Golden era of arcade games

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Space Invaders machine
Arcade machine built into a cocktail table

The golden era of arcade games was the height of arcade game popularity and innovation in the sector. Some opinions place the beginning of this period in 1979 or 1980, when the first arcade games in color spread, and the end of this period in the mid-1980s. Slightly more generous definitions date the start in 1978 (when Space Invaders appeared) and end in the mid-1990s when game consoles reached the power of arcade hardware.

Overview

During the early 1980s, arcade game technology had developed sufficiently to offer good quality graphics and sounds, albeit on a rather modest level from today's perspective (realistic images and full-motion videos were not yet available and only few games used text-to-speech ) and so the success of a game depended on its simple and fun gameplay. This emphasis on gameplay is why, despite the tremendous advances in modern computer technology, many of these games are still fun today. The Killer List of Videogames (KLOV) website has compiled a list of the "Top 100 (Arcade) Video Games". Fifty of them (including all games from the top 10 list) were introduced during the period 1979-1984.

Business

This golden era was the time of great technical and creative innovation in arcade games. The games were developed in a variety of genres while the developers had to work within strict limits of processor capacity and memory. There was also a rapid expansion of gambling halls through North America and Japan during this era .

It was around this time that arcade games began to appear in supermarkets , wine and liquor stores, gas stations, and other establishments looking for extra income. Popular games occasionally caused an onslaught of teenagers eagerly trying to get the last few vacancies around the machines.

Probably the most successful arcade game developers of the era were Namco (especially in Japan ) and Atari Games (especially in the United States ). Other notable ones included Nintendo (whose mascot Mario appeared in Donkey Kong in 1981 ), Midway (which later traded as Bally ), Capcom , Cinematronics , Konami , Sega , Taito , Williams and SNK .

technology

The arcade boom began in the late 1970s with games like Space Invaders (1978) and Asteroids (1979) and spread in 1980 with Pac-Man , Centipede , Defender, and others. The integrated circuits and processors in these games allowed for more complexity than was possible in earlier analog games such as Ataris Pong (1972).

In the golden era, developers experimented with new hardware to create games that now also used vector graphics . Some of these games became huge hits, such as Battlezone and Tempest in 1980 and Star Wars in 1983 . These were all Atari products. However, vector technology was not used by most arcade game companies due to the high cost of repairing the displays required ( Vectrex , a home video game system with a built-in vector screen, appeared in 1982). The fast but simple vector graphic was replaced a little later by the raster graphics that are still used today , since a much more realistic graphic can be displayed here than the graphic with simple lines.

The developers also experimented with laser disc players to deliver high quality cartoon animation in games. The first successful game that took advantage of this technology was in 1983 Dragon's Lair of Cinematronics that three years work was. It was a sensation when it came out (and indeed many laser disc players in the machines broke due to overuse), but the genre soon declined in popularity because the games were fairly linear and relied less on reflexes than on memorizing sequences of movements .

New controls appeared in some games, although controversial most of the manufacturers favored the joystick combined with additional function keys. Atari introduced the trackball for football in 1978 . Spy Hunter came with a lifelike steering wheel , and Qwak! led to the limited introduction of lightguns to the arcade market. Other special controls were pedals in racing games and the crossbow- like light gun in Crossbow .

Gameplay

With the tremendous success of the early games, dozens of developers began developing and making their own arcade games. Some simply copied the idea of ​​"invading alien hordes" from Space Invaders and launched successful imitations such as Galaxian , Galaga and Gyruss , while others tried new concepts and defined new genres. The rapidly evolving hardware allowed new types of games that surpassed the shoot-'em-up gameplay of the earliest games.

Games like Donkey Kong and Qix introduced a new type of less violent game in which skill and timing were more important than the fastest possible shooting. Other examples of innovative games are Ataris Paperboy , in which the goal is to successfully deliver newspapers to the customer, and Segas Frogger , in which the aim is to guide a frog safely through traffic. The theme of Exidys Venture is exploring and collecting treasure in a labyrinth . Another innovative game, Q * bert , plays with the user's deep sense of perception to deliver a new experience.

Some games of this age were so popular that they also entered pop culture . The appearance of Pac-Man in 1980 caused a sensation, later known as "Pac- Mania " (Engl. "Pac-Mania") has been known. The game, published by Namco , featured a yellow, circular creature trying to eat points in a maze while constantly avoiding the four enemies. Although no one could really say what the yellow “hero” or the enemies were supposed to represent (sometimes ghosts, other times goblins or just monsters) the game was extremely popular; there are anecdotes that say that some performers had to empty the game's coin bucket every hour because there were already too many coins in it. The game appeared in television series, followed by numerous clones and cartoons. Food came out under the Pac-Man brand and there was a hit pop song called Pac-Man Fever. Although many popular games quickly entered the pop culture dictionary, many are forgotten; but "Pac-Man" is still a term for pop culture today.

The enormous popularity of arcade games also led to the very first "Video Game Strategy Guides". These guides (rarely found today) discussed in exact detail the successful game patterns and strategies for each game, including their variations, as precisely as few game guides have achieved since then. "Turn the machine over" i.e. H. Driving the scoring system so high that it starts from scratch was often the last challenge of a game to those who mastered it, and the last obstacle on the way to highscore .

Most popular games

The following titles are the most popular and influential video games of the golden era of arcade games:

The end of the era

The golden era subsided when the gambling halls became saturated with copies of popular games. While the slot machine halls remained popular in the early 1990s and new genres continued to be explored, most of the new games were shoot 'em up , maze games, and other variations on long-established concepts.

The new generations of home computers and game consoles also reduced interest in the arcades. Early consoles like the Atari 2600 and Mattel's Intellivision were designed to support a wide range of different games at the lowest cost price - which meant that they often couldn't keep up with the hardware of an arcade machine, which was much more expensive and single only game was designed. The glut of inferior video game systems for home use led to the collapse of this market in the USA in 1984 (see also Video Game Crash ), but the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System compensated for the situation by offering a qualitatively almost comparable alternative to slot machines for the first time bot. From this time on, console manufacturers began to subsidize the actual consoles and to recoup the money through surcharges in the price of the games, so that the consoles could contain significantly higher quality hardware compared to their retail price; At the same time, consumers' “pain threshold” in the price of buying a console rose significantly, as many buyers already had experience with game consoles, which reduced the risk of a bad investment. In the first half of the 1990s, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Mega Drive followed , which further improved the gaming experience at home - technologies from these devices were even adopted in arcade machines. By the time the Sony PlayStation (1994) and Nintendo 64 (1996) came out, both of which supported true 3D graphics, many video arcades in the US had already closed.

The arcade game industry continues, albeit in a much smaller form. The hardware of the machines today is often based on that of a home game console in order to make it easier to port an arcade game to the console. There are arcade versions of the Sega Dreamcast , the PlayStation 2 and Microsoft's Xbox . Some genres, especially dance and rhythm games designed for groups (such as Dance Dance Revolution from the Bemani series) are still popular as arcade versions, especially in Japan.

The relatively simple, yet entertaining games of the early years have found a renaissance with a new generation of fans who are now playing them on cell phones or with emulators like MAME . Some classics are re-appearing on the market, such as Namco's Ms. Pac-Man 20 Year Reunion / Galaga Class of 1981 two-games-in-one, or they are now integrated directly into controller hardware ( joysticks etc.) with exchangeable flash ROMs .

Protection of minors in the Federal Republic of Germany

In the Federal Republic of Germany, the new regulation of the law for the protection of young people in public (JÖSchG) of February 25, 1985 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 425 ) regulates that electronic screen entertainment devices without the possibility of profit are no longer accessible to children and young people public traffic areas could be set up. As a result, the ubiquitous vending machines disappeared overnight from snack bars, kiosks, ice cream parlors, department stores, supermarkets and fairs. In theory, adolescents aged 16 and over were allowed to continue to play at arcade machines if they were in non-public traffic areas, but in practice there were only very few arcades that made the effort, an area especially suitable for 16 and 17 year olds set up and monitor. The decoupling of arcade games from the most important consumers explains why, in Germany in particular, the early arcade games up to 1985 are much better known than later titles. For many games for ( 16-bit ) home computers or game consoles , buyers were no longer aware that their game was based on a successful arcade game. The strict installation ban for arcade machines was only relaxed again when the new Youth Protection Act of April 1, 2003 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 476 ) came into force .

The Heritage

The golden age of arcade games produced numerous icons of pop culture and even gave some companies their current identities . Elements from games such as Space Invaders , Pac Man , Donkey Kong , Frogger and Centipede are still known today and are part of everyday culture .

The phenomenal success of these early video games also contributed to the fact that there are now so many collectors of classic games that were teenagers at the time of the Golden Era. Since very few games still have commercial value, they can be purchased for a few hundred dollars or euros - restored machines often cost a lot more. Some fans have founded companies or clubs that laboriously repair old video slot machines; some have specialized in a single facet of restoration, e.g. B. the equipment of the housing. There are various websites and newsgroups on the topic where those interested can get instructions on how to restore slot machines.

See also

literature

  • Dave Ellis: The Official Price Guide to Classic Video Games (2004) engl. ISBN 0-375-72038-3 .
  • Steven L. Kent: The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokemon - The Story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World (2001) engl. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga - Class Of 1981. In: The International Arcade Museum . Retrieved January 2, 2019 .