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.

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.

Appearance of New Arcade Game Controls

Arcades catering for video games began to gain momentum in the end of 70-ies with such video games as 1978’s Gee Bee and Galaxian of 1979. And it became widespread in 1980 with the release of such video arcade games as King and Balloon, Tank Battalion, Pac-Man, and others.

The central processing unit in games of those times allowed for more complexity in comparison with the earlier discrete circuitry games, such as Pong that was created by Atari in 1972.

At that time several games were released that came with some new controls. For example, Football from Atari, released in 1978, came with the trackball, Hogan's Alley used tethered light guns, Paperboy included a bicycle handlebar, and racing wheel was included in Night Driver.

Other specialty controls, such as crossbow-shaped light gun in Crossbow and pedals in racing games, also were introduced to the arcade market during this period of time.

But, despite of the appearance of new arcade game controls, most manufacturers continued to prefer the buttons and joysticks.

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.

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.

Advantages of Modern Arcade Games

While at the beginning there were only simple platform arcade games, in our times players can use all sorts of complicated maneuvers in arcade rooms and on the Internet. Nowadays, arcade game players can use combinations of button-presses to satisfy their needs in game play, or they can use a joystick or a toy gun to perform advanced tricks – the control is totally different from what it was before.

Probably, the biggest advantage of modernity for the arcade game players is the presence of the Internet. Thanks to it, the way in which gamers can play arcade games has been definitely changed. Some types of arcade games, such as MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games), have fueled many interactions between all sorts of gamers.

The arcade games have changed dramatically over the years. They continue to bring thrills and excitement to the arcade game industry so that anyone can play arcade games without regard to his location.

First Coin-Operated Arcade Video Games

The first two coin-operated arcade video games were released in 1971. These earliest arcade video games are Galaxy Game and Computer Space. The first one, Galaxy Game, was placed at Stanford University and became popular at Stanford. It was as popular as ever. While the second one, Computer Space, is the first arcade game that was commercially available.

The first arcade games had only a couple of simple controls. Since then, the arcade game industry has come a long way and arcade games have been changed a lot.

Arcade games offer a lot of fun. Whether you want to play puzzle or maze games or you want to control little characters, pretty much anything is possible these days in the arcade game industry.

Everyone, probably, remembers such representatives of traditional arcade games as Space Invaders, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong. All of them were available for commercial use, and they were popular all over the world.

Online Arcade Games

At the beginning of arcade games history, they could be played simply by pressing a few buttons on a controller. Nowadays, thanks to the modern technological level, there are a lot of ways in which the arcade games can be played.

In our times, gamers can play their favorite arcade games on the game box console, on the computer, or in the arcade room. And one of the most popular types of arcade games is the online arcade games. Their advantage is that they can be played with friends.

As a matter of fact, almost every type of arcade games is available for playing on the Internet. Whether you like action arcade games, first-person shooter games, war games, or team shooter arcade games, you can always enjoy them with your friends from all over the world. And the list of the game types that can be found on the internet is much bigger. Moreover, you can find a lot of websites that one can go to in order to feed their arcade craving.

Beginning of the Video Arcade Games

As the virtual entertainment is brought to new levels by the technological advances and constant developments in the world of gaming, let’s take a look back at the legacy of the craft.

The 1920s are the years when the first arcade games appeared. They were seen in the amusement parks, such as Coney Island in New York. The earliest forms of the pastime were shooting galleries and ball-toss games. Some time later they progressed to include coin-op machines, which played a mechanical music, or gave a fortune reading.

The first pinball machine was created in the 1930s. It worked on a set of springs and magnets. They were replaced by the electric pinball machines in the early 1970s.

First incarnation of the electronic coin-op game was invented in 1971 by students of American university. Not long time after, the Atari was established. Thanks to it, the video arcade games were brought to cinemas, bars, and shopping centers all over the US and UK. The popular arcade games of those times that became legends are Donkey Kong, Pacman, and Space Invaders.

Arcade Games are the Best Choice for Thrill Seeking Gamer

There are a lot of cool online video games which men and women from across the globe enjoy playing. And arcade online games are one of the best among them.

Arcade games are really great. Your entire mental abilities are put to work and many of your sensory faculties too when you are making a strategy in order to pass a level. Also there are arcade games that are simply action and aren’t requiring you to think a lot. In this case you just need to shoot all enemies to complete the stage.

Arcade games are very entertaining and incredibly enjoyable. If the online game is of a really good quality, it can make you even feel just like you are in an arcade room with plenty of sounds around you and also countless games from where to pick.

Arcade video games have something wonderful. They simply can't be weighed against other types of online games, because arcade online games have got pieces and bits of action flash games, puzzle, strategy and others.

If you are a thrill seeking gamer, then the arcade games are exactly for you. Follow this link to enjoy these games.