1981 in video games

none March 2015 March 2016 1981 video games Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade video games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Pac-Man was the highest grossing video game for the second year in a row. Nintendo's Donkey Kong defined the platform game genre, while Konami's Scramble established scrolling shooters. The lesser known Jump Bug combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include Defender, Frogger, and the Galaxian sequel Galaga. On the Apple II, Ultima I and Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord each kicked off a long running role-playing game series. Atari's VCS port of Asteroids was a major hit with the console. The best selling home system around the globe was Nintendo's Game & Watch for the second year in a row. Financial performance The arcade video game market in the US generates $4.8 billion in revenue.Video Game Myth Busters - Did the "Crash" of 1983/84 Affect Arcades?, The Golden Age Arcade Historian (December 27, 2013) The home video game market in the US generates $1 billion in sales revenue,George Lucas and the Digital Revolution https://web.archive.org/web/20150129112138/http://www.droidmaker.com/Droidmaker.Ch18.pdf#page=12 January 29, 2015 , p. 296, 2006 with Atari remaining the market leader.Lindner Richard Video Games: Past, Present and Future; An Industry Overview 1990 Nintendo of America United States https://archive.org/details/06Kahle001551 The home video game market in Europe is worth $200 million.http://2600connection.com/library/magazines/spectrum/spectrum_dec82.pdf#page=7 Videogames: the electronic big bang 2600connection.com 20 usurped https://web.archive.org/web/20141107055201/http://2600connection.com/library/magazines/spectrum/spectrum_dec82.pdf November 7, 2014 Highest-grossing arcade games The year's highest-grossing video game was Pac-Man with 1.2 billion no in arcade game revenue, three times the box office revenue of the highest-grossing film Star Wars (1977) in five years.Culhane John Special Effects Are Revolutionizing Film https://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/04/movies/special-effects-are-revolutionizing-film.html 28 February 2021 The New York Times 4 July 1982 Japan In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1981, according to the annual Game Machine chart."Donkey Kong" No.1 Of '81 — Game Machine's Survey Of "The Year's Best Three AM Machines" — Game Machine 182 Amusement Press, Inc. 15 February 1982 30 https://onitama.tv/gamemachine/pdf/19820215p.pdf#page=16 Rank Title Manufacturer Genre 1 Donkey Kong Nintendo Platform 2 Janputer Sanritsu Mahjong 3 Pro Golf Data East Sports 4 Pac-Man Namco Maze 5 Qix Taito Puzzle 6 Galaga Namco Shoot 'em up 7 Bosconian 8 Crazy Climber Nichibutsu Climbing 9 Crush Roller Kural Maze 10 Grand Champion Taito Racing United States In the United States, the following titles were the top three highest-grossing arcade games of 1981, according to the annual Cash Box and RePlay arcade charts. Rank Play Meter1981 Play Meter December 1994 20 13 66 https://archive.org/details/play-meter-volume-20-number-13-december-1994/Play%20Meter%20-%20Volume%2020%2C%20Number%2013%20-%20December%201994/page/66 Cash Box1981 Jukebox/Games Route Survey Cash Box 31 October 1981 C-18 https://archive.org/details/cashbox43unse_22/page/n75 Cash Box Pub. Co. RePlayAuthoritative Industry Sources Acclaim: Pac-Man Top Video Game of the Year Cash Box 26 December 1981 91 https://archive.org/details/cashbox43unse_30/page/91 Cash Box Pub. Co. RevenueGenre 1 Pac-Man $1,000,000,000Pac-Man leads video game invasion of Europe Europe 1982 217-234 26 https://books.google.com/books?id=WahQAQAAMAAJ Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities Introduced in the United States in 1981 as a coin-operated video game, Pac-Man swallowed in its first year an estimated 1 billion no in quarters. Although it is probably the most popular, Pac-Man is, however, only one of several hundredMaze 2 Defender Shoot 'em up 3 Asteroids The following titles were the top-grossing arcade games of each month in 1981, according to the Play Meter and RePlay arcade charts. Month Play Meter RePlay Ref Reference January Pac-ManSullivan George The First Big Hits Screen Play: The Story of Video Games 1983 F. Warne 978-0-7232-6251-0 38–47 (44) https://archive.org/details/ScreenPlaytheStoryofVideoGames/page/n53 Asteroids RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay January 1981 February RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay February 1981 March RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay March 1981 April Defender RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay April 1981 May Top Coin-Op Video Game Earners Play Meter May 20, 1981RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay May 1981 June Scramble Kubey Craig The Winners' Book of Video Games 1982 New York Warner Books 978-0-446-37115-5 118 https://archive.org/details/Winners_Book_of_Video_Games/page/n134 July Pac-Man RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay July 1981 August DefenderKubey Craig The Winners' Book of Video Games 1982 New York: Warner Books 978-0-446-37115-5 34 https://archive.org/details/Winners_Book_of_Video_Games/page/n50/mode/1up Defender RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay August 1981 September GorfKubey Craig The Winners' Book of Video Games 1982 New York: Warner Books 978-0-446-37115-5 121 https://archive.org/details/Winners_Book_of_Video_Games/page/n137 RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay September 1981 October Donkey KongDonkey Kong Joystik November 1982 1 2 12–19 (13) https://archive.org/details/joystik_magazine-1982-11/page/n14 RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay October 1981 November RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay November 1981 December Vanguard Pac-Man Equipment Poll Play Meter December 1981RePlay: The Players' Choice RePlay December 1981 1981 Pac-Man Best-selling home video games The following titles were the best-selling home video games in 1981.Cartridge Sales Since 1980 Atari Corp. Via The Agony & The Ecstasy Once Upon Atari August 10, 2003 4 23 Scott West Productions Rank Title Platform Developer Publisher Release year Genre Sales 1 Space Invaders Atari VCS Taito Atari, Inc. 1980 Shoot 'em up 2,964,137 2 Warlords Atari VCSAtari, Inc. 1981 Action 936,861 3 Breakout Atari VCSAtari, Inc. 1978 Action 838,635 4 Night Driver Atari VCSAtari, Inc. 1980 Racing 779,547 5 Asteroids Atari VCSAtari, Inc. 1981 Shoot 'em up 407,090 Football Atari VCSAtari, Inc. 1979 Sports (American football) Best-selling home systems Rank System(s) Manufacturer(s) Type Generation Sales Ref Reference1Game & WatchNintendoHandheld4,000,000+昔(1970年代）のテレビゲームは何台売れた？ How many old (1970s) video games sold? https://www.ne.jp/asahi/cvs/odyssey/hyperlink/setframe_dataroom_numbers1.html live https://web.archive.org/web/20140109231757/http://www.ne.jp/asahi/cvs/odyssey/hyperlink/setframe_dataroom_numbers1.html 2014-01-09 16 April 2021 Classic Videogame Station Odyssey ja2Atari Video Computer System (VCS)Atari, Inc.ConsoleSecondPollack Andrew 1982-06-09 The Video Game Sales War en-US The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/1982/06/09/business/the-video-game-sales-war.html 2021-12-02 0362-4331Urschel Joe March 6, 1982 Gobbling up the home video market C-6 The Day https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1915&dat=19820306&id=jQEhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SXUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4884,1190162 1 December 20213IntellivisionMattelConsoleSecond1,000,000+Sklarewitz Norman 1982-05-24 Computerized games hit profits jackpot for Mattel company Christian Science Monitor https://www.csmonitor.com/1982/0524/052434.html 2019-03-16 0882-77294Atari 400/800Atari, Inc.Computer8-bit300,000Reimer Jeremy 2005-12-15 Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures https://arstechnica.com/features/2005/12/total-share/ live 2021-11-27 Ars Technica en-us https://web.archive.org/web/20120607023023/http://arstechnica.com:80/features/2005/12/total-share/ June 7, 2012 Jeremy Reimer 2012-12-07 Total Share: Personal Computer Market Share 1975-2010 https://jeremyreimer.com/rockets-item.lsp?p=137 Jeremy Reimer5ZX81Sinclair ResearchComputer8-bit250,000+April 1982 More Sinclair Computers Than Any Other! http://archive.org/details/creativecomputing-1982-04-a Creative Computing 8 4 66TRS-80Tandy CorporationComputer8-bit250,0007Apple IIApple Inc.Computer8-bit210,0008PETCommodoreComputer8-bit40,0009IBM PCIBMComputer8-bit / 16-bit35,000 Events Magazines January – Atari computer magazine ANALOG Computing begins 9 years of publication. Most issues include at least one BASIC game and one machine language game. November – The British video game magazine Computer and Video Games (C&VG) starts. Winter – Arnie Katz and Bill Kunkel found Electronic Games, the first magazine on video games and generally recognized as the beginning of video game journalism. Business New companies: DK'Tronics, Games by Apollo, Gebelli Software, Imagic, Spectravision, Starpath, Synapse Software Defunct: APF Electronics Births April 2024 May May 6 – David 'mamehaze' Haywood: Legendary MAME programmer Notable releases Games Arcade thumb|Donkey Kong|311x311px February – Konami releases Scramble, the first side-scrolling shooter with forced scrolling and multiple distinct levels.Game Genres: Shmups https://web.archive.org/web/20130617091132/http://classes.soe.ucsc.edu/cmps080k/Winter07/lectures/shmups.pdf June 17, 2013 , Professor Jim Whitehead, January 29, 2007, Accessed June 17, 2008 February – Williams Electronics releases influential scrolling shooter Defender. July 9 – Nintendo releases Donkey Kong, which introduces the characters of Donkey Kong and Mario, and sets the template for the platform game genre. It is also one of the first video games with an integral storyline.http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=donkey-kong&page=detail&id=666 donkey kong [coin-op] arcade video game, nintendo co., ltd. (1981) Arcade-history.com February 28, 2013 August – Konami releases Frogger. September – Namco releases Galaga, the sequel to Galaxian which becomes more popular than the original. October – Frogger is distributed in North America by Sega-Gremlin. October 18 – Sega releases Turbo, a racing game with a third-person rear-view perspective. October 21 – Williams Electronics releases Stargate, the sequel to Defender. October – Rock-Ola's Fantasy is the first game with a continue feature. October – Atari, Inc. releases Tempest, one of the first games to use Atari's Color-QuadraScan vector display technology. It was also the first game to allow the player to choose their starting level (a system Atari dubbed "SkillStep"). November – Namco releases Bosconian, a multidirectional shooter with voice. December – Jump Bug, the first scrolling platform game, developed by Hoei/Coreland and Alpha Denshi, is distributed in North America by Rock-Ola under license from Sega. Midway releases fixed-shooter Gorf with multiple distinct stages. Taito releases abstract, twin-stick shooter Space Dungeon. Data East releases the vertically-scrolling isometric maze game Treasure Island. Console Atari, Inc.'s port of Asteroids is a major release for the Atari VCS, and is the first game for the system to use bank-switching. Mattel releases Utopia for Intellivision, one of the first city construction games and possibly the first sim game for a console. Computer June – Ultima is released, beginning a successful computer role-playing game series. September – Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord for the Apple II is the first in a computer role-playing franchise that eventually spans eight games. IBM and Microsoft include the game DONKEY.BAS with the IBM PC, arguably the first IBM PC compatible game. Muse Software releases the stealth action adventure Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple II. The Atari Program Exchange publishes Caverns of Mars, a vertically scrolling shooter, and wargame Eastern Front (1941), both for the Atari 8-bit computers. APX also sells the source code to Eastern Front. Epyx releases turn-based monster game Crush, Crumble and Chomp!. BudgeCo's Raster Blaster sparks interest in more realistic Apple II pinball simulations and is the precursor to Pinball Construction Set. Infocom releases Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz. Hardware Arcade July – the Namco Warp & Warp arcade system board is released. October – the VCO Object, the first arcade system board dedicated to pseudo-3D, sprite-scaling graphics, debuts with the release of Turbo. Computer March 5 – Timex releases the Sinclair Research ZX81 in the UK, which is significantly less expensive than other computers on the market. June – Texas Instruments releases the TI-99/4A, an update to 1979's TI-99/4. August 12 – the IBM Personal Computer is released for US$1,565, with 16K RAM, no disk drives, and 4-color CGA graphics. Astrovision distributes the Bally Computer System after buying the rights from Bally/Midway. Acorn Computers Ltd releases the BBC Micro home computer. Commodore Business Machines releases the VIC-20 home computer. NEC releases the PC-8801 home computer in Japan. Handheld November – Nintendo's Game & Watch is released in Sweden. Microvision is discontinued. See also 1981 in games References Category:Video games by year