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Overview of the events of 1981 in video games
Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing
Pac-Man , the audience for
arcade video games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced
maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Pac-Man was the highest grossing video game for the second year in a row.
Nintendo 's
Donkey Kong defined the
platform game genre, while
Konami 's
Scramble established
scrolling shooters . The lesser known
Jump Bug combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include
Defender ,
Frogger , and the Galaxian sequel
Galaga .
On the
Apple II ,
Ultima I and
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord each kicked off a long running role-playing game series. Atari's VCS port of
Asteroids was a major hit with the console. The best selling home system around the globe was Nintendo's
Game & Watch for the second year in a row.
Financial performance
Highest-grossing arcade games
The year's highest-grossing video game was
Pac-Man with $1.2 billion in
arcade game revenue, 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]
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.
The following titles were the top-grossing arcade games of each month in 1981, according to the
Play Meter and RePlay arcade charts.
Best-selling home video games
The following titles were the best-selling home video games in 1981.
[29]
Rank
Title
Platform
Developer
Publisher
Release Year
Genre
Sales
1
Space Invaders
Atari VCS
Taito
Atari, Inc.
1980
Shoot 'em up
2,964,137
2
Warlords
Atari VCS
Atari, Inc.
1981
Action
936,861
3
Breakout
Atari VCS
Atari, Inc.
1978
Action
838,635
4
Night Driver
Atari VCS
Atari, Inc.
1980
Racing
779,547
5
Asteroids
Atari VCS
Atari, Inc.
1981
Shoot 'em up
407,090
Football
Atari VCS
Atari, Inc.
1979
Sports (
American football )
Unknown
Best-selling home systems
Rank
System(s)
Manufacturer(s)
Type
Generation
Sales
Ref
1
Game & Watch
Nintendo
Handheld
—
4,000,000+
[30]
2
Atari Video Computer System (VCS)
Atari, Inc.
Console
Second
3,600,000
[31]
[32]
3
Personal computer (PC)
Various
Computer
8-bit /
16-bit
1,400,000
[33]
4
Intellivision
Mattel
Console
Second
1,000,000+
[34]
5
Atari 400 / 800
Atari, Inc.
Computer
8-bit
300,000
[33]
6
ZX81
Sinclair Research
Computer
8-bit
250,000+
[35]
7
TRS-80
Tandy Corporation
Computer
8-bit
250,000
[33]
8
Apple II
Apple Inc.
Computer
8-bit
210,000
[33]
9
PET
Commodore International
Computer
8-bit
40,000
[33]
10
IBM PC
IBM
Computer
8-bit / 16-bit
35,000
[33]
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
Births
This section
needs expansion . You can help by
adding to it .
(April 2024 )
May
May 6 – David 'mamehaze' Haywood: Legendary
MAME programmer
Notable releases
Games
Arcade
February –
Konami releases
Scramble , the first
side-scrolling shooter with forced
scrolling and multiple distinct
levels .
[36]
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.
[37]
August –
Konami releases
Frogger .
September –
Namco releases
Galaga , the sequel to
Galaxian which becomes more popular than the original.
October – Frogger is distributed in North America by
Sega-Gremlin .
October 18 –
Sega releases
Turbo , a
racing game with a
third-person rear-view perspective.
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
Computer
Hardware
Arcade
Computer
Handheld
See also
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 .
^
"Videogames: the electronic big bang" (PDF) . 2600connection.com . p. 20. Archived from
the original (PDF) on November 7, 2014.
^ 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 . pp. 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.
^
"昔(1970年代)のテレビゲームは何台売れた?" [How many old (1970s) video games sold?]. Classic Videogame Station Odyssey (in Japanese).
Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved April 16, 2021 .
^ Pollack, Andrew (June 9, 1982).
"The Video Game Sales War" .
The New York Times .
ISSN
0362-4331 . Retrieved December 2, 2021 .
^ Urschel, Joe (March 6, 1982).
"Gobbling up the home video market" .
The Day . p. C-6. Retrieved December 1, 2021 .
^
a
b
c
d
e
f Reimer, Jeremy (December 15, 2005).
"Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures" .
Ars Technica .
Archived from the original on June 7, 2012. Retrieved November 27, 2021 .
^ Sklarewitz, Norman (May 24, 1982).
"Computerized games hit profits jackpot for Mattel company" . Christian Science Monitor .
ISSN
0882-7729 . Retrieved March 16, 2019 .
^
"More Sinclair Computers Than Any Other!" .
Creative Computing . Vol. 8, no. 4. April 1982. p. 6.
^
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 .
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