Space Invaders: The Most Popular Arcade Video Game of All Time?

Space Invaders was released in 1978 and proved to be one of the most popular arcade video games of all time. It was developed and sold by Taito in Japan where it prompted a shortage of 100 yen coins because it was so popular. It was licensed to Midway for US production in 1980 and proved to be equally loved by gamers in the States.

The game is a simple 2D shooter in which the player controls a laser canon rooted to the bottom of the screen. They can move the laser canon right or left and fire the laser to destroy the advancing waves of space invaders. There are three destructible shields at the bottom of the screen (four in different versions) which the laser canon can use for cover and the object is to destroy all of the space invaders before they reach the bottom. As the game progresses the waves of attacking space invaders get faster and the game continues until the player is defeated. Occasionally a flying saucer flies along the top and can be shot for a bonus score.

This simple game-play was instantly accessible to gamers everywhere and a number of subsequent games copied the design and built on it. It drew in a whole new audience of people and marked a milestone in the growing popularity and acceptance of video games.

In the first few years after release at least 100,000 arcade machines were sold in Japan and there were even arcades devoted exclusively to the title. In the US at least 60,000 machines were sold during the same period. There were a number of different versions of the cabinet released and they remain hugely popular with collectors. The game was also ported to every system going and spawned a number of sequels but none enjoyed the success of the original.

The game was designed and programmed by Toshihiro Nishikado who worked for Taito and he spent a year designing the game and building the hardware necessary to run it. He cites H.G. Wells War of the Worlds as an inspiration for the enemy aliens and the game was originally titled Space Monsters. The game was originally built using raster graphics on a CRT monitor and the mono sound was generated by analogue circuitry. The machine utilized an Intel 8080 CPU but the first version was not powerful to render the graphics in color and so it was originally released as a cocktail table in black and white.

Midway adapted the game to produce a stand up cabinet and they used cellophane overlays to give the impression of color graphics. The controls were simple with three buttons, one to move right, one to move left and one to fire.

The game was very well designed and the fact that you could play indefinitely for a high score encouraged people to spend hours and hours pouring coins into the machines. The gradual speed up gave it a sense of excitement and as the aliens began to move faster the simple sound effects sped up as well.

Space Invaders is acknowledged as one of the most influential video games ever made and it has a strong claim for the most popular arcade video game of all time.