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Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Nintendo released the arcade game Donkey Kong, which defined the platformer genre. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include Defender, Scramble, Frogger, Galaga and Zaxxon.
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Financial performance
- The arcade video game market in the US generates $4.8 billion in revenue[1] (equivalent to $16.1 billion adjusted for inflation).
- The home video game market in the US generates $1 billion in sales revenue[2] (equivalent to $3.35 billion adjusted for inflation), with Atari remaining the market leader.[3]
- The home video game market in Europe is worth $200 million[4] (equivalent to $670 million adjusted for inflation).
Highest-grossing arcade games
The year's highest-grossing video game was Pac-Man with $1.2 billion in arcade game revenue ($4 billion adjusted for inflation), three times the box office revenue of the highest-grossing film Star Wars (1977) in five years.[5]
Japan
In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1981, according to the annual Game Machine chart.[6]
| Rank | Title | Manufacturer | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Donkey Kong | Nintendo | Platformer |
| 2 | Janputer | Sanritsu | Mahjong |
| 3 | Pro Golf | Data East | Sports |
| 4 | Pac-Man | Namco | Maze |
| 5 | Qix | Taito | Puzzle |
| 6 | Galaga | Namco | Shoot 'em up |
| 7 | Bosconian | ||
| 8 | Crazy Climber | Nichibutsu | Climbing |
| 9 | Crush Roller | Kural | Maze |
| 10 | Grand Champion | Taito | Racing |
United States
In the United States, the following titles were the top three highest-grossing arcade games of 1981, according to the annual Cash Box and RePlay arcade charts.
| Rank | Play Meter[7] | Cash Box[8] | RePlay[9] | Revenue | Inflation | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pac-Man | $1,000,000,000[10] | $3,400,000,000 | Maze | ||
| 2 | Defender | Unknown | Unknown | Shoot 'em up | ||
| 3 | Unknown | Asteroids | Unknown | Unknown | ||
The following titles were the top-grossing arcade games of each month in 1981, according to the Play Meter and RePlay arcade charts.
| Month | Play Meter | RePlay | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | Pac-Man[11] | Asteroids | [12] |
| February | [13] | ||
| March | [14] | ||
| April | Defender | [15] | |
| May | [16][17] | ||
| June | Scramble | [18] | |
| July | Unknown | Pac-Man | [19] |
| August | Defender[20] | Defender | [21] |
| September | Gorf[22] | [23] | |
| October | Donkey Kong[24] | [25] | |
| November | Unknown | [26] | |
| December | Vanguard | Pac-Man | [27][28] |
| 1981 | Pac-Man | [7][9] | |
Best-selling home video games
The following titles were the best-selling Atari VCS home video games in 1981.[29]
| Rank | Title | Sales | Genre | Licensor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Space Invaders | 2,964,137 | Shoot 'em up | Taito |
| 2 | Warlords | 936,861 | Action | — |
| 3 | Breakout | 838,635 | ||
| 4 | Night Driver | 779,547 | Racing | |
| 5 | Asteroids | 407,090 | Shoot 'em up | |
| Football | Unknown | American football |
Events
Magazines
- January – Atari computer magazine ANALOG Computing begins 9 years of publication. Most issues include at least one BASIC game and one machine language game.
- November – The British video game magazine Computer and Video Games (C&VG) starts.
- Winter – Arnie Katz and Bill Kunkel found Electronic Games, the first magazine on video games and generally recognized as the beginning of video game journalism.
Business
- New companies: DK'Tronics, Games by Apollo, Gebelli Software, Imagic, Spectravision, Starpath, Synapse Software
- Defunct: APF Electronics
Births
May
- May 11 – JP Karliak: American actor, voice actor and comedian
Notable releases
Games
- Arcade
- February – Konami releases Scramble, the first side-scrolling shooter with forced scrolling and multiple distinct levels.[30]
- February – Williams Electronics releases influential scrolling shooter Defender.
- July 9 – Nintendo releases Donkey Kong, which introduces the characters of Donkey Kong and Mario, and sets the template for the platform game genre. It is also one of the first video games with an integral storyline.[31]
- September – Namco releases Galaga, the sequel to Galaxian which becomes more popular than the original.
- June – Konami releases Frogger.
- October – Frogger is distributed in North America by Sega-Gremlin.
- October 18 – Sega releases Turbo, a racing video game that features a third-person perspective, rear-view racer format.
- October 21 – Williams Electronics releases Stargate, the sequel to Defender.
- October – Rock-Ola's Fantasy is the first game with a continue feature.
- October – Atari Inc. releases Tempest, one of the first games to use Atari's Color-QuadraScan vector display technology. It was also the first game to allow the player to choose their starting level (a system Atari dubbed "SkillStep").
- November – Namco releases Bosconian, a multidirectional shooter with voice.
- December – Jump Bug, the first scrolling platform game, developed by Hoei/Coreland and Alpha Denshi, is distributed in North America by Rock-Ola under license from Sega.
- Midway releases fixed-shooter Gorf with multiple distinct stages.
- Taito releases abstract, twin-stick shooter Space Dungeon.
- Data East releases the vertically-scrolling isometric maze game Treasure Island.
- Console
- Atari, Inc.'s port of Asteroids is a major release for the Atari VCS, and is the first game for the system to use bank-switching.
- Mattel releases Utopia for Intellivision, one of the first city construction games and possibly the first sim game for a console.
- Computer
- June – Ultima is released, beginning a successful computer role-playing game series.
- September – Wizardry for the Apple II is the first in a computer role-playing franchise that eventually spans eight games.
- IBM and Microsoft include the game DONKEY.BAS with the IBM PC, arguably the first IBM PC compatible game.
- Muse Software releases the stealth action adventure Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple II.
- The Atari Program Exchange publishes Caverns of Mars, a vertically scrolling shooter for the Atari 8-bit family, and wargame Eastern Front (1941). APX also sells the source code to Eastern Front.
- Epyx releases turn-based monster game Crush, Crumble and Chomp!.
- BudgeCo's Raster Blaster sparks interest in more realistic Apple II pinball simulations and is the precursor to Pinball Construction Set.
- Infocom releases Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz.
Hardware
- Arcade
- July – the Namco Warp & Warp arcade system board is released.
- October – the VCO Object, the first arcade system board dedicated to pseudo-3D, sprite-scaling graphics, debuts with the release of Turbo.
- Computer
- March 5 – Timex releases the Sinclair Research ZX81 in the UK, which is significantly less expensive than other computers on the market.
- June – Texas Instruments releases the TI-99/4A, an update to 1979's TI-99/4.
- August 12 – the IBM Personal Computer is released for USD$1,565, with 16K RAM, no disk drives, and 4-color CGA graphics.
- Astrovision distributes the Bally Computer System after buying the rights from Bally/Midway.
- Acorn Computers Ltd releases the BBC Micro home computer.
- Commodore Business Machines releases the Commodore VIC-20 home computer.
- NEC releases the PC-8801 home computer in Japan.
- Handheld
- November – Nintendo's Game & Watch is released in Sweden.
- Microvision is discontinued.
References
- ^ Video Game Myth Busters - Did the "Crash" of 1983/84 Affect Arcades?, The Golden Age Arcade Historian (December 27, 2013)
- ^ George Lucas and the Digital Revolution Archived January 29, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, p. 296, 2006
- ^ Lindner, Richard (1990). Video Games: Past, Present and Future; An Industry Overview. United States: Nintendo of America.
- ^ http://2600connection.com/library/magazines/spectrum/spectrum_dec82.pdf#page=7 Archived November 7, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Culhane, John (July 4, 1982). "Special Effects Are Revolutionizing Film". The New York Times. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
- ^ ""Donkey Kong" No.1 Of '81 — Game Machine's Survey Of "The Year's Best Three AM Machines" —" (PDF). Game Machine. No. 182. Amusement Press, Inc. February 15, 1982. p. 30.
- ^ a b "1981". Play Meter. Vol. 20, no. 13. December 1994. p. 66.
- ^ "1981 Jukebox/Games Route Survey". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. October 31, 1981. p. C-18.
- ^ a b "Authoritative Industry Sources Acclaim: Pac-Man Top Video Game of the Year". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. December 26, 1981. p. 91.
- ^ "Pac-Man leads video game invasion of Europe". Europe. 217–234. Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities: 26. 1982.
Introduced in the United States in 1981 as a coin-operated video game, Pac-Man swallowed in its first year an estimated $1 billion in quarters. Although it is probably the most popular, Pac-Man is, however, only one of several hundred
- ^ Sullivan, George (1983). "The First Big Hits". Screen Play: The Story of Video Games. F. Warne. p. 38-47 (44). ISBN 978-0-7232-6251-0.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. January 1981.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. February 1981.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. March 1981.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. April 1981.
- ^ "Top Coin-Op Video Game Earners". Play Meter. May 20, 1981.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. May 1981.
- ^ Kubey, Craig (1982). The Winners' Book of Video Games. New York: Warner Books. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-446-37115-5.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. July 1981.
- ^ Kubey, Craig (1982). The Winners' Book of Video Games. New York: Warner Books. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-446-37115-5.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. August 1981.
- ^ Kubey, Craig (1982). The Winners' Book of Video Games. New York: Warner Books. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-446-37115-5.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. September 1981.
- ^ "Donkey Kong". Joystik. 1 (2): 12-19 (13). November 1982.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. October 1981.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. November 1981.
- ^ "Equipment Poll". Play Meter. December 1981.
- ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. December 1981.
- ^ Cartridge Sales Since 1980. Atari Corp. Via "The Agony & The Ecstasy". Once Upon Atari. Episode 4. Scott West Productions. August 10, 2003. 23 minutes in.
- ^ Game Genres: Shmups[permanent dead link], Professor Jim Whitehead, January 29, 2007, Accessed June 17, 2008
- ^ "donkey kong [coin-op] arcade video game, nintendo co., ltd. (1981)". Arcade-history.com. Retrieved February 28, 2013.