How could you talk about video games without mentioning the era of arcade games?

In the following
minutes I am going to present you a brief history about the rise and fall of arcade machines. *

But first of all, what is an arcade game? ***

1.Arcade machines are just coin operated machines programmed with games to play.
Once the appropriate coin is dropped in the slot, the machine will let you play the game
accordingly.
 It was as simple as that, which is why many people easily understood the concept of
arcade gaming and loved it. The arcade gaming scene started out as early as the late
1930s with the first few coin operated pinball machines. As the decades came rushing
in, games became better and better, and by the late 60’s, arcade games started
becoming more fun.
***

2.The rise

The golden age of arcade video games was the period of rapid growth, technological development and
cultural influence of arcade video games, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s.

The period began with the release of Space Invaders in 1978, which led to a wave of shoot 'em up games
such as Galaxian and the vector graphics-based Asteroids in 1979, made possible by new computing
technology that had greater power and lower costs.. *
During the 70’s, the market became a lot better with games that everyone, even kids, can play like Space
Invaders and Pacman. The arcades were so popular that many food chains started adding in coin
operated arcade machines in their restaurants, like Chuck E. Cheese’s and Dave and Busters.

With the 80’s coming in with better technology being discovered, games became better
with different ways to play, with the most prevalent being the motion controlled games
where you can play motorcycle racing games with a plastic motorcycle that you can ride
and control to control the motorcycle on the game screen. Although we’ve seen better
ways to play, the arcade scene was slowly dying because people were starting to lose
interest in arcade games.

We were introduced to the competitive fighting games in the early 90’s era when
Capcom introduced Street Fighter 2 to the world. When the game came out, the arcade
gaming scene was revived and took all the people’s quarters again.

Because of the success of Street Fighter and it’s competitive fighting game nature, many
popular games started popping up like Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters.

***
3. types
Arcade video game-Arcade video games were first introduced in the early 1970s, with Pong as
the first commercially-successful game. Arcade video games use electronic or computerized circuitry
to take input from the player and translate that to an electronic display such as
a monitor or television set.

Arcade Video Games are what most people are familiar with and include driving games,
fi ghti ng games and are played for fun, competi ti on, and high scores. There are no
ti ckets or prizes.

Video Game Types: Driving, Shooti ng, Environmental, Fighti ng, Simulators

Duck Hunt was one of the popular games at that time and revolutionized shooting games that
we know today, like the ever famous Time Crisis games.

Carnival games or redempti on games  

Coin-op carnival games are automated versions or variations of popular manned games held at
carnival midways. Redempti on games are generally games of skill that reward players for
achieving higher scores. Most of these are played for prizes or tickets for redemption. Common
examples include Skee-Ball and Whac-A-Mole.

-SKEE-BALL This arcade classic is always a hit with guests who are in search of some
interacti ve fun. This fantasti c game is accessible for beginners yet sti ll provides a
challenge to more experienced players. You are likely to hear a lot of cheering in
the skee-bal l area as guests try to win ti ckets or beat their friends in a one-on-one
game.  

- Whack a mole A typical Whac-A-Mole machine consists of a waist-level cabinet with a play area
and display screen, and a large, soft, black mallet. Five holes in the play area top are filled with small
plastic moles, which pop up at random. Points are scored by whacking each mole as it appears. The
faster the reaction the higher the score.

Pinball machines are games that have a large, enclosed, slanted table with a number of scoring
features on its surface. Players launch a steel ball onto the table and using pinball flippers, try to
keep the ball in play while scoring as many points as possible. Early pinball games were mostly
driven through mechanical components, while pinball games from the 1930s onward include
electronic components such as lights and sensors and are one form of an electro-mechanical game.
*

Merchandiser games
Prize redemption games such as crane games and coin drop games have been examined as a
mixed continuum between games of chance and skill. In a crane game, for example, there is some
skill in determining how to position the crane claw over a prize, but the conditions of the strength and
condition of the claw and the stacking of the prize are sufficiently unknown parameters to make
whether the player will be successful a matter of luck.
*
Sports games
Sport games are indoor or miniaturized versions of popular physical sports that can be played within
an arcade setting often with a reduced ruleset. Examples include air hockey and indoor basketball
games like Super Shot. Sports games can be either mechanical, electro-mechanical or electronic.
***
4.The fall of arcade games
In the mid 90’s, though, the scene was slowly losing the interest of the people because many
of the games in arcades were slowly being ported over to home consoles, which gained
popularity because it’s a cheaper, easier way to play games than going to the nearby arcade or
food chain and dropping quarters. The decline of arcade games were so great that many
arcades went out of business and many establishments aside from malls almost completely
removed their arcade cabinets.

***
5.Fun facts

The multi-billion-dollar video game company Atari was founded with just $500 by Nolan Bushnell and
Ted Dabney who split the cost to start up the company in 1972. Within 5 years, the company earned $28
million. By 1982, sales topped $2 billion.

Due to the popularity of the Mario Bros. game in 1983 there was a huge increase in the number of
people naming their children Mario during that time.

Super Mario wasn’t originally known as Mario, he was formally known as Jump Man.

In Space Invaders, the more aliens you kill, the faster they come at you. This pattern of the game getting
more challenging the more you play has become a staple in the gaming world, but it actually started as a
fluke! The aliens were always supposed to come at you at the same speed, but with so many aliens on
the screen the hardware couldn’t handle it, so they were slowed down. The more aliens you killed as
you played, the more system memory was freed up, so the game ended up running faster.

The inventor of Tetris didn't get any money from his game until about 10 years after it hit arcades. He
was a Soviet computer scientist, and the USSR took all the money he would have gotten.

Although Pong wasn't the first video game created, it was the first commercially successful one.

The idea for the Pac Man character came to his creator when he removed a slice of pizza.

-video-

**