Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "Power Pellets" causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.
Missile Command is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and licensed to Sega for Japanese and European releases. It was designed by Dave Theurer, who also designed Atari's vector graphics game Tempest from the same year. The game was released during the Cold War, and the player uses a trackball to defend six cities from intercontinental ballistic missiles by launching anti-ballistic missiles from three bases.
Q*bert is an arcade video game developed and published for the North American market by Gottlieb in 1982. It is a 2D action game with puzzle elements that uses isometric graphics to create a pseudo-3D effect. The objective of each level in the game is to change every cube in a pyramid to a target color by making Q*bert, the on-screen character, hop on top of the cube while avoiding obstacles and enemies. Players use a joystick to control the character.
Defender is a horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed by Williams Electronics in 1980 and released for arcades in 1981. The game is set on either an unnamed planet or city where the player must defeat waves of invading aliens while protecting astronauts. Development was led by Eugene Jarvis, a pinball programmer at Williams; Defender was Jarvis's first video game project and drew inspiration from Space Invaders and Asteroids. Defender was demonstrated in late 1980, before entering production in early 1981. It was distributed in Japan by Taito.
Track & Field, also known as Hyper Olympic in Japan and Europe, is a 1983 Olympic-themed sports video game developed by Konami for arcades. The Japanese release sported an official license for the 1984 Summer Olympics. In Europe, the game was initially released under the Japanese title Hyper Olympic in 1983, before re-releasing under the US title Track & Field in early 1984.
Brandon DiCamillo is an American former television personality, actor, stunt performer and filmmaker. He was a founding member of the CKY crew and rose to fame through appearances in the CKY video series and MTV's Jackass, Viva La Bam, and Bam's Unholy Union series.
Twin Galaxies is a social media platform and video game database. It founded the U.S. National Video Game Team. Twin Galaxies is the official supplier of video game records to Guinness World Records.
Lock 'n' Chase (ロック・ン・チェイス) is a maze chase video game developed by Data East and released in arcades in Japan in 1981. It was licensed to Taito for distribution in North America. Lock 'n' Chase has similarities to Pac-Man, including a goal of collecting dots, with the addition of doors that periodically block pathways. Home versions for the Intellivision and Atari 2600 were published by Mattel in 1982 and an Apple II version in January 1983.
Walter Aldro Day is an American businessman and the founder of Twin Galaxies, an organization that tracks world records for video games and conducts a program of electronic-gaming promotions.
Pleiades (プレアデス) is a fixed shooter arcade game released in 1981 by Tehkan and licensed to Centuri. The name is shown on the title screen as Pleiads. The title comes from the mythical Greek Pleiades, the seven daughters of the titan Atlas.
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a 2007 American documentary film about competitive arcade gaming directed by Seth Gordon. It follows Steve Wiebe in his attempts to take the high score record for the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong from Billy Mitchell. The film premiered at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival and was released in U.S. theaters in August 2007. It received positive reviews.
Funspot is an arcade which features one of the largest collections of early-1970s to late-2000s games in the world. It is located in the village of Weirs Beach in Laconia, New Hampshire, United States. Founded in 1952 by Bob Lawton, Funspot includes over 600 video games, pinball machines, and ticket redemption machines; an indoor miniature golf course; 20-lane ten-pin and candlepin bowling; cash bingo; a restaurant; a tavern; an ice cream stand; kiddie rides; and several other attractions on its grounds.
Doris Self was a video game competitor who gained recognition in the 1980s as "the world's oldest video game champion". In the 2007 Guinness World Records, Self was recognized as the world's oldest video game competitor. The documentary film The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters detailed Self's quest to recover her standing as the "oldest champion" from John Lawton, the 72-year-old co-founder of the Funspot Family Fun Center in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, who had captured the world title on Depthcharge.
Todd Rogers is an American video game player who has been described as the first professional video game player. In 1986, he was invited to be part of the U.S. National Video Game Team. He had personally claimed without any evidence to be recognized by Activision for having achieved many record-setting high scores, but many of his records were later disputed for a lack of verifying evidence or found to be impossible to achieve. In January 2018, the Twin Galaxies record database removed all of his scores from their leaderboards and banned him permanently, and Guinness World Records stripped his records.
Ground Kontrol is a video game/pinball and bar in Portland, Oregon, in the United States. It is known for preserving games from the Golden Age of Video Arcade Games. It also serves as a venue for DJs and live music.
William James Mitchell Jr. is an American video game player. He achieved fame throughout the 1980s and 1990s through claiming numerous records on classic video games, including a perfect score on Pac-Man. Twin Galaxies and Guinness World Records recognized Mitchell as the holder of several records on classic games, and he has appeared in several documentaries on competitive gaming and retrogaming. However, in 2017, the legitimacy of a number of his records was called into question, leading to Twin Galaxies stripping Mitchell of his records.
Dragster, released in 1980 for the Atari Video Computer System, is one of the first video games developed by Activision.
The Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show is an annual pinball and arcade game festival held in Tacoma, Washington, United States.
Players have competed for the highest score for the video game Donkey Kong since its release in 1981. The competition became more prominent after it was covered in the 2007 documentary The King of Kong.
