Pong is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released on November 29, 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.
A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with video games, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport, whilst others emphasize strategy and sport management. Some, such as Need for Speed, Arch Rivals and Punch-Out!!, satirize the sport for comic effect. This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games and is competitive, just like real-world sports. A number of game series feature the names and characteristics of real teams and players, and are updated annually to reflect real-world changes. The sports genre is one of the oldest genres in gaming history.
Scramble is a horizontally scrolling shooter arcade video game released in 1981. It was developed by Konami and manufactured and distributed by Leijac in Japan and Stern in North America. It was the first side-scrolling shooter with forced scrolling and multiple distinct levels, and it established the foundation for a new genre.
1972 saw the release of the first commercially successful video arcade game, Pong, and the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey.
Tomohiro Nishikado is a Japanese video game developer and engineer. He is the creator of the arcade shoot 'em up game Space Invaders, released to the public in 1978 by the Taito of Japan, often credited as the first shoot 'em up and for beginning the golden age of arcade video games. Prior to Space Invaders, he also designed other earlier Taito arcade games, including the shooting electro-mechanical games Sky Fighter (1971) and Sky Fighter II, the sports video game TV Basketball in 1974, the vertical scrolling racing video game Speed Race in 1974, the multi-directional shooter Western Gun in 1975, and the first-person combat flight simulator Interceptor (1975).
Maze, also known as Maze War, is a 3D multiplayer first-person shooter maze game originally developed in 1973 and expanded in 1974. The first version was developed by high school students Steve Colley, Greg Thompson, and Howard Palmer for the Imlac PDS-1 minicomputer during a school work/study program at the NASA Ames Research Center. By the end of 1973 the game featured shooting elements and could be played on two computers connected together. After Thompson began school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he brought the game to the school's computer science laboratory in February 1974, where he and Dave Lebling expanded it into an eight-player game using the school's Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 minicomputer and PDS-1 terminals along with adding scoring, top-down map views, and a level editor. Other programmers at MIT improved this version of the game, which was also playable between people at different universities over the nascent ARPANET. Due to the popularity of the game, laboratory managers at MIT both played it while also trying to restrict its use due to the large amount of time students were spending on it. There are reports that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at one point banned the game from the ARPANET due to its popularity.
The following article is a broad timeline of arcade video games.
1980 saw the release of a number of games with influential concepts, including Pac-Man, Battlezone, Crazy Climber, Mystery House, Missile Command, Phoenix, Rally-X, Space Panic, Stratovox, Zork, Adventure, and Olympic Decathlon. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, while the best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch. The Atari VCS also grew in popularity with a port of Space Invaders and support from new third-party developer Activision.
1978 saw the release of new video games such as Space Invaders. The year is considered the beginning of the golden age of arcade video games. The year's highest-grossing video game was Taito's arcade game Space Invaders, while the best-selling home system was the Atari Video Computer System.
1976 had new titles such as Road Race, Night Driver, Heavyweight Champ, Sea Wolf and Breakout. The year's highest-grossing arcade games were Namco's F-1 in Japan and Midway's Sea Wolf in the United States.
1975 had new titles such as Western Gun, Dungeon and dnd. The year's best-selling arcade game was Taito's Speed Race, released as Wheels and Wheels II in North America.
1974 had new titles such as Speed Race, Dungeon, Gran Trak 10, Tank and TV Basketball. The year's best-selling arcade game was Tank by Kee Games.
Tank is an arcade game developed by Kee Games, a subsidiary of Atari, and released in November 1974. It was one of the few original titles not based on an existing Atari property developed by Kee Games, which was founded to sell clones of Atari games to distributors as a fake competitor prior to the merger of the two companies. In the game, two players drive tanks through a maze viewed from above while attempting to shoot each other and avoid mines, represented by X marks, in a central minefield. Each player controls their tank with a pair of joysticks, moving them forwards and back to drive, reverse, and steer, and firing shells with a button to attempt to destroy the other tank. The destruction of a tank from a mine or shell earns the opposing player a point, and tanks reappear after being destroyed. The winner is the player with more points when time runs out, with each game typically one or two minutes long.
Centuri, formerly known as Allied Leisure, was an American arcade game manufacturer. They were based in Hialeah, Florida, and were one of the top six suppliers of coin-operated arcade video game machinery in the United States during the early 1980s. Centuri in its modern inception was formed when former Taito of America president Ed Miller and his partner Bill Olliges took over Allied Leisure, Inc. They renamed it "Centuri" in 1980.
Gotcha is an arcade video game developed by Atari and released in October 1973. It was the fourth game by the company, after the 1972 Pong, which marked the beginning of the commercial video game industry, and the 1973 Space Race and Pong Doubles. In the game, two players move through a maze, which continually changes over time. One player, the Pursuer, attempts to catch the other, the Pursued; if they do, a point is scored, and the players reset positions. The game emits an electronic beeping sound, which increases in pace as the Pursuer gets closer to the Pursued, and each game lasts a set amount of time.
Space Race is an arcade game developed by Atari, Inc. and released on July 16, 1973. It was the second game by the company, after Pong (1972), which marked the beginning of the commercial video game industry. In the game, two players each control a rocket ship, with the goal of being the first to move their ship from the bottom of the screen to the top. Along the way are asteroids, which the players must avoid. Space Race was the first racing arcade video game and the first game with a goal of crossing the screen while avoiding obstacles.
In video games, first-person is any graphical perspective rendered from the viewpoint of the player character, or from the inside of a device or vehicle controlled by the player character. It is one of two perspectives used in the vast majority of video games, with the other being third-person, the graphical perspective from outside of any character ; some games such as interactive fiction do not belong to either format.
Rebound is a two-player sports arcade video game developed by Atari and released in February 1974. In the game, two players each control paddles on either side of a volleyball net, with a ball dropped from the top of the screen. The players bounce the ball back and forth across the net with the goal of scoring points by having the ball reach the bottom or side of the other player's half of the screen, with the trajectory of the ball dependent on where it strikes the paddle. The winner is the first player to reach eleven or fifteen points, depending on the game settings.
Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry.
