Social Movement - Arcade gaming

The era of arcade video games lasted from the late 1970s until the 1990s. Arcade games lost popularity when game consoles started releasing games with 3D graphics, but they still remain     popular nowadays, especially in Asia. Several conventions dedicated to these classic arcade games still take place today, such as California Extreme.

In 1971 students at Stanford University created a coin-operated version of the Spacewar video game, the Galaxy Game. This is known to be the earliest example of a coin-operated video game. The first mass-manufactured game was released that same year and it was called Computer Space, created by Nolan Bushnell for the arcade game manufacturer, Nutting Associates. Atari, which was formed in 1972, essentially created the coin-operated video game industry with its game Pong, but even if the game proved to be popular, imitators kept Atari from dominating the coin-operated video game market.

The golden age of arcade video games is the time when arcade video games were the most popular and a time of technical innovation. This era started in the late 1970s and lasting to the mid-1980s. It spawned numerous cultural icons that are still recognized in today’s culture, such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.

Figure 1 - Pac-Man arcade games

Figure 2 - Donkey Kong arcade game

Some of the most popular games of this era had a great influence on the industry and also on the development of games. For instance, Space Invaders was considered to be the game that "revolutionized the video game industry" (Shigeru Miyamoto). This game has influenced shooter games ever since its release. Lunar Lander was the first Atari game to use vector graphics, and Centipede was one of the first games to use trackball control. Pac-Man was one of the most influential games; it had the first gaming mascot, it established maze chase genre, introduced power-ups and also opened gaming to female audiences. 

Bibliography:

Wikipedia.org, (2015). Arcade game. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcade_game [Accessed 8 March 2015]

Wikipedia.org, (2015). Golden age of arcade video games. [online] Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_age_of_arcade_video_games [Accessed 8 March 2015]