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Gottlieb was an American arcade game corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is best known for creating a vast line of pinball machines and arcade games throughout much of the 20th century.
Exidy, Inc. was a developer and manufacturer of coin-operated electro-mechanical and video games which operated from 1973 to 1999. They manufactured many notable titles including Death Race (1976), Circus (1978), Star Fire (1978), Venture (1981), Mouse Trap (1981), Crossbow (1983), and Chiller (1986). They were also the creators of the Exidy Sorcerer (1978) home computer platform.
WMS Industries, Inc. was an American electronic gaming and amusement manufacturer in Enterprise, Nevada. It was merged into Scientific Games in 2016. WMS's predecessor was the Williams Manufacturing Company, founded in 1943 by Harry E. Williams. However, the company that became WMS Industries was formally founded in 1974 as Williams Electronics, Inc.
Chicago Coin was one of the early major manufacturers of pinball tables founded in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in 1932 by Samuel H. Gensburg and Samuel Wolberg to operate in the coin-operated amusement industry. In 1977, Gary Stern and Sam Stern purchased the assets of the Chicago Coin Machine Division as it was then called to found Stern Electronics, Inc. They also produced various arcade games during the 1960s to 1970s.
Stern is the name of two different but related arcade gaming companies. Stern Electronics, Inc. manufactured arcade video games and pinball machines from 1977 until 1985, and was best known for Berzerk. Stern Pinball, Inc., founded in 1986 as Data East Pinball, is a manufacturer of pinball machines in North America.
David Hood is an American musician, hailing from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, He is known for playing the bass guitar and trombone, and is a member of the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.
Mirco Games Inc. was a manufacturer of coin-operated games based in Phoenix, Arizona founded in 1973. The company was a subsidiary of electronics manufacturer Mirco Inc, producing foosball tables and coin-operated video games through the 1970s. They notably created a few of the earliest games incorporating microprocessors, including The Spirit of ’76, the first commercially available pinball utilizing the technology. The company was eventually sold in 1980 to Amstar Electronics.
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.
Kee Games was an American arcade game manufacturer that released arcade and video games from 1973 to 1978.
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 America president Ed Miller and his partner Bill Olliges took over Allied Leisure, Inc. They renamed it "Centuri" in 1980.
Storm Elvin Thorgerson was an English art director and music video director. He is best known for closely working with the group Pink Floyd through most of their career, and also created album or other art for Led Zeppelin, Wishbone Ash, Phish, Black Sabbath, Def Leppard, Al Stewart, Scorpions, 10cc, UFO, Peter Gabriel, the Alan Parsons Project, Genesis, Yes, Kansas, Dream Theater, Muse, Audioslave, the Mars Volta, The Cranberries, Helloween, Ween, Shpongle and Catherine Wheel.
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.
Game Plan was a pinball manufacturer that produced pinball tables from 1978 to 1985. Game Plan was a subsidiary of AES Technology Systems and was located in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Game Plan's president was former Chicago Coin table designer Wendell McAdams.
Electro-mechanical games are types of arcade games that operate on a combination of some electronic circuitry and mechanical actions from the player to move items contained within the game's cabinet. Some of these were early light gun games using light-sensitive sensors on targets to register hits, while others were simulation games such as driving games, combat flight simulators and sports games. EM games were popular in amusement arcades from the late 1940s up until the 1970s, serving as alternatives to pinball machines, which had been stigmatized as games of chance during that period. EM games lost popularity in the 1970s, as arcade video games had emerged to replace them in addition to newer pinball machines designed as games of skill.
Zaccaria, was an Italian company of pinball and arcade machines that existed in Bologna from 1974 until 1990. The factory was sold to tecnoplay.
Taito of Brazil was a pinball and arcade manufacturer located in São Paulo, Brazil. The company originally started out as Clover Electronic Amusement in 1968, then became Taito of Brazil in 1972 by Abraham "Abba" Kogan, the son of the founder of the parent company Taito located in Japan. This subsidiary was originally an importer of existing U.S. and Japanese machine components to be assembled within the country. However, the taxation on imports had been growing steadily, and the government's belief that pinball is a game of chance and considered a gambling machine, led to strict import rules. By 1976, within rules created by the Electronic Processing Activities Coordinating Committee (CAPRE), it became illegal to import pinball machines. This created a problem, since the popularity of arcade games in Brazil had been growing exponentially for many years.
Ramtek Corporation was a California-based manufacturer of computer display terminals founded in 1971. Co-founders Charles E. McEwan and John W. Metzler had previously worked together at the computer graphics division of Data Disc, Inc., and founded Ramtek to create devices for displaying information from computer systems. Their major business was in medical monitors, as well as creating high-end graphical terminals for industrial and academic use. In 1973, they became one of the earliest manufacturers of video games, and manufactured coin-operated games until 1979. They became a publicly traded company starting in 1979. In 1981, it was reported Ramtek was the top company in the field of raster graphics display terminals.
An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games or merchandisers.
References
- ↑ "Flippers.be - Spanish pinball machines - Playmatic repair information". Archived from the original on 2014-09-08. Retrieved 2014-09-08.
- ↑ "The Internet Pinball Machine Database".
