Golden Age of Arcade Video Games - Popular Culture

Popular Culture

Some games of this era were so popular that they entered the popular culture. The first to do so was Space Invaders. Following its release in 1978, the game caused a national shortage of 100 yen coins in Japan, leading to a production increase of coins to meet demand for the game. It would soon have a similar impact in North America, where it has appeared or is referenced in numerous facets of popular culture. Soon after the release of Space Invaders, hundreds of favourable articles and stories about the emerging video game medium aired on television and were printed in newspapers and magazines. The Space Invaders Tournament held by Atari in 1980 was the first video game competition and attracted more than 10,000 participants, establishing video gaming as a mainstream hobby. By 1980, 86% of the 13–20 population in the US had played arcade video games, and by 1981, there were more than 35 million gamers visiting video game arcades in the United States.

The game that had the biggest impact on popular culture in North America was Pac-Man. Its release in 1980 caused such a sensation that it initiated what is now referred to as "Pac-Mania" (which later became the title of the last coin-operated game in the series, released in 1987). Released by Namco, the game featured a yellow, circle-shaped creature trying to eat dots through a maze while avoiding pursuing enemies. Though no one could agree what the "hero" or enemies represented (they were variously referred to as ghosts, goblins or monsters), the game was extremely popular; there are anecdotes to the effect that some game owners had to empty the game's coin bucket every hour in order to prevent the game's coin mechanism from jamming from having too many coins in the receptacle. The game spawned an animated television series, numerous clones, Pac-Man-branded foods, toys, and a hit pop song, Pac-Man Fever. The game's popularity was such that President Ronald Reagan congratulated a player for setting a record score in Pac-Man. Pac-Man was also responsible for expanding the arcade game market to involve large numbers of female audiences across all age groups. Though many popular games quickly entered the lexicon of popular culture, most have since left, and Pac-Man is unusual in remaining a recognized term in pop culture, along with Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Mario, and Frogger.

Arcade games at the time had an impact, both positive and negative, on the music industry, revenues for which had declined by $400 million between 1978 and 1981 (from $4.1 billion to $3.7 billion), a decrease that was directly credited to the rise of arcade games at the time. Successful songs based on video games also began appearing. The pioneering electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) sampled Space Invaders sounds in their 1978 self-titled album and the hit single "Computer Game" from the same album, the latter selling over 400,000 copies in the United States. In turn, YMO would have a major influence on much of the video game music produced during the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. Other pop songs based on Space Invaders soon followed, including "Disco Space Invaders" (1979) by Funny Stuff, "Space Invaders" (1980) by Playback, and the hit songs "Space Invader" (1980) by The Pretenders and "Space Invaders" (1980) by Uncle Vic. The game was also the basis for Player One's "Space Invaders" (1979), which in turn provided the bassline for Jesse Saunders' "On and On" (1984), the first Chicago house music track. The "Pac-Man Fever" song reached No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and sold over a million singles in 1982, while the Pac-Man Fever album sold over a million records, with both receiving Gold certifications. That same year, R. Cade and the Video Victims also produced an arcade-inspired album, Get Victimized, featuring songs such as "Donkey Kong". In 1984, former YMO member Haruomi Hosono produced an album entirely from Namco arcade game samples entitled Video Game Music, an early example of a chiptune record and the first video game music album. Arcade game sounds also had a strong influence on the hip hop, pop music (particularly synthpop) and electro music genres during the early 1980s. The booming success of video games at the time led to music magazine Billboard listing the 15 top-selling video games alongside their record charts by 1982. More than a decade later, the first electroclash record, I-F's "Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass" (1997), has been described as "burbling electro in a vocodered homage to Atari-era hi-jinks," particularly Space Invaders which it was named after.

Arcade games also had an impact on the film industry; beginning with Space Invaders, arcade games began appearing at many movie theaters, while early films based on video games were also produced, most notably Tron, which grossed over $33 million in 1982 (equivalent to over $76 million in 2011), generated another $15 million revenue from North American video rentals, inspired the use of CGI by Hollywood film studios such as Pixar, and began the Tron franchise which included a video game adptation that grossed more than the film. Other films based on video games included the 1983 films WarGames (where Matthew Broderick plays Galaga at an arcade), Nightmares, and Joysticks, the 1984 film The Last Starfighter, and the anime Super Mario Bros.: Peach-Hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen! in 1986. Arcades also appeared in many other films at the time, such as Dawn of the Dead (where they play Gun Fight and F-1) in 1978, Used Cars and Midnight Madness in 1980, Take This Job and Shove It and Puberty Blues in 1981, the 1982 releases Rocky III, Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Koyaanisqatsi and The Toy, the 1983 releases Psycho II, Spring Break and Never Say Never Again, the 1984 releases Footloose, The Karate Kid (where Elisabeth Shue plays Pac-Man), The Terminator and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, the 1985 releases Back to the Future, The Goonies and The Boys Next Door, and Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Something Wild in 1986. In more recent years, there have been critically acclaimed films based on the golden age of arcade games, such as The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters and Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade in 2007.