![]() ![]() Games like Space Invaders illustrate both the effect of arcade games and their influence on international culture. In Japan, the game was so popular that it caused a national coin shortage. The end of the 1970s ushered in a new era-what some call the golden age of video games-with the game Space Invaders, an international phenomenon that exceded all expectations. Steven Kent, “Super Mario Nation,” American Heritage, September 1997. By the end of the 1970s, so many video arcades were being built that some towns passed zoning laws limiting them. Pong was initially placed in bars with pinball machines and other games of chance, but as video games grew in popularity, they were placed in any establishment that would take them. In 1972, Pong, the table-tennis simulator that has come to symbolize early computer games, was created by the fledgling company Atari The video game company that was responsible for the arcade game Pong and that led the home console market in the 1970s and 1980s., and it was immediately successful. was modeled on Spacewar! It was called Computer Space, and it fared poorly among the general public because of its difficult controls. ![]() The first coin-operated arcade game A coin-operated video game placed in public establishments. Those with access to computers were quick to utilize them for gaming purposes. Most computer users worked or studied at university, business, or government facilities. In the early 1970s, very few people owned computers. This scene was describing Spacewar!, a game developed in the 1960s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that spread to other college campuses and computing centers. Stewart Brand, “Space War,” Rolling Stone, December 7, 1972. non-business hours) in North America hundreds of computer technicians are effectively out of their bodies, locked in life-or-death space combat computer-projected onto cathode ray tube display screens, for hours at a time, ruining their eyes, numbing their fingers in frenzied mashing of control buttons, joyously slaying their friend and wasting their employers’ valuable computer time. A 1972 article in Rolling Stone describes the early days of computer gaming: The 1970s saw the rise of video games as a cultural phenomenon. ![]()
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