermarkets, shopping malls, airports, bar/pubs and even bakeries. In short, arcade games are popular in places open to the public where people are likely to be waiting on something.

More recently, Arcade games have found a new home in sites that contain browser-based games. Many independent developers are now producing Arcade games that are designed specifically for use on the Internet. These games are usually designed with Flash/Java/DHTML and run directly in web-browsers.

Game design

Arcade games often have very short levels, simple, easy to grasp controllers, iconic characters, and rapidly increasing difficulty. They are designed as quick bursts of adrenaline-fueled thrills, as opposed to most console games, which feature more in-depth gameplay, and stronger storylines. This is due to being coin-operated, where the player is essentially renting the game for as long as their game avatar can stay alive (or until they run out of tokens). Games on consoles or PCs can be referred to as an “arcade game” if it shares these qualities, or if it’s a direct port of an arcade title.

Arcade racing games are those which have a simplified physics engine and do not require much learning time, in opposition to racing simulators. Cars can turn sharply without losing speed or overdrifting, and the AI rivals are sometimes programmed so they are always near the player (rubberband effect).

This article contains a timeline of notable events in the history of arcade gaming:

1971

The Galaxy Game, the earliest known coin-operated arcade video game, makes its debut on the campus of Stanford University.

Computer Space, the first commercially sold arcade video game (and the first commercially sold video game of any kind), is released by Nutting Associates.

1972

Atari launches Pong, the first commercially successful video game.

1975

Midway releases Gun Fight, the first arcade video game to use a microprocessor - a game whose original incarnation was released in Japan by Taito and did not use a microprocessor.

1976

Atari releases Night Driver, the earliest example of a first-person perspective racing game.

1978

Taito releases Space Invaders, the game that started the Golden Age of Arcade Games.

1979

Namco releases Galaxian, the first true colour arcade game.

1980

Namco releases Pac-Man, which is their biggest-selling game of all time. They also release King and Balloon, which is the first game to feature synthesized voices.
DECO releases DECO Cassette System, the first standardized arcade platform, for which many games were made.

1981

Nintendo releases Donkey Kong, which was the first platform game. It was also the game that introduced Mario to the video game world.

1982

Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom is released by Sega with the first use of scaling sprite 3D effects.

Moon Patrol was created by Irem and released in the U.S. by Williams, the first game to use parallax scrolling.

Namco releases Pole Position, one of the most popular racing games of all time.

1983

I, Robot, the first commercially produced 3D-polygonal game is released.

Bally Midway releases Journey, the first game with digitized sprites.

1984

16-bit processors are used in arcade machines for the first time, resulting in much more detailed and faster graphics:
Marble Madness and Paperboy are released by Atari Games.

1985

Gauntlet is released by Atari Games

Nemesis (Gradius in some countries) is released by Konami

Space Harrier is released by Sega

1986

Sega releases Out Run.

1987

Namco releases Yokai Douchuuki. It was the first game to use 16-bit graphics.

1988

NARC, by Williams is released and is the frist game to feature blood and gore.

Reikai Doushi, by Home Data is released, the first digitized fighting game and the first claymation fighting game.#

Namco releases Ordyne, which was allegedly the first game to make use of sprite scaling and massive sprite rotation. They also release Splatterhouse, which was the first game to get a parental advisory disclaimer.

1989

Namco releases Blast Off, which is the game that features one of the most popular and well-known Engrish phrases ever created: “To push start only 1 player button”.

Exterminator, the first game with fully digitized graphics, is released. It will have the highest quality digitized graphics until the release of Mortal Kombat II.

1991

Capcom releases Street Fighter II, revolutionizing competitive play in the arcade setting.

1992

Mortal Kombat is released, it featured blood and fatality

1993

Mortal Kombat II is released, featuring high quality digitized graphics, and the most advanced sound system in arcades at the time, the DCS sound system which allowed for MP3 style compression to all sounds.

1994

Killer Instinct is released, the first arcade game with a hard disk, up to that point the game with the highest quality graphics pre-rendered by a rendering program, featuring to this day the highest quality use of the movie background technique.

1998

Konami releases Dance Dance Revolution, an arcade game with four arrow pads that the players used to “dance.” This game would create many sequels and spin-offs.

1999

Rush 2049 is released, the last arcade game to bear the Atari Games logo. Atari Games in Milpitas is renamed Midway Games West, and closes it’s coin-op product development division.

The high score first achieved cultural significance with the rise in popularity of pinball machines. Players who achieve a high score are often greeted with a congratulatory message and are able to enter their initials or name into the machine. Their score and name will remain there until someone “knocks” them off the high score list by achieving a higher score. This functioning has caused high scores of popular games to carry a certain amount of “bragging rights” as it is proof of excellence in a game.

The high score has a close association to the “free game.” When in an arcade, many games will offer a player a free chance at another game if they achieve a high score. This has declined in popularity in recent years, as players are often allowed to play for as long as they can without losing, but not given free games even if they achieve a high score.

The first video game to have a high score was Space Invaders (1978), but what made it take off was the personalized highscores introduced in Asteroids (1979). This meant that players now could compete with each other over who had the highest score.

The popularity of the high score has made it nearly ubiquitous among modern video games. In fact, the high score has become a defining feature of many games. Magazines such as Nintendo Power and Sega Visions would often publish high scores submitted by their readers. The high score became most popular when, starting in 1982, the Twin Galaxies Scoreboard began to appear in the pages of Video Games Magazine, Joystik Magazine, Computer Games Magazine, VideoGiochi Magazine (Milano, Italy), Video Games Player Magazine and Electronic Fun Magazine. Later, under Twin Galaxies direction in the 1990s, all performances would have to be videotaped to verify the achievement. The high score also exists in online games in various forms.

Many games include default “high scores” that do not actually represent real players, but are displayed whenever the machine’s memory is reset, often with generic initials such as “AAA.” These scores often represent certain levels of achievement for a player to aspire to. As a player still needs to knock these off in order to get his own score and initials listed, the default high scores ensure that there is always something for players to compete with (and keep them putting in coins). Many computer games also have default high scores built in, sometimes attributed to fictitious entities (e.g. Commander Keen) or to members of the game’s development team.

Some players as a joke will relinquish their bragging rights to enter a fake name or initials with their high score, particularly on arcade games in public places. This can be seen as juvenile humor; even on games that only allow initials, it is not uncommon to see “ASS”, “SEX”, “PUD”, or other profane or provocative three letter combinations. More recent arcade games often contain safeguards for such treatment, where entering specific three-letter combinations (such as those previously mentioned) will be automatically changed to a different, default name.

Internet influence

While on old games the high score would only be visible on one particular machine, the spread of the Internet has made it possible to compete with the rest of the world. A lot of modern games have the ability to post your high score to a central webpage. Online multiplayer games, especially first person shooters, real time strategies, and RPGs often have ranking systems. These new high score lists and ranking systems often are more complex than conventional high score lists. Some are based on tournaments, while others track game servers continuously, keeping statistics for all players.

High score in culture

The high score’s prominence in video game culture, and even mainstream society has led to various pieces of art and entertainment. There is a cartoon titled High Score. There is also a book entitled High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games.

In an episode of the TV series Seinfeld, George is astonished to find that the Frogger machine he played as a teen still retains his high score. With the owners wanting to get rid of it, George decides to keep the machine for posterity, the catch being that he has to move the game without unplugging it, because if he unplugs the game the high score will be erased. Unfortunately the machine is destroyed when George unsuccessfully tries to move it across the street in a spoof of the gameplay.

On August 1, 1982, the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard issued a colorful poster that listed the world record high scores for more than two dozen arcade video games. The poster was distributed among arcades in the U.S., Canada and abroad. This was the first poster (#1) in a series of colorful posters that continues today, with poster #80 issued in June, 2006.

On September 24, 2005, The Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard issued a colorful poster that offered a $1,000 cash prize to the first video game player who could break George Costanza’s fictional Frogger high score of 863,050 points that was portrayed in Seinfeld Episode #174, “The Frogger,” and aired on April 23, 1998. Though no player could break this mark before the December 31, 2005 deadline, Donald Hayes of Salem, NH, reached 589,350 points on March 25, 2005, history’s highest Frogger score to date.

The Impact of the High Score on the Media

According to the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard, “high-score” attempts enjoyed as much press coverage as any other video-game-related topic reported in the media during the 1982-1985 period. Though the media was often focused on the amazing growth of the video game industry, it was equally as fascinated with the human side of gaming, as typified by the “player vs machine” showdows that led to new world record high scores set on nearly a daily basis. In fact, Twin Galaxies reports that during that early era it was not unusual for there to be multiple new world records reported in the media on a single day. To illustrate the media’s love for the high-score phenomenon, here is a brief sampling of news stories reproduced from the following historical news titles:

Record try aborted in video game - Arizona Republic, March 9, 1982

1-token spree sets record at video game - Charlotte News, Charlotte, NC, September 9, 1982

Man could crunch U.S. Pac-Man record - Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, July 17, 1982

Video game enthusiast gets highest score ever - Kansas City Times, August 18, 1982

Video champ blasts his way into record book - San Francisco Examiner, Spetember 6, 1982

Resident saves earth, claims world record - Chapel Hill News, Chapel Hill, NC, November 10, 1982

Texas gamer works toward high score - Abilene Reporter-News, Abilene, TX, November 12, 1982

Central student one to beat playing Defender - Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Cheyenne, WY, December 18, 1982

Video game champ gets recognition - St. Petersburg Times, St. Petersburg, FL, December 31, 1982

Contests offer players tokens, recognition - Dallas Morning News, January 15, 1983

Video Game champion vows he’ll never play again - Syracuse Herald-Journal, January 17, 1983

Videogame records - USA Today, April 22, 1983

Pac-Man Record? - Washington Post, Washington D.C., May 26, 1983

Teenager going for video game record - Dublin Courier-Herald, Dublin, GA, June 22, 1983

Records, like promises, are not always meant to be broken - USA Today, July 7, 1983

Competitors’ lives filled with joysticks - Wilmington Morning Star, Wilmington, NC, June 30, 1984

Score Attack

Some games featured a ‘Score Attack’ mode, in which charges the player in gathering the highest score possible. Games with a mode like this include, for example, Rez and Gradius IV Fukkatsu. Some games do not include this mode but keeps a record of the score, in which the players can choose whether they Score Attack the game, or continue normally.