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Learn About Arcade Games

What are Arcade Games?

Arcade games are coin-operated video games, usually found in public places such as video arcades, restaurants, bars, and theaters. Numerous arcade games throughout recent history have proven popular enough to cross over into other, more private platforms. The term PC arcade game refers to games that have similar play types as arcade games but are designed to run on a personal computer.

The History of Arcade Games

Even before the invention of video games, coin-operated games were nothing new. One ancestor of the modern video game was the pinball machine, which itself descended from earlier tabletop games involving balls, such as bagatelle. The earliest pinball machines debuted during the 1930s. As advances were made in the field of electronics, they were incorporated into pinball games, which were facing competition from a new, similar form of entertainment: the arcade video game. Somewhat ironically, considering how often arcade games would be translated to PCs, the first coin-operated video game was based on an early computer game. Galaxy Game was a coin-operated version of Spacewar!, a game first written in the early 1960s. Galaxy Game first appeared at the student union of Stanford University in 1971. It remained a popular attraction at Stanford for the rest of the decade. Spacewar! was also the inspiration for the first widely released video arcade game, Computer Space. Computer Space's creators later went on to found Atari, which, in 1972, changed the world of gaming forever with the release of Pong. Although extremely simple—just an electronic version of ping-pong, originally designed as a training exercise—Pong became wildly popular with the American public. Other companies quickly copied Pong, and the video game industry as we know it today was born. The late 1970s and early 1980s were a golden age for arcade games. Many iconic games were released in this period, including Space Invaders (1978), Galaxian (1979), Pac-Man and Centipede (1980), and Galaga and Donkey Kong (1981). Most featured relatively simple, but also fun and addictive, gameplay; Donkey Kong was more complicated and featured cutscenes that advanced the plot. Video arcades, with a vast array of different arcade games offered in one place, began to appear, and businesses such as Chuck E. Cheese's (founded 1978) and Dave & Buster's (founded 1982) sprang up to cater to different age groups within the video game market, while also offering other forms of entertainment. As all this was happening, the home video game market also began to take shape. It was not long before gaming companies began offering their arcade games for sale to those who wanted to play privately. A home version of Pong was released in 1974. It was not a computer game but required its own console. With the birth of the Atari 2600 and the Nintendo Entertainment System, the availability of arcade games at home increased. The Atari 2600 version of Space Invaders (1980) was the first example of an officially licensed arcade game and led to a major boom in the console's sales. At the same time, the personal computer became increasingly popular as a platform for gaming. Naturally, then, arcade games soon found themselves ported onto these as well. As the console industry went into a temporary but dramatic decline in the mid-1980s, the use of computers to play games, including arcade games, rose. As computers and consoles became more popular, the video arcade faded. The increasing sophistication of home systems, as well as their convenience, began to outstrip the advantages of the video arcade. Nonetheless, there were some late arcade game hits, such as Street Fighter (1987) and Mortal Kombat (1992) and their sequels, and two similar beat-em-up games based on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989) and The Simpsons (1991). These all found their way onto the PC. As can be seen, the history of arcade and personal computer games is not one of competition so much as borrowing and co-evolution. PC games based on arcade games remain enduringly popular. In addition, enthusiasts have created emulators to mimic arcade hardware and allow even more arcade games to function on the home computer, the most famous of which is probably MAME.

Who Would Be Interested in PC Arcade Games?

Because there are so many diverse types of PC arcade games, nearly every gamer will find some game in the genre to enjoy. Perhaps the players to whom arcade games will most appeal, however, are those who enjoy classic or "legacy" gaming. Gamers who find the complexity of modern games occasionally overwhelming will be relieved by the relative simplicity of old arcade games such as Pac-Man or Space Invaders.