The games at arcades are called arcade games.
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Arcade video games take player’s inputs via the control that are on the game, using computerized and electrical components. The game’s display (if it is an arcade video game and not a redemption or direct pay game) is inside of the arcade’s cabinet (the game’s housing), and is located inside of an arcade amongst other arcade games. Up till the 1990s, arcade video games were considered the most technologically sound and largest part of the video game market.
Early prototypes games such as Computer Space and Galaxy Game made in 1971 actually established the main operations of arcade games, and the company Atari had a game named Pong they made in 1972 that is seen as the most successful commercially available video arcade game. Since then there have been improvements in the gameplay design and computer technology that developed into the golden age of arcade video games, 1980s to 1990s.
In this Golden Age one will find games such as Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, and Pac Man. In the early to mid 2000s one saw a resurgence of the Golden age of arcading that included games such as Dance Dance Revolution, Street Fighter II, and mortal Kombat but eventually saw another decline in the western market (japanese arcading is still going strong. Ultimately, the western market ventured to home gaming consoles such as the Xbox and Playstation as their graphics increased and cost decreased.
History of Arcade games
It was typical to find games of skill in the middle of park midway attractions starting in the 19th century. Once coin operated machines and electricity were introduced, they facilitated the entry of a new viable business. Once pinball machines were introduced in the year 1933 (ones that didn’t use user controlled flippers since this part of the machine was invented until 1947) the games were seen as games of chance. A number of cities and states viewed them as games for younger individuals and banned them in the 60s and 70s.
EM games (electro-mechanical games started showing up in arcades in the mid-20th century. Starting with Sega’s game Periscope, the arcading market started seeing a technology resurgence that was driven by audio-visual electro mechanical games that established arcades as a good environment for commercial video games in the early 70s (early 1970s). Nolan Bushnell, in the late 1960s worked at an arcade part-time and became very familiar with Electro Mechanical games like Speedway (Chicago Coin’s game), and watched customers play while also maintaining the machinery and learning the gaming business.
Spacewar! Inspired the first commercial video game titled Computer Space, which was made by ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell and was released by Nutting Associates. It was then shown at the AMOA(Amusement and Music Operators Association) in 11/1971 (October 1971) . After the creation of the game Computer Space, the duo then came out with Pong, a table tennis video game, which was released in 1972 and became a huge success commercially, which also led to a large number of new players entering the coin operated game market.
The video game market also moved from discrete integrated circuitry to microprocessors which were programmable in the middle of the 1970s, with a game titled Gun Fight. In the year 1978 the arcade game industry saw a Golden Age with the game Space Invaders that was released by Taito. This game introduced a number of new features such as a scoreboard. Between the years 1978 and 1982 a number of major games from Stern Electronics, Williams Electronics, Atari, Nintendo, and Namco has the features of blockbuster games. Of these includes Pac-Man, which is a staple in gaming pop culture. It was at this time that a number of video game arcades started rearing their heads and that arcade gaming cabinets started showing up in smaller storefronts. By the year 1981, the gaming industry’s worth was close to $8 billion in the United States.
Arcade gaming industry started to wane after the year 1982 because of a number of factors including;
- Market saturation of arcade games and arcades themselves
- Moral panic over video games
- The 1983 video gaming crash
By 1986 the arcade market started seeing a recovery because of software conversion kits, advanced motion simulator games , and the popular beat-em-up games like Renegade and Kung Fu Master. The growth of home consoles however, led to the decline of arcade games in the 1980s.
Arcade games started to improve as the technology and gameplay did. The 1990s saw the release of Street Fighter II, which established the now known style of fighting games and led to the development of games such as Killer Instinct, Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Fatal Fury, and Mortal Kombat, which resulted in a new renaissance of arcade games. A new factor that must be considered is realism, which included the change from pseudo-2D graphics to 3D graphics to the true real-time 3D polygon graphics. This was mainly due to the early 1990s games like Sega’s Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing which eventually popularized 3D polygon tech in arcade games. Later on 3D graphics started to be popular in console and computer games by the mid-1990s through systems like the Sega Model 3 held it’s place as one of the more advanced home systems up into the 1990s. Arcade games remained one of the largest segments of global video game industry and arcades declined later on into the 1990s, only surpassed by the console market around 97 – 98.
Arcade games have taken different global routes since 2001. In the US arcades took the role of a niche market as they had to compete with home gaming consoles, and have had to adapt to different business models, like adding prize redemptions or other entertainment options. In China or Japan, where arcades continued to flourish, games such as House of the Dead, and Dance Dance Revolution aimed to deliver tailored experiences that players couldn’t easily obtain in the privacy of their home.
Technology included in arcade games
Almost all modern arcade games use solid state electronics, monitor screens, and integrated circuits, all held inside of an arcade cabinet.
With Computer Space and Galaxy Game being the exceptions (these games were built inside of small form factor mainframe computers), the original arcade games were based on a combination of multiple discrete logic chips like TTL (transistor transistor logic) chips. Designing arcade games required a combination of the TTL chips and a number of other electronic components to get the effect needed on the screen. To get more complex gameplay one needed to have much more TTL components to get the result. By the middle of the 1970s, the first low cost programmable micro processors came to market. The initial microprocessor video game was Gun Fight, which was made by Midway. The arrival of the Golden Era and Space Invaders, made microprocessor based games an ordinary thing. Earlier arcade games were displayed on cathode ray tube displays and were designed around raster graphics. Most of the games in the late 70s and early 80s used vector graphics, though, their use waned by the time the mid 1980s came around and vector displays or color CRTs came around. Some arcade cabinets had a combo of one mirrors, clear overlays, and angled monitor positions to help simulate colors and other graphics on the games.
Coin-op arcade games between the 90s and 2000s made use of custom hardware with a number of CPUs, the latest in expensive computer graphics display technology, and highly specialized computer graphics chips. This allowed one to use more complex graphics and sound that the typical personal computer or home video game console. A large number of arcade games made since the 2000s run on modified video game hardware or gaming PC components. A large number of arcade games have more realistic and immersive game controls than console or PC games. Included in this are specialized control accessories like fully enclosed dynamic cabinets with dedicated lightguns, rear projection displays, reproductions of airplane cockpits, horse or motorcycle controllers or dedicated controllers like fishing rods or dancing mats, and specialized ambiance. The accessories mentioned are usually too specialized bulky, or expensive to be included in home consoles or PCs.
Arcade game producers have transitioned from coins to smart cards and credits that hold the currency of credits. In modern cabinets, one will find that they use flat panel displays rather than cathode-ray tubes.
Genres one will find in arcade games
A large number of arcade games have intuitive control schemes, rapidly increasing difficulty, and short levels. The recipe for an arcade game is difficult to master, easy to learn while also have having progressively difficult levels, and multiple lives. This is because in the arcade environment, the patron is essentially renting the game for the duration of the avatar’s life, or until they have no more tokens. Games on PCs or consoles can be refereed to as arcade games if they have direct ports of arcade games or these qualities.
Racing arcade games usually have sophisticated motion simulator arcade cabinets, short learning times, and a simplified physics engine alongside more realistic racing simulations. Cars can make sharp turns without understeer or braking, and their AI rivals are occasionally programmed so that they are always close to the player and have a rubberband effect. Other types of arcade style games are casual, mobile and music games that have short sessions and intuitive controls.
“Arcade game” can refer to video action games that were designed to play similarly to arcade games with addictive, frantic gameplay. The main focus of arcade action games is on the reflexes of the use, and many have little to no strategy, puzzle solving, or complex thinking skills. Included in these are fighting games that are usually played with arcade controllers, bullet hell shooter with intuitive controls and rapidly increasing difficulty, and light gun rail shooters.
A large number of flight simulators for combat come with sophisticated hydraulic motion cabinets, and simplified handling and physics. Flight cabinets for arcades are supposed to come with a small learning curve, so they can preserve the action component. A growing number of console flight games like Secret Weapons Over Normandy, Crimson Skies, and Ace Combat show the falling popularity of manual heavy flight simulators for arcade flight action.
Hack and Slash or Character Action games, are a moden subgenre or action games that show an evolution of regular arcade action games, and occasionally called beat em up brawlers. Hideki Kiya defined this subgenre, and was the creator of Bayonetta and Devil May Cry