THE HISTORY OF ARCADE GAMES
Intro
I am overviewing the whole History of Arcade Games, I personally
believe that the Arcade was a pinnacle of entertainment when it
started in the 1950’s with the pinball machines and in the 1970’s
with pong and space invaders. As video games started to be released
at consumer priced on separate consoles the Arcade age started its
fall.
Bagatelle/Pinball
Pinball was an adaptation of Bagatelle and was created with a table
and balls in 1871, and then later was remade into pinball. The game
started off as a table top machine with no legs to be separately placed
on. The differences between bagatelle and pinball consist of adding
the classic inclined playing board, replacing large bagatelle balls with
marbles and a spring-loaded ball launcher. The Tilted table mechanic
was introduced in 1934 and then later the machines became
powered and the traditional well known Bumpers, Flippers and
scoreboards were then additionally implemented.
Nowadays pinball is in several different console and arcade video
games and in the classic arcade table, the game is now in several
different themes and types even with different game mechanics.
The Game consists of a spring-loaded ball, which is shot up through a
sub section of the table and then bounced around off several
bumpers that will increase the player’s overall score for the end of
the game. The Player controls two flippers, which are located at the
bottom of the table these are used to flick the ball upwards, hitting
the bumpers to increase their score.
The aim is to keep the ball up as long as you can. The Game was
released and is still is released with different themes and bumper
locations, several versions of the game are available online and on
disc versions for computers.
An example of a pinball
machine
A Batman Pinball machine
created in line for the
Release of the Dark Knight
film
Tennis for two
“Tennis for Two” (which was later rebranded pong by Atari) was the
first video Arcade game on record that was created by William
Higginbotham in an ex-World War II Nuclear Bomb laboratory, called
the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Higginbotham created Tennis
for Two for playing on an oscilloscope screen connected up to an
analogue computer. Tennis for Two was a hit in 1958 the year of
release as most people in schools and bars would be playing it, was it
to beat each other’s score or just for fun this game never had a break
from being played.
Tennis For two is a game composed of a ball and a court, the aim is to
stop the ball from bouncing two times like a normal game of tennis.
The game is played with two dials that control the pitch and power of
the next throw. The game was played and showcased on the same
computer it was developed on in 1958.
Image of the Tennis for Two
Development table, the location of
the game and its development space
The Tennis for two game
which is played on an
oscilloscope screen
Space war
In 1962 a Group of computer programmers lead by Steve Russell
created Spacewar, which was the first ever, well known video
computer game. The games’ development took over 200 hours “manhours” and was created on a Digital Equipment Corporation
interactive mini computer which only had keyboard input, the
machine was given to Steve giving the idea that he would create
something remarkable with it, thus the creation of space war.
Steve never profited from the game even though the computer it was
designed on was sold with the intention of playing the game. Steven
later went on in life to teach computer game programming to Atari
owner Nolan Bushnell. Who then went on to start the arcade games’
golden age.
Spacewar was a two-player game of which the goal was to destroy
the other players ship whilst avoiding the gravitational pull of the
sun (in the middle of the screen). The ships shot photon torpedoes
that would destroy the other players ship in one hit making the game
skill/luck based.
An image of Spacewar played at
a workstation
An image of Spacewar
being played.
Atari
In 1971 Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created Computer Space
based off Nolan’s tutor and idol Steve Russell’s Spacewar. A year later
Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created Pong, which shared a
familiar resemblance to William Higginbotham’s Tennis for two.
After creating pong the two developers went on to create their own
(currently well know) company called Atari. Atari went on to then rerelease pong as a home video game creating the first personal
computer game available for the general consumer. Just after the
creation of the company The Atari Company was then sold to Warner
Communications for $28 million in 1975 and then later was sold to
Jack Tramiel after generating losses of $533 million out of $415
million profit, generating a $118 million in losses.
In its later life Atari suffered from a lawsuit by Nintendo in 1992. It
then went on to end its life as a company in 1998 and all its assets
were then sold to Hasbro, ending its cycle.
The Golden Age
The golden age of the Arcade took place in the late 1970s through to
the 1980s, an age of flawless games and the start to a future of the
video game genres and graphics. The Golden Age started with the
world famous Space Invaders released by Nintendo in 1978 with
over 350,000 machines sold over its lifetime.
Space invaders then lead Namco to then release Pac-man in 1980
another globally known game. In 1981 SEGA releases Frogger a game
which influenced many different versions and re-skins of the same
game, in the same year Donkey Kong is released and 60,000 units are
sold to America for $180 million.
The Present Day
Arcade games in the present
day have dwindled they are
using modern age technology
but do not have as much
playability as the retro style
games such as space invaders, pong and Pinball, although some of
those machines are still around they are not used and in there stead
are games such as House of the dead and Dance Dance revolution,
repayable games but at a high cost and just used for a profit.
The Official Atari Logo