Ever heard of Tomohiro Nishikado? He was probably a significant influence on your life, especially if you are a younger Baby Boomer.
In 1978, when I was eighteen years old, Nishikado created Space Invaders for the Taito Corporation. The game was released in Japan, and proved to be such a hit that it made it over to the US in short order. The lives of teens and younger would never be the same.
Pong was the first video game to see wide release in this country, back in 1974. It was a hit, but graphics technology was improving rapidly. It was time to take electronic gaming up a couple of notches.
Atari's Tank, released that same year, was the first to show objects that looked "sort of" like what they represented. The next year, Taito released Gunfight, which pitted two cowboys that looked a little more like cowboys than Atari's tanks looked like, well, you know.
Games kept trickling out, including Atari's Breakout, released in 1976, designed by a couple of dudes you might have heard of: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. But video games, while popular, were still found mainly in bars, arcades, and bowling alleys.
That changed in 1978. Space Invaders caught the public's imagination like no video game had yet succeeded in doing. In Japan, the game caused a shortage of yen coins, to which the government responded by quadrupling their production. In the US, its estimated first year revenues were in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
So what was it that made this game so stinking much more popular than its predecessors? Probably a combination of these factors:
- Great graphics. The invaders were the most detailed images yet, and were in "color" (actually colored by a green overlay, red at the top for the spaceships).
- Potential unlimited play for a quarter. You kept playing until your three lives were expended. An ace could play for fifteen or twenty minutes for 25 cents. Novices, myself included, made a much higher contribution to the hundreds of millions of dollars the game raked in.
- Killer sound. Who can forget that bass heartbeat that quickened as the invaders drew ever closer?
- The high score history. If you were the baddest Space Invaders player in town, you had proof, immortalized on the screen!
- Hackability. The geekier gamesters noticed that you could get higher sores for blasting the spaceship by carefully counting your shots.
Space Invaders brought video games to restaurants, convenience stores, waiting rooms, and just about anywhere else that a person might have five minutes to kill.
Atari licensed Space Invaders for their home systems in 1980. The Atari 2600 began being sold with a Space Invaders cartridge included. The idea that you could play your favorite arcade game on television for free doubled the gaming consoles' sales that year.
Many games came afterward, but most of them followed the trail blazed by Space Invaders, i.e. the features listed above that it pioneered.
So here's to a creation by a Japanese engineer that brought the video game industry to its glory achieved during the 1980's, and which, in good part, continues today.
And for the most amazing game of Space Invaders you've ever seen, check out this YouTube movie.
Comments (4)
First I quickly digress.
SI was responsible for one of the worst movies
of all time, only in title. Spaced Invaders
is an awful alien comedy
(yes, there is indeed a sub-genre of Alien Comedies) that featured
stoned aliens..made "Terror in Tinytown" look like "Gone with the Wind".......back to video games..I first saw
Space Invaders at a campground arcade in 1979. Is was so far ahead of its time that I didn't even GET IT for awhile. It was such an advance in RAM power that it was prob the greatest quantum leap in games ever. You basically went from 2-6
things moving on screen
(pong, hockey, death race 2000), to about 40
aliens in centurion formation marching inexorably downward.
That heartbeat sound that progressively got faster made the blood race. WHen just one alien was left it almost felt like a heroin rush as that beat
would be going 2-40.
Per convenient store arcade games, we had a creepy 7-11 in a really bad side of town over the ex-pressway. At 2-3
in the morning, we would sometimes walk over, hoping to fend off the crackheads and
hookers that wandered in just long enough to win a free game(not making this up). I recall they had Asteroids as well, another ground breaking game with a unique graphic look and a beautiful tracer effect when shooting. Another asteroids aside....in 1981 we had a kid die
playing asteroids. he was racking up points for an hour or so, and
died in the arcade.
Donkey Kong was another great early one, and the first with true multi-color(asteroids was true, but only green, and a strange green at that, which BATTLEZONE later copied). Jumping over the barrels and ramps was a bit incredible in 1981. Finally, my favorite, GALAGA. That one was in my college dorm arcade room in 1982, and I spent many
long nights avoiding homework and bonding with that machine. Oh,
and DEFENDER had to have the best look...so sleek and almost slow-motion as the ships blew-up, and almost sexy looking in its game play......AHHHHH,
then home consoles came out, and the video arcade went the way of the wethead(dead, for those of you under 44).
I would have to say that video games were more social when they were limited to upright consoles in the early 80's. You were forced to interact with others, and the sounds
of a bunch playing at once was like a casino
for kids......all that
thrawt-chrascr-thrrummp of 100 games was a rush in itself......and I won't mention pinball arcades, more appropo
to my generation than video, or this reply might go on forever....
Posted by scott | July 31, 2007 4:47 AM
Posted on July 31, 2007 04:47
Scott, when i got married in 1983, I had 20 minutes to kill before showing up. The three groomsmen and myself went to a 7-11 in Amarillo and played video games decked out in our tuxes. I remember racking up a great Galaga score, a good omen. We're still happily married 24 years later!
Posted by Ron Enderland | July 31, 2007 5:46 AM
Posted on July 31, 2007 05:46
I personally prefer pinball to video games. My parents had bought us the Atari 2600 but, except for Breakout, I never used it much.
If you would like to see a real video game fan, check out Gibby's game room at http://www.nescapades.com/gameroom.htm but you might have to give it enough time to load because of all the pictures.
Posted by David S Paleg | July 31, 2007 6:46 AM
Posted on July 31, 2007 06:46
There was one computer game released in the U.S before Pong: Computer Space. It was a lot of fun; we had one in our dorm lounge. It used vector graphics, similar to Asteroids.
http://www.klov.com/C/Computer_Space.html
Posted by Mike Ransom | July 31, 2007 11:24 AM
Posted on July 31, 2007 11:24