Boasting a curved, futuristic fiberglass cabinet that truly looks like an alien art object, Nutting Associates’ arcade video game Computer Space hits an amusement market dominated by pinball machines and jukeboxes. Devised by Nolan Bushnell, Computer Space is a coin-operated homage to the mainframe game Spacewar, complete with complicated controls, and fails to sell well. Bushnell later has a revelation: arcade games will need to be easy to learn (but not easy to beat) in order to catch on. 
Two recent college graduates in California install a two-player computerized arcade game called Galaxy Game, a modified version of Spacewar! running on a DEC PCP-11 minicomputer, on the Stanford campus, with the machine charging ten cents to play. Whether it is the first coin-operated video game is debated for years, though it can stake the claim of being the earliest computer-controlled coin-op (though the honor of being the first computer-controlled mass-produced arcade game will eventually rest with 1975’s Gun Fight). Galaxy Game remains on the Stanford campus through 1979. (As of the 21st century, it is on display at the Computer History Museum.)
Atari releases its first product, the arcade game Pong. A more refined version of the basic video ping pong game introduced by the Magnavox Odyssey, it’s simpler than Nolan Bushnell’s earlier attempt to put video games in public spaces (the complicated Computer Space), and is an engineering trial-by-fire for its designer, engineer Al Alcorn. The game is implemented with analog logic rather than an expensive (at the time) microchip, and is a success, ushering in the coin-op video game era to stay.
Atari releases its second arcade game: the very first video racing game, Space Race. Devised to fulfill a contractual game development obligation to rival manufacturer Bally Midway, the game is released by Midway under the title Asteroid, though Atari releases its own “clone” (of its own game) under the title Space Race on this date.
Atari releases its fourth arcade game: the very first video maze game, Gotcha!. The two-player game is essentially a game of tag played in a slowly-shifting maze, with the controllers inexplicably covered with dome-shaped pink rubber covers, leading Gotcha! to be dubbed “the boob game”.
Atari releases the arcade video game Rebound, essentially a video volleyball game. Atari’s “secret” subsidiary, Kee Games, releases the same game as Spike the following month.
“Kee Games” (a shell company created by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell) introduces a new arcade game, a video war between two artillery commanders called Tank. The first video game to require each player to man two joysticks, designed to mimic real tank controls, Tank is later immortalized in the first pack-in launch title for the Atari VCS console, under the title of Combat.
American game manufacturer Midway releases the arcade game Gun Fight, the first-ever fully microprocessor controlled arcade videogame, based on Taito’s similar Western Gun game for the Japanese market. Developed by Nutting Associates, the game is a moderate success as a coin-operated arcade game, but in hindsight it is perhaps more significant as a technical milestone.
Atari introduces a new arcade game, Breakout, which takes the play mechanics of Pong, turns them on one side, and turns the game into a single-player endurance trial. Assigned to junior Atari employee Steve Jobs, Breakout is actually completed by Jobs’ friend Steve Wozniak, though the circuitry for the game is redesigned when Atari’s engineers can’t get their heads around Wozniak’s incredibly compact, efficient design, which reduces the number of logic circuits to a bare minimum. Jobs and Wozniak later approach Atari with a design for a personal computer, and are turned down; that design later becomes the first Apple Computer.
Atari introduces its first-person driving game Night Driver, the first video game to attempt to simulate depth in its display. Introduced in black & white, Night Driver will later gain even more popularity in color on Atari’s first programmable home video game system.
Midway introduces its own first-person car racing arcade game, Datsun 280 ZZZAP! (with permission from Datsun for the product placement, a video game first).
One of the very first first-person space games is introduced to arcades by Atari. Despite its flickery graphics, Starship 1 gives would-be space heroes the chance to take aim at the bad guys; perhaps showing the enduring power of a certain science fiction series, Starship 1’s friendly ships look suspiciously like the U.S.S. Enterprise, while its enemy targets look somewhat like Klingon ships.
Atari releases the arcade video game Dominos, Atari’s interpretation of a game genre that will later become linked with light cycles from the 1982 movie Tron.
Sunnyvale, California-based Meadows Games releases the arcade video game Gypsy Juggler in the United States.
Atari releases the arcade video game Fire Truck, which requires two players to steer both ends of a speeding fire engine.
After its introduction in June in Japan, Space Invaders is introduced to the United States by Midway Manufacturing. Its space-war-themed action arrives just in time to cash in on the public’s fascination with space and science fiction, making it a major hit (the game is already well on its way to causign coin shortages in its native Japan). In America, it pushes the arcade video game industry into high gear, priming both the industry and the public for the boom years ahead. Space Invaders‘ success also convinces Taito to start an American operation rather than continuing to license its arcade games to Midway.
Atari releases the arcade game Avalanche, challenging players to catch falling rocks in a bucket without dropping anything; this game later serves as the basis for Activision’s Atari VCS cartridge Kaboom!.
Atari releases the arcade video game Super Breakout, a sequel to the hit 1976 coin-op Breakout.
Cinematronics introduces the first vector graphics arcade game, Space Wars, designed and programmed by Larry Rosenthal, using Rosenthal’s “Vectorbeam” technology. The game is based on the 1960s mainframe game Spacewar!. The high-resolution vector graphics technology, which offers better graphics (at the cost of limiting them to black & white displays), becomes an arcade mainstay as other manufacturers such as Atari and Sega begin using similar displays.
Atari releases the two-player arcade game Football, a refined version of an internal project called Xs and Os that has been in development for some time. Though it’s a well-executed basic football game, Football’s real innovation is its trackball controller, giving players fluid analog control over their onscreen counterparts.
Atari releases the two-player arcade game Basketball, which features one of the earliest instances of a basketball court drawn in a vaguely 3-D perspective. Like its Football predecessor from Atari, Basketball uses dual trackball controllers.
Cinematronics gives arcade players the chance to fall on their swords – or their opponent’s sword – in the first-ever head-to-head fighting video game, Warrior. Combining the company’s “Vectorbeam” vector graphics with a brilliantly colorful backdrop illuminated by blacklight, Warrior is a feast for the eyes and becomes an arcade cult classic.
Some ten years after the real thing put men on the moon, Atari invites arcade space pilots to try their own luck at the controls of the Lunar Lander. A tricky, brainy game based on real physics, requiring players to cancel out unwanted motion in two axes without running out of fuel, the results are perhaps a little too real: quite a few vector-graphic Eagles fail to land in one piece, and quite a few disgruntled pilots don’t come back to try again.
Arcade game maker Midway introduces the coin-op video game Galaxian in American arcades. The game, originated in Japan by Namco, is the first entry in a fruitful relationship between the two companies; another game in the works at Namco will prove to be huge windfall for Midway in 1980.
Atari releases the vector graphics arcade game Asteroids, a space game with as much Newtonian physics as can be simulated in a tiny amount of code. As one of Atari’s biggest hits to date, with over 50,000 cabinets produced, a sequel and home console ports are inevitable.
Atari scores a direct hit on arcades everywhere with Missile Command, a game which reminds video game-obsessed youth that the Cold War is still on. (In the months it takes to develop the game, programmer Dave Theurer has recurring nuclear-war-themed nightmares.) Cementing the trakball as a viable controller for fast-paced, non-sports games, Missile Command inspires a popular home video game cartridge (which, in the interest of not giving young gamers nightmares, dispenses with the Cold War theme in favor of a science-fiction explanation of the missiles’ origin).
Under license from Namco, the game’s Japanese originators, Midway Manufacturing introduces the obsession that is Pac-Man to American arcades. Titled Puck-Man in its homeland (due to the yellow character’s resemblance to a round hockey puck), Midway swaps vowels for fear that vandals will turn the letter P into an F on the arcade cabinets. With its cute characters and instinctive game play, Pac-Man catches on immediately, propelling the video game industry into overdrive.
Arcade game maker Midway introduces the coin-op video game Rally-X in American arcades. The game, originated in Japan by Namco, is rolled out at a 1980 trade show for amusement and arcade machine operators alongside another Namco/Midway import, Pac-Man. With its more-accessible-to-mainstream-America race car elements, Rally-X is considered the hot favorite of the two, possibly a major hit in the making.
Sega releases the arcade video game Carnival in the United States, developed by their subsidiary Gremlin Industries.
Chicago-based pinball manufacturer Stern makes one of its earliest forays into the booming video game industry with an altered version of the hit game Space Invaders, retitled Astro Invader. The game proves successful enough for Stern to invest in development of original games.