Golden age of arcade video games

A period of rapid innovation and commercial growth in arcade video games, usually dated from 1978 to 1983. It established arcade games as a major form of popular entertainment.

Space Invaders: A 1978 arcade game in which players defend against descending waves of alien attackers. Its success helped ignite the period’s arcade boom.
Microprocessor: An integrated circuit that executes a computer’s instructions and performs its calculations. Affordable microprocessors enabled more varied game logic in arcade cabinets.
Computer Space: A 1971 coin-operated video game based on the computer game Spacewar!. Its commercial difficulties exposed the challenge of bringing video games to public venues.
Arcade video game: A video game designed for play on a dedicated public machine, usually activated by payment. The period’s innovations transformed this broader form of public entertainment.
Asteroids: A 1979 arcade game in which players steer a spacecraft and shoot drifting asteroids. Its vector graphics and open-ended play exemplify the era’s technical experimentation.
Raster graphics: A method of displaying images as patterns of pixels arranged in rows and columns. Raster displays made detailed, colorful game characters and backgrounds practical.
Pong: A 1972 arcade game that simulates table tennis with two paddles and a moving ball. Its commercial success helped prove that video games could attract paying customers.
Video game crash of 1983: A sharp contraction in the North American video-game market during 1983 and 1984. The boom’s rapid growth was followed by market saturation and a major downturn.
Pac-Man: A 1980 maze game in which Pac-Man eats dots while avoiding four ghosts. Its character-driven design broadened arcade games’ appeal beyond space-shooting.
Vector monitor: A display that draws images as lines traced directly between points rather than as a pixel grid. Vector monitors gave games such as Asteroids crisp outlines and distinctive motion.

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Amusement arcadeBroader topic: This boom made arcades a central gathering place for popular video-game culture.