Spacewar – First Shooting Game

The first shooting game was created by three students from MIT on a DEC PDP-1 mini-computer in 1961.  Those students included Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen.  The game was called "Spacewar."  This early game was not a video game, because it did not use a video display, the PDP-1 computer used a vector display system.

Spacewar consisted of two spaceships which shot at each other.  To bring some sense of reality to the game, the students made a special background which simulated a real constellation.  The students also wanted to add some complexity to Spacewar, so they added a new element to the game, the gravity star; which attracts the spaceship(s.)  This star is usually called sun.

Later, Stephen Russell admitted that the best thing about Spacewar was that the game has set an example for numerous arcade game developers of future, this early game inspired them in the creation of their own games.

The interesting thing is that the game of Martin Graetz, Stephen Russell, and Wayne Wiitanen was used as a test on new PDP-1 systems, because there was not any other program which allowed DEC technicians to do a complete check of all aspects of the system except Spacewar.

End of Golden Age of Video Arcade Games: Copies of Popular Games

During the late 1970's technology made it possible to create video games with much better quality graphics and sound in comparison to previous years. It was still  a very far cry from what future technologies would have to offer, with realistic images and full motion video. This is why arcade game developers had to compensate for the lack of quality, by making the game play even more fun or entertaining. Many consider the late 1970's the golden age of the video arcade games. A lot of wonderful video arcade games were created then.

Unfortunately, this wonderful time didn’t last to terribly long, arcade games continued to be popular till the beginning of 1990's, but then there time had passed.  So, what happened, there are several reasons for it, and one of them is that the arcade market started to be filled with the numerous copies of these popular arcade games. These copies killed the interest to video arcade games, the development of something new became a rarity. Even though there were still new genres being explored by arcade game developers, the overwhelming majority of created games were maze type games, shooting games, and other such variations of these well-known themes.

Original Video Arcade Games of the Beginning of 1980-ies

Below you can see the list of some original video arcade games of the beginning of 1980-ies, which became the new word in arcade game industry. These games were created by arcade game developers that didn’t want to create clones of existed games, but wanted to define new genres and work with new concepts. In result, the video arcade games with original and interesting gameplay were created.


Donkey Kong from Nintendo, 1981

Earlier games had a gameplay where you just had to shoot as fast as possible. In the case of this video arcade game, skill and timing are the point.



Qix from Taito, 1981

The same as Donkey Kong, it is a representative of new type of arcade games where skill and timing are on the first place.




Venture from Exidy, 1981

Gameplay of this game represented an exploration of dungeon and treasure-gathering, which is, again, more interesting than simple shooting.

Q*Bert from Gottlieb, 1982

This game played upon the gamers’ sense of depth perception to deliver a novel experience.



Phozon from Namco, 1983

The gameplay of this video arcade game represented the duplication of the shape that is shown on the screen.



Paperboy from Atari, 1984

The goal of this video arcade game is in the successful delivering of newspapers to the customers.

Trends in Development of Video Arcade Games at the End of 1970-1980-ies

The very first arcade games were very successful. That is why a lot of arcade game developers appeared at the end of 1970-ies. There were two trends in development of video arcade games:

• some developers created the ideas of their games by simply copying the ideas of successful ones;
• other developers worked under creation of something totally new.

The examples of the first trend are such video arcade games as Galaxian (1979) and Gaplus (1984). Both of them are imitators of Space Invaders (1978) – they have the same idea about the alien invasion. But, even without original idea, these games were successful.

The same way, another representative of successful video arcade games Galaga (1981) borrowed its theme from Galaxian and adds twists of its own.

The result of the second trend was the creation of new concepts and new arcade game genres.

Thanks to the rapid evolving of hardware, new kinds of arcade games were created. In result, these games surpassed the very first arcade games with their shoot-em-up gameplay.

Experiments of Arcade Game Developers

At the end of 70-ies – 80-ies arcade game developers were experimenting with new hardware. For example, they were creating video arcade games with non-video technology such as vector displays. Vector displays, unlike the raster displays, produced crisp lines.

Some of these arcade games gained a big popularity. Among them are created by Atari in 1980 Battlezone and Tempest and 1983’s Star Wars, also from Atari.

But vector technology fell out of favor with arcade game companies. This happened because the vector displays are very expensive in repairing.

In order to provide games with movie-quality animation, arcade game developers were also experimented with laserdisc players. The very first video arcade game that used this technology is Dragon's Lair. It was released in 1983. The whole process of creation of this game took three years.

The release of Dragon's Lair was true sensation. But, in result, the popularity of the genre was dwindled. The reasons for this were the following:

• these arcade games were fairly linear;
• they depended less on reflexes than on memorizing sequences of moves.

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.