Golden Age of Arcade Games: A New Hope

In 1971 an arcade game known as Computer Space was born and is considered the first ever coin-operated arcade video game. A year later that Computer Space developer Nolan Bushnell would form Atari, Inc. and the name Pong(1972) would be heard around the world. Following this event would be Gun Fight(1975), Night Driver(1976), and that well known Space Invaders(1978) game would issue in the “Golden Age of Arcade Games.” Space Invaders would inspire the arcade game pioneers to birth the classic Pac-Man(1980) and this Japanese development group known as Namco would begin to make its mark on society. Namco had its hand in an upgraded version of Space Invaders entitled Galaxian(1979) which would spring board them into the world of Nintendo’s Famicon (NES) in Japan and ultimately lead them to a merger with Bandai.

All this was possible because a little video game publisher known to us as Midway would publish these newcomers in a growing game market and from that fire would arise titles such as Spy Hunter, NARC (by Williams Electronics), and Mortal Kombat. All hugely popular arcade smashes with Mortal Kombat clearing a path for the new Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) to step in and begin controlling brutal action. FATALITY!

Years have come and gone and games have increased in complexity, graphic quality, story line, and sound. What happened to all those great arcade games by Service Games of Japan (SEGA)? The Golden Age of Arcade Games has come and gone and today we see most of the old arcade hang outs being boarded up, and sold off. Some mall arcades are converted into restaurants, bathrooms, or yet another Taco Bell. Arcades cannot draw out the children that they once could in the days before beefy console systems landed under our Christmas trees back in the early 80’s.

Yet today we’re seeing the re-birth of the arcade in a new location: our homes. For many geeks and gamers this is not a new concept because they have been downloading game ROMS for their arcade/console emulators for years now. There are large varieties of Atari emulators, NES emulators, and of course MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) and people are filling their hard drives with bytes upon bytes of gaming ROMS. It seems the success of these free solutions have gotten the big wigs at Microsoft and Nintendo seeking to squeeze a little more life out of old generation games. There is indeed money to be had in refreshing older arcade games or inventing new arcade games. Geometry Wars and Hexic on the Xbox 360 are highly addictive “arcade quality” games that are some of the top downloaded/played games on this newly released console!

The Nintendo Revolution is boasting an emulator to play classic games from NES all the way to the Nintendo 64. What is unique about the new generation of consoles that is driving the effort for classically remade games? What makes us want to play really old games on really powerful systems? Perhaps Nintendo and Microsoft hope to draw a different audience towards their consoles or just breathe more life and enthusiasm into their current audience. Maybe the gamer demographic has sparked the realization that many gamers are getting older and older gamers will always fall in love with that special game that got them hooked. Let us not forget that older gamers also tend to have more money then the younger ones!

The beauty of this arcade rebirth is that it allows independent game developers to get some face time. Arcade games are typically easy to understand, shorter in length, simplified graphics with gradual increases in levels of difficulty. An arcade game is not a multi-million dollar project that requires full motion video, storyline designers, licensed musicians and musical scores. An arcade game is not guaranteed sixty hours of game play nor does it require Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound. That means a small team of developers can work with a small pocket of cash to create some of the most addictive games on the planet which you could download for minimal cost. It’s a winning situation for all involved. For the price of a cup of coffee you too could feed a starving developer in California.

Arcade games are obviously not a revolutionary idea but as we all get older and begin to expand our families we do not always have time to play a massive multiplayer RPG or sit down and run through four quarters of football. However a game like Gauntlet, Excite Bike or Joust would fit better into many of our busy schedules and with consoles allowing us to save progress at any moment in time that means we can save our game to stop Liam from pulling Brianna’s hair or feed the newborn screaming in his cradle.

I look forward to the day where I do not have to play Double Dragon on my PDA or Ikari Warriors on my cell phone. I’ve got a D-Pad and a dream and I want my old arcade games back!

CodeMonkey - “What will Sony’s PS3 be supplying for classic/arcade style games? Post your comments”

References:

WIKIPEDIA - http://www.wikipedia.org
MICROSOFT XBOX - http://www.xbox.com
NINTENDO - http://www.nintendo.com
ATARI/INFROGAMES - http://www.atari.com
SEGA - http://www.sega.com
MAME - http://www.mame.net