Arcade Game History Part 1

1980's

The first remarkable success of video arcade games refers to 1980's and found its peak in the 1990's.  This began in 1980 with the release of the game Pac-Man.  This uncomplicated game quickly became extremely popular, resulting in the developers creating a sequel, Ms. Pac-Man.

Both Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man would become so huge that people of all ages and genders crowded the arcades playing the game.  These games, with some others like Space Invaders, Galaga, Defender, Missile Command, and Donkey Kong, kept the arcade scene alive in the early 1980's.

By the mid 1980's the popularity of video games in general began to drop.  This began to affect the arcade scene.  This however, soon changed in 1985 when Nintendo released their sequel to one of their mildly popular arcade games Mario Brothers.  The game was called Super Mario Brothers.  Super Mario Bros became a phenomenon and would arguably put video games on the map.  After the game made a killing on Nintendo's own console, a special arcade version named VS: Super Mario Brothers appeared in the arcades.

The arcade version had levels that were different, and more challenging than the console version.  From Super Mario Brothers onward, video game developers released innovative and fun video games in arcades that would create a lasting effect for over a decade in the United States.  Developers like Sega, Namco, Midway, Capcom, and Konami became household names because of their great games.

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.

Classic Video Arcade Games Are Still in Demand

Nowadays, we can notice a good many people who collect the classic video arcade games. Classic arcades were the games of their childhood – they were created in the late 1970s – 1980s. Of course, people will not collect these games if they don’t have warm, nostalgic feelings toward the games.  It is easy to understand how even now there is still a desire to play these old but wonderful games

During the 70's & 80's,  a lot of wonderful video arcade games started to be created, and arcades became very popular.  Because of the huge popularity of some of the games, Pac-Man, for example, even entered the popular culture. For decades there wasn’t anything else that could be matched to the early video games, or enjoyed in quite the same way.

Due to the fact that today, only few of these games have any commercial value, the cost of their acquisition can range from 200 to 750 dollars.  However, when we talk about arcade games that have been fully restored, there value can be significantly higher than this.

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.

World of Pac-Man

The world of Pac-Man is pretty simple, but its gameplay is very exciting. The “hero” of this video arcade game is yellow creature in the form of circle, which is called Pac-Man. The game area represents a maze. There are also other creatures which patrols the area.

The goal of the game is to eat dots which are placed all over the maze. Other creatures are the enemies which pursuit a gamer and which should be avoided.

No one can tell for sure what the game creatures represented. The “hero” represents a mouth or something like this. The enemies are sometimes referred to as ghosts, monsters or goblins.

This video arcade game gained a huge popularity. It is impossible to describe all the excitement of playing this wonderful arcade game. It isn’t surprising that it became a legend. Even now, more than thirty years after the release of Pac-Man, it is still popular and is still played by a lot of fans and ordinary gamers.

Video Games of Different Times

Here is a wonderful video that shows different games starting from such classic video arcade games as Space Invaders (1980) and Donkey Kong (1982), and ending with such famous games of our times as World of Warcraft (2005) and Final Fantasy XII (2006). The newest shown game is MotorStorm (2007), while the oldest one is Pong (1972).

First half of the video is especially nice. This is so nostalgically to see the favorite games from the childhood. Pac-Man (1981), Super Mario Bros. (1985), Tetris (1989) – these video games are true legends. A wish to play video arcade games of those times appears again and again. Even though more than 20 years have passed, these video arcade games are still popular.

You can watch the video about the history of video games below. You can also watch it and view a full list of shown video games here.