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.

Arcade Games in 20th Century: Part 3 - Arcades vs. Simulators

The rise of video game technologies did not only improve video arcade games; the exaggerated use of realistic elements led to the appearance of a totally new game genre, simulator games (sim games.)


From the moment that simulators appeared, their popularity began to rise rapidly and the interest in arcades began to fall.  This resulted in decreasing sales in the video arcade game industry.  Simulators definitely had benefits in terms of video game technologies much more than arcades.  They became popular thanks to their atmosphere and realism.

Obviously, it was not the best of times for video arcade games, however, this game genre did not disappear.  Why so, you might ask, after all the main characteristics of arcades are:

• low reality imitation
• low planning of the levels
• low planning of the task issues

In terms of the first point of view, these characteristics leave no chances for the genre.  Arcades do however have one benefit that allows them to exist along with simulator games, the simple game play.  Simplicity is both the advantage and disadvantage of video arcade games.

Present Situation of Video Arcade Games: Part 2

On the other hand, there are also some arcades games that do not need to fight for survival. This is because some genres of video games are still very popular in arcades. Among these are dancing and rhythm types of games. Some famous video arcade games of this genre would include "Dance, Dance Revolution," and part of the "Bemani," series.

When the modern video arcade games cannot find a place under the sun, the early video games find new life.

Thanks to the simple, and purely exciting game play of many of the early video games, many of these games have found a lot of new fans amongst the modern generation. The modern generation however, play these arcade games on mobile phones, or with the help of special emulators such as MAME.

In addition, nowadays some of the classic video arcade games are reappearing in commercial settings. Such as the way the "Ms. Pac-Man 20 Year Reunion." was released, as well as "Galaga Class of 1981," (two-in-one game.) Other classic arcades are integrated directly into controller hardware (joysticks) with replaceable flash drives storing game ROMs.

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.