---> A Brief History of Video Arcade Games <---


Coin operated video games have only been around since about 1971.  In 
the early days games were few, graphics were primitive, and some games 
(e.g. "PONG") didn't even use software (ROM).  Like Pinball Machines, 
most early video games were found only in Bars and out-of-the-way 
places.  

This all changed in 1978, when the game "Space Invaders" became a 
runaway hit.  Suddenly the market became flooded with new and 
innovative video games, and banks of games were being relocated into 
dedicated rooms called Video Arcades.  The period from 1978 until 1984 
(the year of the great Video Arcade profitmaking crash) is often 
referred to as the Golden age, with games from manufacturers like 
Atari, Exidy, and Cinematronics fondly remembered (for example, 1980s 
"Pac-Man" became, and still remains, the worlds favorite video game, 
with many examples still to be found in daily use).  

After the crash, many of the companies turned to the home video game 
market, and fewer coin operated video games were manufactured.  The 
new games still offered became less innovative and more formulistic 
(especially in the graphics look-and-feel).  Typical offerings now 
tended be clones of the previous years games.  When the 80's ended, 
most of the smaller companies had dissapeared, and the majority of coin
operated games tended to be from companies such as Sega and Nintendo, 
who were dominant forces in the Home Game Console market.  During the 
90's, the playing mechanics of video games and the audience 
manufacturers were targeting became significantly different from what 
had gone before.


======== 1st Era ========

Coin operated video games from specific eras also offer a distinctive 
look and play experience.  The cabinets of the earliest games had a 
super-futuristic look, due to their being made of molded fiberglass 
(you can see an example of one in the movie "Soilent Green").  
Unfortunately these cabinets proved to be just too radical for the 
largely conservative established game manufacturers.  As these 
companies expanded into video games, they chose to use the same hulking
earthtone colored cabinets that they had been using for their electro-
mechanical games.  Cabinets remained clunky until the very end of the 
era, when they suddenly began to transition into a leaner, more 
colorful, and somewhat wedge shaped design (e.g. 1978s "Orbit").  

These early games (e.g. 1974s "Tank") used very blocky graphics, of the
sort you find in the earliest Atari 2600 home video game cartridges.  
Screens were all black & white, and based upon TV sets ("raster" 
imaging).  Controls tended to be either a dial or a button.  Even 
Driving games did little more than attach an oversized wheel to a dial 
(e.g. 1976s "Sprint2"), which often made steering vehicles in these 
games rather difficult.  

1978 marked the end of the first era in video games.  By then graphics 
had become more refined and a few games were even using colored film 
overlays on the screens to give a pseudo-color image (e.g. 1977s 
"Circus").  Viewpoints however remained a non-scrolling, flat, 2-D 
perspective; and gameplay was still extremely simplistic (e.g. 1978s 
smash hit "Space Invaders"). Remember though that simplistic does not 
mean bad.  Lack of graphics detail meant that the games had to focus on
strategy, and many were, and still are, therefore extremely challenging
and addictive to play (e.g. 1977s "Canyon Bomber").


======== 2nd Era ========

1979 ushered in the beginning of the second era.  It seemed that 
everyone had suddenly taken an interest in coin operated video games, 
and manufacturers were flooding the arcades with new and innovative 
games.  Game cabinets finished their recent transiton into the 
standardized brightly colored tall and narrow box shape with portruding
overhead marquee that most people associate with golden age video games
(e.g. 1979s "Galaxian").  In the previous year most games had still 
been black & white, but in 1979 the reverse was now true, with color 
screens suddenly being the norm.   

A significant new innovation, but one that only lasted a few years, was
the use of "vector" imaging (the kind of imaging used on occiliscopes).  
These special screens can only produce wire-frame images, but the 
graphics quality is of extremely high resolution (e.g. 1979s 
"Asteroids"). One of the contributing factors to this screen being 
introduced was that the new color raster screens were of inherent lower
resolution than the previous years black & white raster screens (due to
a color screens need to use three phosphor dots to represent the same 
pixel that a black & white screen can represent with just one).    

Game controls also made a shift.  Standard game controls now became the
ubiquitous knobbed joystick and large dished button combination.  A new
innovation to appear was the trackball (e.g. 1980s "Centipede"), a 
control that later became the second most popular after joysticks. 

During the second era, optical gun game mechanics were perfected (e.g. 
1983s "Crossbow").  Driving games got better, primarily due to 
scrolling screen graphics (a new innovation) and more intuitive 
perspective angles.  In fact, many chase perspective driving games of 
this era tend to be superior to chase perspective games from later 
eras, due to the lower graphics detail making exact vehicle position 
easier to interperate, which intern makes the vehicle easier to 
maneuver.  Steering however still provided little feedback, so steering
with a joystick often out-performed steering with wheels.

Sports games were a real mixed bag, with playability ranging from fun 
to horrific.  Technical limitations often meant that sports games had 
to make sacrifices in the way they represented a game, such as reducing
the number of players on a team.  The earlier games focused more on 
calling plays, while indicating players position on the field with 
crude markers (e.g. 1979s "Atari Football").  However as video game 
computing power expanded, player avatars become more detailed, and 
manufacturers also began shifting the emphasis of gameplay away from 
coaching and more towards putting the game player into a role of being 
one of the compeating athleats. 

As a whole, the general look-and-feel of second age video games were 
what one might call uncluttered.  Games used limited (although not 
necessarily limiting) color pallets and the graphics were mostly 2-D 
sprites (although they could give a suprising amount of detail, e.g. 
1982s "Joust").  Backgrounds were often just a solid color (e.g. 1980s 
"Defender") or limited to relatively undistracting ambiance images like
a Hanna-Barbara cartoon (e.g. 1983s "Spy Hunter").  Early in the era 
manufacturers were continuously experimenting with new gaming 
experiences, and variety was a keynote.  Games also tended to be family
friendly, and could hold the interest of all genders and age groups.

Although the market for coin operated video games fell out in 1984, the
second age struggling on until 1987.  Low sales however now made the 
manufacturers conservative, so the majority of games produced during 
the last three years changed little in their look-and-feel (e.g. 1987s 
"American Speedway").  Change did occur in the ability of owners to 
upgrade existing cabinets with new games.

At the beginning of the era electronics were unique to each game, and 
arcade operators who wanted new games were forced to buy entire new 
cabinets.  Slowly this began to change, first with cabinets from within
one company allowing game swaps (such as the DECCO cassette system), 
and later with the majority of the industry adopting game swapable 
standardized cabinets (such as JAMMA cabinets).


======== 3rd Era ========

1988 can be considered the beginning of the third era.  The year before
sales of coin operated video games had rebounded enough that the 
surviving manufacturers were now willing to try and re-energize the 
market.  In the year before most games had looked a lot like games from
the early 80s, but for 1988 most games were now released with a new 90s
"Home Game Console" look-and-feel. Partial coin credit and the ability 
to add coins to continue a game became the norm.

Gone now were most of the much beloved video arcades, with their games 
having migrated to laundromats, pizza restaurants, and movieplexes (the 
remaining arcades often became "family entertainment centers", which were 
a euphemism for gambling casinos aimed at little children).  A surprise 
hit with bar owners were the new slow paced golfing games.

Racing games finally became playable, thanks to the proliferation of 
force feedback steering wheels and the ability to sit while driving.  
Linked cabinets, where players could race each other in the same game, 
started becoming common in even the smaller arcades.  

The biggest trend however was the domination of violent fighting games, 
as games abandoned the adult players and now focused exclusively on 
tapping the wallets of young teenage boys. Early on these were mostly 
beat-'em-up side-scrolling games, but during the 90s the two opponent 
(as well as multi-player brawl) Kung Fu type fighting games rose up 
to become almost the only video game type being offered by arcades.

Third era innovations/problems are: 
- Rendered and digitized graphics, which often gives the game a feeling	
	of being a passive television cartoon.
- Graphics drawn in a "Puffy" manner, with cluttered and often 
	obscuring backgrounds that add little to gameplay.
- Staccato gameplay that makes it difficult to become "one" with the 
	machine.
- Demographics shift of game targeting to either Jr-Highschool boys 
	(ultra-violence, beginning with 1992s "Mortal Kombat") or 
	little kids (cutesie japanese "family entertainment center" 
	type games).
- Extreme similarity between games and limited choices in "types" of 
	games (differentiation being only in characters or location).
- Change in cabinet styling from the 80's "packing crate" look to a 
	"molded play console" look (typified by "Capcom" games). 
- Trend towards banks of "linked" cabinets (option for multiple player 
	participation) and controls for several players on one cabinet.
- Proliferation of force feedback controls and sit-down cabinets with 
	feedback, especially with driving style games.
- Universality of large screens and a proliferation of giant projection 
	screens in the larger arcades.
- Move by games to allow registering of only a partial game credit for 
	each coin deposited, and the ability of games to be "continued" 
	from where you were stopped by adding coins.


======== 4th Era (and beyond) ========

At the turn of millennium computers and game consoles were becoming so 
sophisticated that the arcade machines were having difficulty drawing 
players out of their homes.  Arcade machines, and other entertainment 
venues such as cinemas, evolved into "events" that engaged the whole 
body of the player (e.g. 1999s "Dance Dance Revolution").  

For smaller venues such a convenience stores, single cabinets with a 
selectable choice of previously released games became the norm.  While 
new games were still being created, this became the exception, as 
cabinet style video arcade machines, along with pinball machines, were 
now being looked upon purely as "nostalgic" entertainment devices.