1981 in video games

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Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade video games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Pac-Man was the highest grossing video game for the second year in a row. Nintendo's Donkey Kong defined the platform game genre, while Konami's Scramble established scrolling shooters. The lesser known Jump Bug combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include Defender, Frogger, and the Galaxian sequel Galaga.

On the Apple II, Ultima I and Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord each kicked off a long running role-playing game series. Atari's VCS port of Asteroids was a major hit with the console. The best selling home system around the globe was Nintendo's Game & Watch for the second year in a row.

Financial performance[edit]

Highest-grossing arcade games[edit]

The year's highest-grossing video game was Pac-Man with $1.2 billion in arcade game revenue, three times the box office revenue of the highest-grossing film Star Wars (1977) in five years.[5]

Japan[edit]

In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1981, according to the annual Game Machine chart.[6]

Rank Title Manufacturer Genre
1 Donkey Kong Nintendo Platformer
2 Janputer Sanritsu Mahjong
3 Pro Golf Data East Sports
4 Pac-Man Namco Maze
5 Qix Taito Puzzle
6 Galaga Namco Shoot 'em up
7 Bosconian
8 Crazy Climber Nichibutsu Climbing
9 Crush Roller Kural Maze
10 Grand Champion Taito Racing

United States[edit]

In the United States, the following titles were the top three highest-grossing arcade games of 1981, according to the annual Cash Box and RePlay arcade charts.

Rank Play Meter[7] Cash Box[8] RePlay[9] Revenue Genre
1 Pac-Man $1,000,000,000[10] Maze
2 Defender Un­known Shoot 'em up
3 Un­known Asteroids Un­known

The following titles were the top-grossing arcade games of each month in 1981, according to the Play Meter and RePlay arcade charts.

Month Play Meter RePlay Ref
January Pac-Man[11] Asteroids [12]
February [13]
March [14]
April Defender [15]
May [16][17]
June Scramble [18]
July Un­known Pac-Man [19]
August Defender[20] Defender [21]
September Gorf[22] [23]
October Donkey Kong[24] [25]
November Un­known [26]
December Vanguard Pac-Man [27][28]
1981 Pac-Man [7][9]

Best-selling home video games[edit]

The following titles were the best-selling home video games in 1981.[29]

Rank Title Platform Developer Publisher Release Year Genre Sales
1 Space Invaders Atari VCS Taito Atari, Inc. 1980 Shoot 'em up 2,964,137
2 Warlords Atari VCS Atari, Inc. 1981 Action 936,861
3 Breakout Atari VCS Atari, Inc. 1978 Action 838,635
4 Night Driver Atari VCS Atari, Inc. 1980 Racing 779,547
5 Asteroids Atari VCS Atari, Inc. 1981 Shoot 'em up 407,090
Football Atari VCS Atari, Inc. 1979 Sports (American football) Un­known

Best-selling home systems[edit]

Rank System(s) Manufacturer(s) Type Generation Sales Ref
1 Game & Watch Nintendo Handheld — 4,000,000+ [30]
2 Atari Video Computer System (VCS) Atari, Inc. Console Second 3,600,000 [31][32]
3 Personal computer (PC) Various Computer 8-bit / 16-bit 1,400,000 [33]
4 Intellivision Mattel Console Second 1,000,000+ [34]
5 Atari 400 / 800 Atari, Inc. Computer 8-bit 300,000 [33]
6 ZX81 Sinclair Research Computer 8-bit 250,000+ [35]
7 TRS-80 Tandy Corporation Computer 8-bit 250,000 [33]
8 Apple II Apple Inc. Computer 8-bit 210,000 [33]
9 PET Commodore International Computer 8-bit 40,000 [33]
10 IBM PC IBM Computer 8-bit / 16-bit 35,000 [33]

Events[edit]

Magazines[edit]

  • January – Atari computer magazine ANALOG Computing begins 9 years of publication. Most issues include at least one BASIC game and one machine language game.
  • November – The British video game magazine Computer and Video Games (C&VG) starts.
  • Winter – Arnie Katz and Bill Kunkel found Electronic Games, the first magazine on video games and generally recognized as the beginning of video game journalism.

Business[edit]

Births[edit]

May[edit]

  • May 6 – David 'mamehaze' Haywood: Legendary MAME programmer

Notable releases[edit]

Games[edit]

Arcade
Console
Computer

Hardware[edit]

Arcade
Computer
Handheld

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Video Game Myth Busters - Did the "Crash" of 1983/84 Affect Arcades?, The Golden Age Arcade Historian (December 27, 2013)
  2. ^ George Lucas and the Digital Revolution Archived January 29, 2015, at the Wayback Machine, p. 296, 2006
  3. ^ Lindner, Richard (1990). Video Games: Past, Present and Future; An Industry Overview. United States: Nintendo of America.
  4. ^ "Videogames: the electronic big bang" (PDF). 2600connection.com. p. 20. Archived from the original (PDF) on November 7, 2014.
  5. ^ Culhane, John (July 4, 1982). "Special Effects Are Revolutionizing Film". The New York Times. Retrieved February 28, 2021.
  6. ^ ""Donkey Kong" No.1 Of '81 — Game Machine's Survey Of "The Year's Best Three AM Machines" —" (PDF). Game Machine. No. 182. Amusement Press, Inc. February 15, 1982. p. 30.
  7. ^ a b "1981". Play Meter. Vol. 20, no. 13. December 1994. p. 66.
  8. ^ "1981 Jukebox/Games Route Survey". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. October 31, 1981. p. C-18.
  9. ^ a b "Authoritative Industry Sources Acclaim: Pac-Man Top Video Game of the Year". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. December 26, 1981. p. 91.
  10. ^ "Pac-Man leads video game invasion of Europe". Europe. 217–234. Delegation of the Commission of the European Communities: 26. 1982. Introduced in the United States in 1981 as a coin-operated video game, Pac-Man swallowed in its first year an estimated $1 billion in quarters. Although it is probably the most popular, Pac-Man is, however, only one of several hundred
  11. ^ Sullivan, George (1983). "The First Big Hits". Screen Play: The Story of Video Games. F. Warne. pp. 38–47 (44). ISBN 978-0-7232-6251-0.
  12. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. January 1981.
  13. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. February 1981.
  14. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. March 1981.
  15. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. April 1981.
  16. ^ "Top Coin-Op Video Game Earners". Play Meter. May 20, 1981.
  17. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. May 1981.
  18. ^ Kubey, Craig (1982). The Winners' Book of Video Games. New York: Warner Books. p. 118. ISBN 978-0-446-37115-5.
  19. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. July 1981.
  20. ^ Kubey, Craig (1982). The Winners' Book of Video Games. New York: Warner Books. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-446-37115-5.
  21. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. August 1981.
  22. ^ Kubey, Craig (1982). The Winners' Book of Video Games. New York: Warner Books. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-446-37115-5.
  23. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. September 1981.
  24. ^ "Donkey Kong". Joystik. 1 (2): 12–19 (13). November 1982.
  25. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. October 1981.
  26. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. November 1981.
  27. ^ "Equipment Poll". Play Meter. December 1981.
  28. ^ "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. December 1981.
  29. ^ Cartridge Sales Since 1980. Atari Corp. Via "The Agony & The Ecstasy". Once Upon Atari. Episode 4. Scott West Productions. August 10, 2003. 23 minutes in.
  30. ^ "昔(1970年代）のテレビゲームは何台売れた？" [How many old (1970s) video games sold?]. Classic Videogame Station Odyssey (in Japanese). Archived from the original on January 9, 2014. Retrieved April 16, 2021.
  31. ^ Pollack, Andrew (June 9, 1982). "The Video Game Sales War". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 2, 2021.
  32. ^ Urschel, Joe (March 6, 1982). "Gobbling up the home video market". The Day. p. C-6. Retrieved December 1, 2021.
  33. ^ a b c d e f Reimer, Jeremy (December 15, 2005). "Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on June 7, 2012. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
  34. ^ Sklarewitz, Norman (May 24, 1982). "Computerized games hit profits jackpot for Mattel company". Christian Science Monitor. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved March 16, 2019.
  35. ^ "More Sinclair Computers Than Any Other!". Creative Computing. Vol. 8, no. 4. April 1982. p. 6.
  36. ^ Game Genres: Shmups[permanent dead link], Professor Jim Whitehead, January 29, 2007, Accessed June 17, 2008
  37. ^ "donkey kong [coin-op] arcade video game, nintendo co., ltd. (1981)". Arcade-history.com. Retrieved February 28, 2013.
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