An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, typically installed in businesses such as
restaurants,
public houses,
video arcades, and Family Entertainment Centers. Most arcade games are
redemption games,
merchandisers (such as
Claw crane),
video games or
pinball machines.
History
The first popular "arcade games" were early amusement park
midway games such as
Shooting galleries,
ball toss games, and the earliest coin-operated machines, such as those which claim to tell a person their fortune or played mechanical music. The old midways of 1920s-era
amusement parks (such as
Coney Island in
New York) provided the inspiration and atmosphere of later arcade games.
In the 1930s, the earliest coin-operated
pinball machines were made. These early amusement devices were distinct from their later electronic cousins in that they were made of wood, did not have plungers or lit-up bonus surfaces on the playing field, and used mechanical instead of electronic scoring readouts. By around 1977, most pinball machines in production switched to using solid state
electronics for both operation and scoring.
Vintage Coin Operated Fortune Tellers, Arcade Games, Digger/Cranes, Gun Games and other Penny Arcade games, pre-1977 from Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum
In 1971, students at
Stanford University set up the
Galaxy Game, a coin-operated version of the
Spacewar computer game. This is the earliest known instance of a coin-operated video game. Later in the same year,
Nolan Bushnell created the first mass-manufactured such game,
Computer Space, for
Nutting Associates.
In 1972,
Atari was formed by
Nolan Bushnell and
Ted Dabney. Atari essentially created the coin-operated
video game industry with the game
Pong, the smash hit electronic
ping pong video game. Pong proved to be popular, but imitators helped keep Atari from dominating the fledging coin-operated video game market. Video game arcades sprang up in shopping malls, and small "corner arcades" appeared in restaurants, grocery stores, bars and movie theaters all over the
United States and other countries during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Games such as
Space Invaders (1978),
Galaxian (1979),
Pac-Man (1980),
Battlezone (1980), and
Donkey Kong (1981) were especially popular.
During the late 70s and 80s, chains such as
Chuck E. Cheese's,
Ground Round,
Dave and Busters, and
Gatti's Pizza combined the traditional restaurant and/or bar environment with arcades.
By the late-1980s, the arcade video game craze was beginning to fade due to the reputation of arcades as being seedy, unsafe places as well as the advances in home
video game console technology. Arcade video games experienced a resurgence with the advent of two-player fighting games such as
Street Fighter II (1991) by
Capcom,
Mortal Kombat (1992) by
Midway Games,
Fatal Fury (1992) by
SNK,
Killer Instinct (1994) by
Rare, and
The King of Fighters (1994-2005) by
SNK.
However by 1996, home video game consoles and computers with
3D accelerator cards had reached technological parity with arcade equipment—arcade games had always been based on commodity technology, but their advantage over previous generations of home system was in their ability to customize and use the latest graphics and sound chips, much as PC games of today do. Declines in arcade sales volume meant that this approach was no longer cost-effective. Furthermore, by the late 1990s and early 2000s, networked gaming via console and computers across the Internet had also appeared, replacing the venue of head to head competition and social atmosphere once provided solely by arcades.
The arcades also lost their status as the forefront of new game releases. Given the choice between playing a game at an arcade three or four times (perhaps 15 minutes of play for a typical arcade game), and renting, at about the same price, the exact same game—for a video game console—the console was the clear winner. Fighting games were the most attractive feature for arcades, since they offered the prospect of face-to-face competition and tournaments, which correspondingly led players to practice more (and spend more money in the arcade), but they could not support the business all by themselves.
To remain viable, arcades added other elements to complement the video games such as
redemption games, merchandisers, and food service. Referred to as "fun centers" or "family fun centers", some of the longstanding chains such as
Chuck E. Cheese and
Gatti's Pizza ("GattiTowns") also changed to this format. Many old video game arcades have long since closed, and classic coin-operated games have become largely the province of dedicated hobbyists.
Today's arcades have found a niche in games that use special controllers largely inaccessible to home users. An alternative interpretation (one which includes fighting games, which continue to thrive and require no special controller) is that the arcade game is now a more socially-oriented
hangout, with games that focus on an individual's
performance, rather than the game's content, as the primary form of novelty. Examples of today's popular genres are
rhythm games such as
Dance Dance Revolution (1998) and
DrumMania (1999), and
rail shooters such as
Virtua Cop (1994),
Time Crisis and
House of the Dead (1996).
Technology
thumb|right|inside of a Geo |Neo Geo]Virtually all modern arcade games (other than the very traditional midway-type games at county fairs) make extensive use of solid state
electronics and
integrated circuits. In the past coin-operated arcade video games generally used custom per-game hardware often with multiple
CPUs, highly specialized sound and graphics chips and/or boards, and the latest in computer graphics display technology. Recent arcade game hardware is often based on modified video game console hardware or high end PC components.Sometimes, arcade games are controllable via more immersing and realistic means than either
PC or console games, and feature specialized ambiance or control accessories, including fully enclosed dynamic cabinets with
force feedback controls, dedicated
lightguns, rear-projection displays, reproductions of car or plane cockpits and even motorcycle or horse-shaped controllers, or even highly dedicated controllers such as
dancing mats and
fishing rods. These accessories are usually what set modern arcade games apart from PC or console games, as they are usually too bulky, expensive and specialized to be used with typical home PCs and consoles.
Arcade genre
Arcade games often have very short levels, simple and intuitive control schemes, and rapidly increasing difficulty. This is due to the environment of the Arcade, where the player is essentially renting the game for as long as their in-game avatar can stay alive (or until they run out of
tokens).
Games on consoles or PCs can be referred to as "arcade games" if they share these qualities or are direct ports of arcade titles. Many independent developers are now producing games in the arcade genre that are designed specifically for use on the
Internet. These games are usually designed with
Flash/
Java/
DHTML and run directly in web-browsers.
Arcade
racing games are those which have a simplified
physics engine and do not require much learning time, in opposition to
racing simulators. Cars can turn sharply without braking or understeer, and the
AI rivals are sometimes programmed so they are always near the player (
rubberband effect).
Arcade
flight games also use simplified physics and controls in comparison to
flight simulators. These are meant to have an easy
learning curve, in order to preserve their action component. Increasing numbers of console flight arcade games, from
Crimson Skies to
Ace Combat and
Secret Weapons Over Normandy indicate the falling of manual-heavy flight sim popularity in favor of instant arcade flight action.
Emulation
Emulators such as
MAME, which can be run on modern computers and a number of other devices, aim to preserve the antiquated games of the past. Although arcade games are now being emulated through the
Wii Virtual Console Service starting in 2009 with
Gaplus,
Emeraldia,
Mappy,
Solvalou,
Space Harrier,
Star Force,
The Tower of Druaga and
The Return of Ishtar, and then others such as
Space Invaders and
Splatterhouse coming later in the year. Also, classic arcade games such as
Asteroids,
Tron,
Discs of Tron,
Yie Ar Kung-Fu,
Pac-Man,
Joust,
Battlezone,
Dig Dug,
2084, and
Missile Command are emulated on
Xbox Live Arcade.
Locations
In addition to restaurants and
video arcades, arcade games are also found in
bowling alleys,
college campuses,
dormitories,
laundromats,
movie theatres,
supermarkets,
shopping malls,
airports,
truck stops,
bar/
pubs,
hotels, and even
bakeries. In short, arcade games are popular in places open to the public where people are likely to have free time.
See also
References
External links
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