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GLORY

DAYS

g e o f the Arcades
Forg o t t e n A
The

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V ideo games today make up the largest entertain-
ment industry, bringing in over $16.8 billion last
year. Video games have become a dominate force
in the entertainment industry today, but one part of
their history has become almost obsolete, the arcade.
Many years ago, in the 1970’s, if you wanted
to play the biggest, brightest, and hottest new video
game releases you didn’t rush to the nearest Wal-
Mart or Gamestop and purchase them. Rather you
went to your local arcade, a local hangout spot filled
with beeps, flashing lights, coin machines, and pizza.
At one point in time video game arcade cabinets
ruled the industry and were the leaders of innovative
gameplay and new technology.
The video game company Atari, founded in
1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, almost sin-
gle handedly launched an entertainment revolution
with their digital ping pong game, “Pong”. It was
a smashing success, two years after its release Atari
had sold over 8,000 arcade cabinets at three times the
price of production, making “Pong” one of the first
commercially successful arcade games.
Video Game arcades continued to be popular,
but it wouldn’t be until the late 70’s and 80’s that the
arcade industry would really shine, launching what
would become the golden age of arcade games.
The golden age of arcade games saw the
release of numerous video game classics that are

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still heavily played and
refrerenced today. One
such game would be Space
Invaders.
“Space Invaders”,
released in 1978, would
see the rise of the shooting
genre, and spawn several
other popular games in the
same vein such as “Aster-
oids” and “Galaga”. Player
took control of a lone laser
tank against an approach-
ing horde of alien invaders,
forcing players to bob and
weave out of cover to fight
the aliens. The game was
incredibly successful in
both Japan in the U.S., with
over 300,000 cabinets being
sold in Japan and 60,000 in into “Space Invader”
America. “Space Invaders” cabinets.
was so insanely popular Space Invaders was so The iconic hun-
in Japan that it actually popular in Japan that gry yellow circle, “Pac-
caused a shortage of 100 it actually caused a Man”, whose main
yen coins, as players were shortage of 100 yen goal in life was to eat
constantly dumping them little dots and flee from
coins
ghosts quickly became
a runaway success in
North America. Video
game company Namco,
which is around to this
day, sold over 350,000
of the original cabi-
nets and generated an
estimated $1 billion in
quarters in 15 months.
One reason “Pac-Man”
was wildly successful
was that it was incred-
ibly different from the
space themed shooters
such as “Asteroids”
and “Space Invaders”
that were so popular
at the time. “Pac-Man”
himself appealed to
both genders, attracting more
female gamers to the hobby
than ever before.
Another incredibly
popular game that defined
this golden age was “Donkey
Kong”, developed by the now
famous Nintendo. Despite the
game being called “Donkey
Kong” players take control
of Mario, at the time known
only as Jumpman, and jump
over barrels and climb ladders
in order to reach the gorilla
Donkey Kong who has kid-
napped a lady in distress. The
game quickly became a smash
hit, going on sale in 1981 and
selling 60,000 cabinets by the
same time the following year,
cementing Nintendo’s place in
the video game industry.
Sadly with the introduction of
the Nintendo Entertainment
System and its success, home
video game consoles soon be-
came the next big things. Video
game consoles soon took the
lead in the technology depart-
ment, and arcade game simply
couldn’t keep up. Thought
arcades did see a resurgence of
popularity in the early 1990’s
thanks to competitive fighting
games such as “Street Fighter
2” and “Mortal Kombat”, it
would only last so long.
While ultimately ar-
cades would fade in popular-
ity, many of their iconic games
and characters live on in the
hearts of gamers and have seen
remakes. These classic games,
despite their age, continue to
addict gamers today, even if
its in the comfort of their home
rather than the local arcade.

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