Golden Age of Video Arcade Games (1980-x)

The 1980's were the most prosperous years for the Arcade industry.  Games such as Asteroids, Atari and, Namco's favorite Pac-Man, appeared during that time.  The arcade Industry in the United States went on a total boom, as most of the games were extremely popular (specifically games like Pac-Man.)  The industry, consequently, has made plenty money and "[its] financial success is what invented the thought of Video Games going better than Movie's Box Office Grosses."

During this time, the console industry was far from its success; the beginning of 1980's was evidently the ''Golden Age'' for the Arcade Industry.

It goes without saying that the incontestable beauty of the industry's popularity lies in love of the people, regardless of age and social levels, a lot of people played arcade games no matter who they were, young kids or adults.

Immense Popularity of Pac-Man

The period of the beginning of 1880-ies was the great time when a lot of wonderful video arcade games were released. Some of these arcade games gained the immense popularity. In result, they entered the popular culture.

One of the representatives of such video arcade games is the legendary Pac-Man, which was made by Namco in 1980. Its release caused such a sensation that it initiated what is now referred to as Pac-Mania.

This video arcade game spawned numerous clones, Pac-Man-branded foods, animated television series, and a hit pop song, Pac-Man Fever. There are anecdotes about the Pac-Man that there is a need to empty the game's coin bucket every hour by some game owner in order to prevent the game's coin mechanism from jamming of having too many coins in the receptacle.

The word Pac-Mania was later used as the title to the last coin-operated game of the series. Final part of this arcade game was released in 1987.

Most Successful Arcade Game Companies of 1970s – 1980s

During the period of 70s – 80s years of previous century video arcade games were living their best times. At those times the processor power and memory were creating strict limits for the arcade game developers. That is why developers had to provide creatively decision for technical and design aspects of arcade games.

Since the arcade games were young, a wide variety of genres had being explored at that time. During this period video arcade games had being spread rapidly across North America, Japan, and Europe.

In those times, video arcade games started to appear in restaurants, supermarkets, gas stations, liquor stores, and many other retail establishments looking for extra income.

During that time there were two most successful arcade game companies:

Namco – the Japanese company that was founded in 1955 as Nakamura Manufacturing. This company is the creator of such arcade games as Pole Position, DigDug, and the legendary Pac-Man;

Atari – the American company that was founded in 1972. It is the company that introduced video games into arcades.

During several years, these two arcade game companies wrestled for the first and second slots in American arcades.

Other famous companies of those times are: Nintendo, Sega, Bally Midway Manufacturing Company, Capcom, Konami, Williams, Cinematronics, Taito, and SNK.