The Pac-Man Dossier
Someone recently posted this incredibly detailed history and analysis of Pac-Man to Reddit: I was surprised and embarrassed to have some of my ideas about early gaming history challenged. I had no idea that Pac-Man and Space Invaders were both Japanese creations! I had always assumed that these games were American, and that Japan didn’t really become a major player in the video game world until later on. Apparently instead they were leading the way from the get go!
Glad you liked my Pac-Man analysis. Your notions regarding early video gaming history having significant roots in America are not unfounded; you just have to look a little further back:
- The first coin-operated video game to be commercially sold was “Computer Space” by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney (both Americans) in 1971 followed by “Pong” in 1972. By the end of 1972, they had named their fledgling company Atari.
- The first home video game console was created by Ralph Baer (an American) and released in May 1972 by Magnavox under the name Odyssey.
- American-based Atari released the incredibly popular Atari 2600 in 1976, one of the most successful home gaming consoles in history.
By the end of the 1970s through the early 1980s, however, the Japanese video game industry was flourishing and they were indeed responsible for many of the popular and well-remembered classics from that era: Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Galaxian, Galaga, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Dig Dug, Zaxxon, etc. But American developers contributed several excellent games from that same period: Asteriods (Atari), Battlezone (Atari), Bezerk (Stern), Centipede (Atari), Defender (Williams), Missile Command (Atari), Joust (Williams), Q*bert (Gottlieb) and Star Wars (Atari) to name a few.
Technically speaking, I would venture to say the world’s first interactive video game was a missile simulator invented in 1947 by two Americans (Thomas Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann) using cathode ray tube technology and analog circuitry, allowing the player to position a dot on the screen with screen overlays used for targets.
Regards,
JP
Hi Jamey,
Thanks for your comment, sorry it took me so long to get around to approving it.
I think the Atari 2600, and other popular, clearly American machines like the Commodore 64 (not that this was intended as a gaming machine, but its commercial success was. I understand, largely due to its role as such), were largely responsible for my conception of video gaming as being primarily US-originated, these machines having predated the machines which were very plainly Japanese, like the NES and Master System. Thinking about it more carefully, I shouldn’t have made that inference because I *had* played Donkey Kong, a well known Nintendo creation, on the Atari, but I guess I never made the connection and asked myself which other Atari classics were Japanese (Frogger and Galaxians too?!). It’s nice to have a clearer understanding of how things played out in those days.