1981 in video games
Overview of the events of 1981 in video games
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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 unnamed platform game genre, while Konami 's Scramble established forced- 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. The Atari VCS port of Asteroids was a major hit for the console. The best-selling home system 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. [1]
- The home video game market in the US generates $1 billion in sales revenue, [2] with Atari remaining the market leader. [3]
- The home video game market in Europe is worth $200 million. [4]
Highest-grossing arcade games
The year's highest-grossing video game was Pac-Man with $1.2 billion in arcade game revenue, three times the box office revenue of the highest-grossing film Star Wars (1977) in five years. [5]
Japan
In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1981, according to the annual Game Machine chart. [6]
Rank | Title | Manufacturer | Genre |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Donkey Kong | Nintendo | Platformer |
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 Meter [7] | Cash Box [8] | RePlay [9] | Revenue | Genre |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Pac-Man | $1,000,000,000 [10] | Maze | ||
2 | Defender | Unknown | Shoot 'em up | ||
3 | Unknown | Asteroids | Unknown |
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 |
---|---|---|---|
January | Pac-Man [11] | Asteroids | [12] |
February | [13] | ||
March | [14] | ||
April | Defender | [15] | |
May | [16] [17] | ||
June | Scramble | [18] | |
July | Unknown | Pac-Man | [19] |
August | Defender [20] | Defender | [21] |
September | Gorf [22] | [23] | |
October | Donkey Kong [24] | [25] | |
November | Unknown | [26] | |
December | Vanguard | Pac-Man | [27] [28] |
1981 | Pac-Man | [7] [9] |
Best-selling home video games
The following titles were the best-selling home video games in 1981. [29]
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 VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1981 | Action | 936,861 | |
3 | Breakout | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1978 | Action | 838,635 | |
4 | Night Driver | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1980 | Racing | 779,547 | |
5 | Asteroids | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1981 | Shoot 'em up | 407,090 | |
Football | Atari VCS | Atari, Inc. | 1979 | Sports ( American football ) | Unknown |
Best-selling home systems
Rank | System(s) | Manufacturer(s) | Type | Generation | Sales | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Game & Watch | Nintendo | Handheld | — | 4,000,000+ | [30] |
2 | Atari Video Computer System (VCS) | Atari, Inc. | Console | Second | 3,600,000 | [31] [32] |
3 | Personal computer (PC) | Various | Computer | 8-bit / 16-bit | 1,400,000 | [33] |
4 | Intellivision | Mattel | Console | Second | 1,000,000+ | [34] |
5 | Atari 400 / 800 | Atari, Inc. | Computer | 8-bit | 300,000 | [33] |
6 | ZX81 | Sinclair Research | Computer | 8-bit | 250,000+ | [35] |
7 | TRS-80 | Tandy Corporation | Computer | 8-bit | 250,000 | [33] |
8 | Apple II | Apple Inc. | Computer | 8-bit | 210,000 | [33] |
9 | PET | Commodore International | Computer | 8-bit | 40,000 | [33] |
10 | IBM PC | IBM | Computer | 8-bit / 16-bit | 35,000 | [33] |
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
May
- May 6 – David 'mamehaze' Haywood: Legendary MAME programmer
- May 11 – JP Karliak : American actor, voice actor and comedian
Notable releases
Games
- Arcade
- February – Konami releases Scramble , the first side-scrolling shooter with forced scrolling and multiple distinct levels . [36]
- 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. [37]
- 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 for the Atari 8-bit family , and wargame Eastern Front (1941) . 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 USD $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
References
- ↑ Video Game Myth Busters - Did the "Crash" of 1983/84 Affect Arcades? , The Golden Age Arcade Historian (December 27, 2013)
- ↑ George Lucas and the Digital Revolution Archived January 29, 2015, at the Wayback Machine , p. 296, 2006
- ↑ Lindner, Richard (1990). Video Games: Past, Present and Future; An Industry Overview . United States: Nintendo of America .
- ↑ "Videogames: the electronic big bang" (PDF) . 2600connection.com . p. 20. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 7, 2014.
- ↑ Culhane, John (July 4, 1982). "Special Effects Are Revolutionizing Film" . The New York Times . Retrieved February 28, 2021 .
- ↑ " "Donkey Kong" No.1 Of '81 — Game Machine's Survey Of "The Year's Best Three AM Machines" —" (PDF) . Game Machine . No. 182. Amusement Press, Inc. February 15, 1982. p. 30.
- 1 2 "1981" . Play Meter . Vol. 20, no. 13. December 1994. p. 66.
- ↑ "1981 Jukebox/Games Route Survey" . Cash Box . Cash Box Pub. Co. October 31, 1981. p. C-18.
- 1 2 "Authoritative Industry Sources Acclaim: Pac-Man Top Video Game of the Year" . Cash Box . Cash Box Pub. Co. December 26, 1981. p. 91.
-
↑
"Pac-Man leads video game invasion of Europe"
.
Europe
.
Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities
. 217–234: 26. 1982.
Introduced in the United States in 1981 as a coin-operated video game, Pac-Man swallowed in its first year an estimated $1 billion in quarters. Although it is probably the most popular, Pac-Man is, however, only one of several hundred
- ↑ Sullivan, George (1983). "The First Big Hits" . Screen Play: The Story of Video Games . F. Warne . pp. 38–47 (44). ISBN 978-0-7232-6251-0 .
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . January 1981.
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . February 1981.
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . March 1981.
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . April 1981.
- ↑ "Top Coin-Op Video Game Earners". Play Meter . May 20, 1981.
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . May 1981.
- ↑ Kubey, Craig (1982). The Winners' Book of Video Games . New York: Warner Books . p. 118. ISBN 978-0-446-37115-5 .
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . July 1981.
- ↑ Kubey, Craig (1982). The Winners' Book of Video Games . New York: Warner Books . p. 34. ISBN 978-0-446-37115-5 .
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . August 1981.
- ↑ Kubey, Craig (1982). The Winners' Book of Video Games . New York: Warner Books . p. 121. ISBN 978-0-446-37115-5 .
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . September 1981.
- ↑ "Donkey Kong" . Joystik . 1 (2): 12–19 (13). November 1982.
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . October 1981.
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . November 1981.
- ↑ "Equipment Poll". Play Meter . December 1981.
- ↑ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay . December 1981.
- ↑ Cartridge Sales Since 1980 . Atari Corp. Via "The Agony & The Ecstasy". Once Upon Atari . Episode 4. Scott West Productions. August 10, 2003. 23 minutes in.
- ↑ "昔(1970年代)のテレビゲームは何台売れた?" [ How many old (1970s) video games sold? ] . Classic Videogame Station Odyssey (in Japanese). Archived from the original on January 9, 2014 . Retrieved April 16, 2021 .
- ↑ Pollack, Andrew (June 9, 1982). "The Video Game Sales War" . The New York Times . ISSN 0362-4331 . Retrieved December 2, 2021 .
- ↑ Urschel, Joe (March 6, 1982). "Gobbling up the home video market" . The Day . p. C-6 . Retrieved December 1, 2021 .
-
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"Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures"
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Ars Technica
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Archived
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- Jeremy Reimer (December 7, 2012). "Total Share: Personal Computer Market Share 1975-2010" . Jeremy Reimer .
- ↑ Sklarewitz, Norman (May 24, 1982). "Computerized games hit profits jackpot for Mattel company" . Christian Science Monitor . ISSN 0882-7729 . Retrieved March 16, 2019 .
- ↑ "More Sinclair Computers Than Any Other!" . Creative Computing . Vol. 8, no. 4. April 1982. p. 6.
- ↑ Game Genres: Shmups [ permanent dead link ] , Professor Jim Whitehead, January 29, 2007, Accessed June 17, 2008
- ↑ "donkey kong [ coin-op ] arcade video game, nintendo co., ltd. (1981)" . Arcade-history.com . Retrieved February 28, 2013 .
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