Having just opened up its American branch, Japanese video game manufacturer Nintendo introduces its first arcade game, the virtually-unknown space shooter Radar Scope. The game fails to make a splash, and many of the Radar Scope cabinets in Nintendo’s warehouse are later converted into their next (and far more profitable) game, which involves a plumber saving a woman from a gorilla.
The Odyssey2 video game console’s answer to Space Invaders, Alien Invaders – Plus!, hits stores. Though patterned after the familiar layout of the arcade game, the Odyssey edition offers some interesting variations, especially once the player runs out of protective shields.
After a mad last-minute rush to prepare it for display at the 1980 Amusement Machine Operators of America (AMOA) trade show, Williams Electronics debuts what will become its most successful arcade game, Defender. With a more complex control panel than nearly any video game since Computer Space, Defender is ignored at AMOA, only to become a top earner in arcades (and a source of bragging rights for those who master the control scheme).
Universal (a video game manufacturer unrelated to the Hollywood studio of the same name) introduces the minor arcade classic Space Panic, a game which goes down in history primarily for inspiring the home computer game hit Lode Runner later in the decade. Space Panic is also the first arcade game in which success is dependent on the player climbing ladders, a year before the release of Donkey Kong.
American pinball manufacturer Stern Electronics releases a video game licensed from Japanese game maker Konami Industries, Scramble. Though it earns a small but loyal following among arcade gamers, Scramble‘s true claim to history will be in setting a legal precedent: it later becomes the first video game whose code is copyrighted as a literary work in its own right as Stern seeks to take down bootleggers who copy the game’s program and brazenly market it under the same name.
Atari releases Video Pinball as a cartridge for the Atari 2600. Though sharing the same name as an earlier Atari arcade game, the home edition is a somewhat more elaborate simultaion of pinball.
Data East releases the arcade video game Lock ‘n’ Chase in the United States. Though bearing some distinctive differences from Pac-Man, the game gets lost in a glut of Pac-Man knock-off coin-ops also in circulation.
Atari releases the home version of Missile Command as a cartridge for the Atari 2600. The manual included with the game explains the missile attack as the product of an alien invasion, not Reagan-era Cold War tensions. Though the cartridge is an instant best-seller, its programmer receives a reward that convinces him to look for work somewhere other than Atari.
Activision releases a trio of cartridges for the Atari VCS home video game system: Kaboom!, Tennis and Laser Blast. Kaboom!, inspired by the ’70s arcade game Avalanche, proves to be the fast favorite of the three games.
Better known for making jukeboxes and speakers, Rock-Ola dips its toes into the video game industry by releasing Warp Warp in the United States. The arcade game, originated in Japan by Namco, features cute, colorful characters in a maze setting, not entirely unlike Pac-Man, but fails to catch on in American arcades.
Exidy’s swashbuckling coin-op video game Venture arrives in arcades, letting players control the actions of the bow-and-arrow-shooting treasure hunter, Winky. The game’s unique structure provides an early example of an “interactive graphical menu” letting players choose which treasure room to plunder next – but a choice has to be made quickly, in real time, because there are still monsters that can kill Winky on the menu screen.
Sega releases the arcade game Space Odyssey in American arcades. With its depiction of Schwarzchild radius-style black holes scrolling under the player’s spaceship, this is among the first arcade video games with isometric 3-D graphics.
Sega introduces Astro Blaster to an arcade scene already awash in space shoot-’em-ups, but the game carves out a small niche for itself. Its greatest contribution, later on, may be in providing much of the inspiration for Activision’s home video game hit Megamania.
With game play similar to the coin-op hit Defender (but more detailed, colorful graphics), Universal introduces the minor arcade hit Cosmic Avenger in America. Though it never really sets earnings records, home video game rights are eventually snapped up by Coleco, which will offer a home version of Cosmic Avenger on its upcoming Colecovision console.
With one unprofitable flop behind it, the American branch of Nintendo has a lot riding on its second arcade game. Fortunately, it strikes gold with Donkey Kong, the coin-op which launches the careers of both Shigeru Miyamoto and a plumber named Mario (though in this game, he’s known as “Jumpman”). Nintendo is now in America to stay.
Challenging players to fly their space fighter through an array of twisty mazes in an attempt to reach the final goal – destroying the “brain” of an enemy rocket – SNK’s Vanguard is released in American arcades. This is one of the first coin-op video games to present the player with an option upon running out of “lives”: allow the game to end, or insert another quarter or token to continue from the last position.
The first game generated by west coast programmers working for Taito’s new American game design division, Qix hits the arcades, reeling players in with its weird sound effects, abstract game play, and an enemy that anticipates the look of Windows screen savers years before either Windows or screen savers exist. Qix becomes an instant cult classic, though it proves to be nearly impossible to replicate with the current generation of home video game hardware.
Not wanting to miss a piece of the Pac-Man pie, American pinball & video game manufacturer Williams Electronics releases Make Trax in Stateside arcades, one of the few Japanese-made games licensed by Williams for American release. Yet another maze chase game, Make Trax at least has the novelty of turning the player into a paintbrush trying to coat the entire maze with color.
Created by Japanese video game manufacturer Konami (which has yet to establish a corporate foothold in North America), Frogger is introduced to the United States by Sega, and becomes an instant arcade hit whose cute graphics make it a natural for Pac-Man fans. In time, Frogger inspires a rock song, a cartoon, and numerous home video game cartridges.
Centuri releases the arcade video game Pleiades (spelled correctly on the arcade cabinet, though the game identifies itself onscreen as “Pleiads”), licensed from Japanese company Tahkan International.
A musical ode to video gaming starts climbing the charts as Buckner & Garcia issue their single Pac-Man Fever (a full album, filled out with other video game tribute songs, will follow in 1982). Shortly before the album’s release, the “Pac-Man Fever” single peaks in the Billboard Hot 100 at #9, having sold over a million copies.
Atari releases the home version of the arcade hit Berzerk as a cartridge for the Atari VCS home video game system. Almost a dead ringer for the graphically simple arcade game, the console port is only missing the distinctive Cylon-esque voice synthesis of the coin-op. The second issue of the Atari Force comic from fellow Warner Communications subsidiary DC Comics is packed-in with Berzerk.
General Computer Corp., a small company making “grey market” modification kits to freshen up Pac-Man and Missile Command arcade games, cuts a deal with Midway, the American licensee for Pac-Man, handing over the code to its Pac-Man modification kit Crazy Otto. Midway contracts GCC to continue work on the kit, but now under license. The first thing to go are the kit’s name and its modified Pac-Man character, who now has legs. A few changes and a few months later, the game’s central character has no legs, but will now sport lipstick and a pink bow, as Midway prepares to officially release the new game as an authorized Pac-Man sequel, Ms. Pac-Man – amazingly good luck for a small business that could just as easily have been sued into oblivion.
Sega raises the graphical bar for first-person driving games with the release, at year’s end, of the arcade game Turbo. Adding constantly-changing, scrolling scenery and a variety of other cars as obstacles, Turbo undoubtedly trips up many a video game racing veteran with pure eye candy.
Reese Communications publishes the first issue – and, if it doesn’t sell well, likely the only issue – of Electronic Games Magazine, the first periodical devoted to video games and other electronic forms of entertainment. Video Magazine columnists Bill Kunkel and Arnie Katz (operating under the pseudonym Frank Laney Jr. in order to protect his more “serious” writing work) propose the magazine after a string of successful video-game-focused issues of Video, and, with Katz’ wife Joyce Worley joining in the writing and editing duties, become the first video game journalists, inventing such now-common terms as “playfield”, “screenshot”, and “Easter egg”. Though the first issue could have been a one-off experiment, the magazine goes monthly by the end of spring 1982.
Beating Atari’s home adaptation of Pac-Man to the punch by nearly half a year, Magnavox introduces K.C. Munchkin for the Odyssey2. Within three weeks, after widespread occurrences of dealers describing the game as “just like Pac-Man” (despite specific instructions from Magnavox not to do so), Atari sues Magnavox for violating copyright law.
Exidy’s colorful coin-op video game Mouse Trap arrives in arcades, challenging players to not only keep up with the action on screen, but to tap the right color-coded door button on the control panel at the right time, allowing the mouse to escape from hungry cats. In a very short time, Mouse Trap is deemed worthy of song on Buckner & Garcia’s upcoming album Pac-Man Fever.
Arcade game maker Universal presents its entry in the industry-wide rush to get “a game like Pac-Man” into locations everywhere, the maze chase Ladybug. This is the first game from Universal to utilize the unique “spell EXTRA” method of awarding players extra “lives”, which practically becomes a Universal trademark in later games.
Sega releases the arcade game 
The Odyssey2 video game console’s answer to Asteroids,