Tag: Age

In the beginning, there was Stanford University, and they said “Let there be coin based machines” and this was good. The game known as Spacewar, a game where two little paper-airplane like ships controlled by each player would go head-to-head while also avoiding the black hole in the center that would be just as happy to win as much as the other players. Sounds a bit more interesting on paper, huh? In any case, what is known as the very first arcade video game that required coins to play deserves an honorable mention at the least for getting the digital trend going.

That was just the beginning! Known as the Golden Age of gaming in the late 70s and 80s, it gave birth to many companies that some may know today like Atari, Namco, and Taito. With the birth of these companies came revolutionary games such as Atari’s Pong in 1972, a virtual ping pong table game, and on release it was a renowned success. Taito released Space Invaders in 1978, which I myself consider in many ways to be the successor to Spacewar. Namco released their own take on the space shooter genre in the form of Galaxian in 79, Galaga in 81, and Bosconian the same year with all three games being an incredible success. Namco didn’t stop there though, they also have another trump card in the form of a character named Puck-oh wait that’s Japan. Pac-Man, the undying mascot of Namco that has lasted the ages with games as late as 2016 of the yellow video game idol. Imagine hungry hungry hippos but with more ghosts and takes skill to win. There were many other games like my personal favorite, dig dug that may not have been as popular at first, but were unique in its own way that it eventually caught on as another Namco classic.

Like the Boom and Bust leading into the great depression, such things happened as well for the arcade game industry. What was once an $8 billion industry was now a little more than $2.1 billion.
The reason? Home consoles became more accessible to home owners, along with video games. During this time as well the video game industry itself was in a slum, a depression. Like any depression it takes a lot to get out of one as we have seen previously in American history with our own Economic depression. So, how did we pull out of it? Three words: Super Mario Bros, by the giant known as Nintendo. This game was known for possibly saving the gaming industry during the times of crisis, as well as bringing back life to the arcades.

Why Super Mario? Why not any other game during it’s time? Looking back at a lot of arcade games, ever its predecessor, Mario Bros released in 83, my best guess is because instead of the game being about the high score like many of the space shooters of earlier years, it was about the journey there. Instead of one screen with waves of enemies, or the focus being on how many enemies you can kill and rack up the score, it’s instead about how many worlds you can get through, the hidden secrets across the Mushroom Kingdom’s many pipes and coin blocks, and what prize awaited you at the very end of the game in the final castle.

This is unfortunately where I end today’s blog. I want to mention however that many more great games such as Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken among other fighting genre games were released in the 90’s. This blog post at the least was meant to be an introduction to the early days. I would like my audience whether you’re a first time player and reader or a veteran who probably could’ve wrote this better than myself, to not be left out on the greatest of games that came out, but I just won’t be covering them in this post specifically. This post (I may or may not mention them) will not necessarily focus on console exclusive games until later, if at all.

I hope you all enjoyed, stay tuned for next week when I talk about where arcades are now, why and how some of them have risen once again in popularity, and more! Hopefully some of you will go and try some of these games for yourself for the first time, many of them can even be played in your web browser.