1980 in video games

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1980 saw the release of a number of games with influential concepts, including Pac-Man, Battlezone, Crazy Climber, Mystery House, Missile Command, Phoenix, Rally-X, Space Panic, Stratovox, Zork, Adventure, and Olympic Decathlon. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, while the best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch. The Atari VCS (later called the Atari 2600) also grew in popularity with a port of Space Invaders and support from new third-party developer Activision.

Financial performance

The arcade video game market in the US generates $2.81 billion in revenue^[1] ($10.4 billion adjusted for inflation).
Home video games sell $464 million ($1.72 billion adjusted for inflation) in the United States, with the Atari VCS leading the market with a 44% share.^[2]

Highest-grossing arcade games

The following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games worldwide in 1980.

Rank	Title	Gross revenue	Inflation	Cabinet sales	Developer	Distributor(s)	Genre	Ref
1	Pac-Man	$1,000,000,000	$3,700,000,000	100,000	Namco	Namco / Midway	Maze	^[3]^[4]^[5]
2	Asteroids	$700,000,000	$2,600,000,000	70,000	Atari, Inc.	Atari, Inc.	Shoot 'em up	^[6]^[7]
	Galaxian	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Namco	Namco / Midway	Shoot 'em up	^[8]^[9]
	Space Invaders	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown	Taito	Taito / Midway	Shoot 'em up	^[10]

Japan and United States

In Japan and the United States, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1980.

Rank	Japan (Game Machine)^[8]^[11]					United States
Rank	Title	#1	#2	#3	Points	Cash Box^[12]	Play Meter^[9]^[13]	RePlay^[14]^[15]	Cabinet sales
1	Pac-Man	62	46	17	295	Asteroids			< 60,000^[6]
2	Galaxian	44	25	18	200	Galaxian			< 40,000^[16]
3	Crazy Climber	14	19	30	110	—	Space Invaders		< 12,000^[17]^[18]
4	Moon Cresta	3	24	15	72	—	Unknown	Missile Command	Unknown
5	Monaco GP	11	4	11	52	—	Unknown	Rip Off	Unknown
6	Rally-X	1	6	3	18	—	Unknown	Unknown	Unknown
7	Heiankyo Alien (Digger)	1	4	4	15
8	Pitch In	0	1	5	7
9	Super Speed Race	0	2	2	6
10	Sasuke vs. Commander	0	0	5	5
	Space Invaders	0	1	3	5
	Missile Command	0	2	1	5

Best-selling home video games

The following titles were the best-selling home video games in 1980.

Rank	Title	Platform	Developer	Publisher	Release Year	Genre	Sales	Ref
1	Space Invaders	Atari VCS	Taito	Atari, Inc.	1980	Shoot 'em up	1,318,655	^[19]^[20]
2	Breakout	Atari VCS	Atari, Inc.		1978	Action	256,265	^[20]
3	Football	Atari VCS	Atari, Inc.		1979	Sports (American football)	248,502
4	Bowling	Atari VCS	Atari, Inc.		1979	Sports	245,670
5	Night Driver	Atari VCS	Atari, Inc.		1980	Racing	161,352
6	Air-Sea Battle	Atari VCS	Atari, Inc.		1977	Shooter	160,093
7	Circus Atari	Atari VCS	Atari, Inc.		1980	Action	148,756
8	Street Racer	Atari VCS	Atari, Inc.		1977	Racing	89,269
9	Video Olympics	Atari VCS	Atari, Inc.		1977	Sports	36,028

Best-selling home systems

Rank	System(s)	Manufacturer	Type	Generation	Sales	Ref
1	Game & Watch	Nintendo	Handheld	—	2,000,000+	^[21]
2	Atari Video Computer System (VCS)	Atari, Inc.	Console	Second	1,250,000	^[22]
3	TRS-80	Tandy Corporation	Computer	8-bit	290,000	^[23]
4	Intellivision	Mattel	Console	Second	200,000	^[22]^[24]
5	Atari 400 / Atari 800	Atari, Inc.	Computer	8-bit	200,000	^[23]
6	Commodore PET	Commodore International	Computer	8-bit	90,000	^[23]
7	Apple II	Apple Inc.	Computer	8-bit	79,500	^[25]
8	HP 9800 / HP Series 80	Hewlett-Packard	Computer	8-bit	11,300	^[25]
9	North Star Horizon	North Star Computers	Computer	8-bit	8,200	^[25]
10	TI-99/4	Texas Instruments	Computer	16-bit	8,100	^[25]

Events

Awards

Electronic Games hosts the first Arcade Awards, the first video game awards ceremony. It awards games released during 1978–1979, with Space Invaders winning the overall Game of the Year award.^[26]^[27]

Business

New companies: Broderbund, Bug-Byte, HAL Laboratory, Human Engineered Software, Mindscape, On-Line Systems, Sirius, Sir-Tech.
Mattel creates the original five-programmer Intellivision game design team, later nicknamed the Blue Sky Rangers in 1982 in a TV Guide interview.

Notable releases

Games

Arcade

May 22 – Namco releases Pac-Man (originally Puckman in Japan). It becomes the highest-grossing game of all time.^[28] It has the first gaming mascot character, established the maze chase genre, opened gaming to female audiences,^[29] introduced power-ups,^[30] and told a story through cutscenes.^[31]
May – Stratovox from Sun Electronics is the first game with voice synthesis.
July – Atari, Inc. releases the cold-war-inspired Missile Command.
October – Nichibutsu releases the vertically scrolling Crazy Climber, the first video game with a climbing mechanic and an objective of climbing to the top of the level.
November 12 – Stern Electronics releases Berzerk, with designer Alan McNeil's signature on the monitor glass of each cabinet.
November – Namco releases Rally-X, the first game with a bonus round. It also features multi-directional scrolling.
November – Universal releases Space Panic, the first game with platforms and ladders. The term platform game was still several years in the future.
November – Atari, Inc. releases first-person 3D tank shooter Battlezone.
Cinematronics releases Star Castle. In 1982 the Atari 2600 port ends up as Yars' Revenge.^[32]^[33]
Midway's Wizard of Wor is released, allowing two players to fight simultaneously in monster-filled mazes.
The multi-stage Phoenix sports one of the first video-game bosses: a purple alien in a mothership.

Console

Atari, Inc.'s port of Space Invaders becomes the killer app for the VCS and the first console title to sell a million copies.
The first batch of games from Activision, all for the Atari VCS, hits stores: Dragster, Fishing Derby, Boxing, Bridge, and Checkers.

Computer

December – Infocom releases its first game, Zork (later called Zork I), which begins the Zork series.
The mainframe game Rogue is written by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold, eventually spawning a crowded genre of Roguelike games.
Edu-Ware releases The Prisoner for the Apple II, loosely based upon the 1960s TV series of the same name.
Strategic Simulations releases its first game: Computer Bismarck for the TRS-80.
Microsoft publishes Olympic Decathlon for the TRS-80, a track and field video game which precedes Konami's Track & Field and The Activision Decathlon by three years.
On-Line Systems publishes its first title, the graphic adventure Mystery House for the Apple II.

Handheld

Nintendo releases the Game & Watch series of LCD handheld electronic games by Gunpei Yokoi.

Hardware

Arcade

December – Data East releases the DECO Cassette System, the first standardized arcade platform, for which many games are developed.

Console

Mattel releases the Intellivision home video game console.
PPZ Ameprod releases the Ameprod TVG-10 dedicated home video game console in Poland.
The BSS 01 dedicated home video game console is released only in Germany.

Computer

The Sinclair ZX80 and Acorn Atom are the first home computers to play games in the UK.
Tandy releases the first version of the Tandy Color Computer.

References

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