Nostalgia.
An arcade game is a coin-operated
entertainment machine, typically installed in businesses
such as restaurants, pubs, video arcades, and Family Entertainment
Centers. Most arcade games are redemption games, merchandisers,
video games or pinball machines.
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.
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.
Since then a lot has happened in the arcade world and
moved across to the internet. You are not only able to
play arcade games online but even start
gambling
with them at online casinos
and make money rather than trying
to beat a high score... |
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