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==Business== The golden age was a time of great technical and design creativity in arcade games. The era saw the rapid spread of [[video arcade]]s across North America, Europe, and Asia. The number of video game arcades in North America, for example, more than doubled between 1980 and 1982;<ref name="Wolf-105">{{Citation|title=The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond|author=Mark J. P. Wolf|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|isbn=0-313-33868-X|page=105|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiM0ntMybNwC&pg=PA105}}</ref> reaching a peak of 10,000 video game arcades across the region (compared to 4,000 as of 1998).<ref name="Mark Stephen Pierce Atari Games Corporation 1998 444">{{Cite book|work=Digital illusion: entertaining the future with high technology |title=Coin-Op: The Life (Arcade Videogames) |author=Mark Stephen Pierce (Atari Games Corporation) |publisher=[[ACM Press]] |year=1998 |isbn=0-201-84780-9 |url=http://www.communication.illinois.edu/csandvig/classes/Pierce.pdf |page=444 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723224105/http://www.communication.illinois.edu/csandvig/classes/Pierce.pdf |archivedate=July 23, 2011 |df= }}</ref> Beginning with ''Space Invaders'', video arcade games also started to appear in supermarkets, restaurants, [[liquor store]]s, [[gas station]]s and many other retail establishments looking for extra income.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.next-gen.biz/features/30-defining-moments-gaming |title=The 30 Defining Moments in Gaming |publisher=[[Future plc]] |work=[[Edge (magazine)|Edge]] |author=Edge Staff |date=August 13, 2007 |accessdate=September 18, 2008 |deadurl=yes |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20111029232528/http://www.next-gen.biz/features/30-defining-moments-gaming |archivedate=October 29, 2011 |df= }}</ref> Video game arcades at the time became as common as convenience stores, while arcade games like ''Pac-Man'' and ''Space Invaders'' would appear in most locations across the United States, including even [[funeral home]]s.<ref name="Wolf-44">{{Citation|title=The medium of the video game|author=Mark J. P. Wolf|publisher=[[University of Texas Press]]|year=2001|isbn=0-292-79150-X|page=44|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lKZriBxbcwQC&pg=PA44 |quote=going into virtually every location in the country [..] even a few funeral homes had video games in the basements}}</ref> The sales of arcade video game machines increased significantly during this period, from $50 million in 1978 to $900 million in 1981,<ref name="Wolf-105"/> with 500,000 arcade machines sold in the United States at prices ranging as high as $3000 in 1982 alone.<ref>{{Citation|title=Sociology: principles and applications|author1=James A. Inciardi |author2=Robert A. Rothman |edition=2|publisher=[[Harcourt Brace Jovanovich]]|year=1990|isbn=0-15-582290-X|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WtLZAAAAIAAJ|page=540|quote=To cash in on the Pac-Man video mania, game developers also introduced Asteroids, Frogger, Donkey Kong, Tron, and hundreds more. By 1982, arcade games had become a multi-billion dollar industry. In that year alone, almost 500,000 machines were sold at prices ranging as high as $3000 each.}}</ref> By 1982, there were 24,000 full arcades, 400,000 arcade street locations and 1.5 million arcade machines active in North America.<ref>{{Citation|title=The ultimate history of video games: from Pong to Pokémon and beyond : the story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world|author=Steve L. Kent|publisher=[[Prima Publishing|Prima]]|year=2001|isbn=0-7615-3643-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2MH05ogU9oC&q=400%2C000|accessdate=March 15, 2012|page=152}}</ref> The market was very competitive; the average life span of an arcade game was four to six months. Some games like ''[[Robby Roto]]'' failed because they were too complex to learn quickly, and others like ''[[Star Fire]]'' because they were too unfamiliar to the audience. ''[[Qix]]'' was briefly very popular but, Taito's Keith Egging later said, "too mystifying for gamers ... impossible to master and when the novelty wore off, the game faded".<ref name="pearl198306">{{Cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/electronic-games-magazine-1983-06/Electronic_Games_Issue_16_Vol_02_04_1983_Jun#page/n79/mode/2up | title=Closet Classics | work=Electronic Games | date=June 1983 | accessdate=6 January 2015 | author=Pearl, Rick | pages=82}}</ref> At around this time, the home video game industry ([[Second generation of video game hardware|second-generation]] [[video game console]]s and early [[PC game|home computer games]]) emerged as "an outgrowth of the widespread success of video arcades" at the time.<ref name="Enterprise-1982"/> In 1980, the U.S. arcade video game industry's revenue generated from [[Quarter (United States coin)|quarters]] tripled to $2.8 billion.<ref>{{Citation|title=Electronic Education|work=Electronic Education|volume=2|issue=5–8|publisher=Electronic Communications|year=1983|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nFBRAAAAYAAJ|page=41|quote=In 1980 alone, according to Time, $2.8 billion in quarters, triple the amount of the previous years, were fed into video games. That represents 11.2 billion games, an average of almost 50 games for every person in the US.}}</ref> By 1981, the arcade video game industry in the United States was generating an annual revenue of over $5 billion<ref name="Whittaker-122"/><ref name="Mark J. P. Wolf 103">{{Citation|title=The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond|author=Mark J. P. Wolf|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|isbn=0-313-33868-X|page=103|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiM0ntMybNwC&pg=PA103}}</ref> with some estimates as high as $10.5 billion for all video games (arcade and home) in the U.S. that year, which would be three times the amount spent on movie tickets in 1981.<ref>{{Citation|title=Computer-mediated communication: human relationships in a computerized world|author1=James W. Chesebro |author2=Donald G. Bonsall |publisher=[[University of Alabama Press]]|year=1989|isbn=0-8173-0460-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6Se3AAAAIAAJ|page=130|quote=In 1981, $10.5 billion was spent on all features of video games, 3 times the amount spent on movie tickets that year (Surrey, 1982, p. 74).}}</ref> The total revenue for the U.S. arcade video game industry in 1981 was estimated at more than $7 billion<ref name="roschild16">{{Citation|title=Videodisks, microcomputers form integrated systems|author=Edward S. Roschild|work=[[InfoWorld]]|date=Jun 21, 1982|volume=4|issue=24|issn=0199-6649|publisher=InfoWorld Media Group|page=16|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XjAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA16|accessdate=February 25, 2012|quote=The figure of more than $7 billion for last year's video arcade game revenues is a conservative one. Some industry analysts estimate that the real amount spent on video games was as much as five times higher.}}</ref> though some analysts estimated the real amount may have been much higher.<ref name="roschild16"/> By 1982, video games accounted for 87% of the $8.9 billion in commercial games sales in the United States.<ref name="citron82_13"/> In 1982, the arcade video game industry's revenue in quarters was estimated at $8 billion<ref name="Rogers-Larsen-263">{{Citation|title=Silicon Valley fever: growth of high-technology culture|author1=Everett M. Rogers |author2=Judith K. Larsen |publisher=[[Basic Books]]|year=1984|isbn=0-465-07821-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=frYrAAAAYAAJ|page=263|quote=Video game machines have an average weekly take of $109 per machine. The video arcade industry took in $8 billion in quarters in 1982, surpassing pop music (at $4 billion in sales per year) and Hollywood films ($3 billion). Those 32 billion arcade games played translate to 143 games for every man, woman, and child in America. A recent Atari survey showed that 86 percent of the US population from 13 to 20 has played some kind of video game and an estimated 8 million US homes have video games hooked up to the television set. Sales of home video games were $3.8 billion in 1982, approximately half that of video game arcades.}}</ref> surpassing the annual gross revenue of both pop music ($4 billion) and [[Cinema of the United States|Hollywood]] films ($3 billion) combined that year.<ref name="Rogers-Larsen-263"/><ref name="CBC-1982">{{Cite news|title=Making millions, 25 cents at a time|work=[[Wikipedia:The Fifth Estate (TV)|The Fifth Estate]]|publisher=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]]|date=November 23, 1982|url=http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/media/clips/15869/}}</ref> It also exceeded the revenues of all major sports combined at the time,<ref name="CBC-1982"/> earning three times the combined ticket and television revenues of [[Major League Baseball]], basketball, and [[American football]], as well as earning twice as much as all the [[casino]]s in [[Nevada]] combined.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Games That Play People |url=http://www.gamearchive.com/General/Articles/ClassicNews/1982/TimePg51.htm |accessdate=March 7, 2012 |newspaper=[[Wikipedia:Time (magazine)|Time]] |date=January 18, 1982 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081004145256/http://www.gamearchive.com/General/Articles/ClassicNews/1982/TimePg51.htm |archivedate=October 4, 2008 |pages=50–53 [51] |deadurl=unfit }}</ref> This was also more than twice as much revenue as the $3.8 billion generated by the home video game industry (during the [[Second generation of video game hardware|second generation of consoles]]) that same year;<ref name="Rogers-Larsen-263"/> both the arcade and home markets combined added up to a total revenue between $11.8 billion and $12.8 billion for the U.S. video game industry in 1982. In comparison, the U.S. video game industry in 2011 generated total revenues between $16.3 billion and $16.6 billion.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Gilbert|first=Ben|title=NPD 2011: Sales across industry between $16.3 and $16.6 billion, Ubi tops software sales list|url=http://www.joystiq.com/2012/01/12/npd-2011-sales-across-industry-between-16-3-and-16-6-billion/|work=[[Joystiq]]|publisher=Joystiq|accessdate=March 17, 2012|date=January 12, 2012}}</ref> Prior to the golden age, [[pinball]] machines were more popular than video games. The pinball industry reached a peak of 200,000 machine sales and $2.3 billion revenue in 1979, which had declined to 33,000 machines and $464 million in 1982.<ref name="citron82_13">{{Cite news|last=Citron|first=Alan|title=The Rise And Fall Of Pinball |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0SArAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HpYEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6917,9675959|accessdate=March 13, 2012|newspaper=[[Pittsburgh Press]]|date=December 14, 1982|page=13}}</ref> In comparison, the [[List of best-selling video games#Arcade|best-selling arcade games]] of the golden age, ''Space Invaders'' and ''[[Pac-Man]]'', had each sold over 360,000<ref name="sha57">{{Citation|title=Asia Pacific perspectives, Japan|volume=1|author=Jiji Gaho Sha, inc.|year=2003|publisher=[[University of Virginia]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CTRWAAAAYAAJ|page=57|quote=At that time, a game for use in entertainment arcades was considered a hit if it sold 1000 units; sales of Space Invaders topped 300,000 units in Japan and 60,000 units overseas.}}</ref> and 400,000<ref name="Kao 1989 45">{{Cite book|last=Kao|first=John J.|title=Entrepreneurship, creativity & organization: text, cases & readings|year=1989|publisher=[[Prentice Hall]]|location=Englewood Cliffs, NJ|isbn=0-13-283011-6|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P-MJAQAAMAAJ|authorlink=John Kao|accessdate=February 12, 2012|page=45|quote=Estimates counted 7 billion coins that by 1982 had been inserted into some 400,000 Pac Man machines worldwide, equal to one game of Pac Man for every person on earth. US domestic revenues from games and licensing of the Pac Man image for T-shirts, pop songs, to wastepaper baskets, etc. exceeded $1 billion.}}</ref> cabinets, respectively, with each machine costing between $2000 and $3000 (specifically $2400 in ''Pac-Man's'' case).<ref>{{Citation|title=Video arcades rival Broadway theatre and girlie shows in NY|work=[[InfoWorld]]|date=April 12, 1982|volume=4|issue=14|issn=0199-6649|page=15|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YjAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA15}}</ref> In addition, ''Space Invaders'' had grossed $2 billion in quarters by 1982,<ref name="CBC-1982"/> while ''Pac-Man'' had grossed over $1 billion by 1981<ref name="Barton-181">{{Citation|title=Vintage games: an insider look at the history of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the most influential games of all time|author1=Bill Loguidice |author2=Matt Barton |publisher=[[Focal Press]]|year=2009|isbn=0-240-81146-1|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M_bFdsP9L7oC|page=181|quote=The machines were well worth the investment; in total they raked in over a billion dollars worth of quarters in the first year alone.}}</ref> and $2.5 billion by the late 1990s.<ref name="Wolf-73">{{Cite book|title=The Video Game Explosion: A History from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond|author=Mark J. P. Wolf|publisher=[[ABC-CLIO]]|year=2008|isbn=0-313-33868-X|chapter=Video Game Stars: Pac-Man|page=73|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XiM0ntMybNwC&pg=PA73|quote=It would go on to become arguably the most famous video game of all time, with the arcade game alone taking in more than a billion dollars, and one study estimated that it had been played more than 10 billion times during the twentieth century.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|title=Pac Man turns 25: A pizza dinner yields a cultural phenomenon – and millions of dollars in quarters|date=May 10, 2005|author=Chris Morris|publisher=CNN|url=http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/10/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm|quote=In the late 1990s, Twin Galaxies, which tracks video game world record scores, visited used game auctions and counted how many times the average Pac Man machine had been played. Based on those findings and the total number of machines that were manufactured, the organization said it believed the game had been played more than 10 billion times in the 20th century.}}</ref> In 1982, ''Space Invaders'' was considered the highest-grossing entertainment product of its time, with comparisons made to the then [[List of highest-grossing films|highest-grossing film]] ''[[Wikipedia:Star Wars (film)|Star Wars]]'',<ref name="CBC-1982"/><ref name="Executive-SW"/> which had grossed $486 million,<ref name="Executive-SW">{{Citation|title=Space Invaders vs. Star Wars|work=Executive|volume=24|publisher=Southam Business Publications|year=1982|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-KwTAQAAMAAJ|page=9|quote=They compare this to the box office movie top blockbuster Star Wars, which has taken in only $486 million, for a net of $175 million.}}</ref> while ''Pac-Man'' is today considered the [[List of best-selling video games|highest-grossing arcade game]] of all time.<ref>{{Citation|title=The ultimate history of video games: from Pong to Pokémon and beyond : the story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world|author=Steve L. Kent|publisher=[[Prima Publishing|Prima]]|year=2001|isbn=0-7615-3643-4|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2MH05ogU9oC|page=143|quote=Rumors emerged that the unknown creator of Pac-Man had left the industry when he received only a $3500 bonus for creating the highest-grossing video game of all time.}}</ref> Many other arcade games during the golden age also had hardware unit sales at least in the tens of thousands, including ''[[Ms. Pac-Man]]'' with over 115,000 units, ''[[Asteroids]]'' with 70,000,<ref name="Wolf-44"/> ''[[Donkey Kong]]'' with over 60,000,<ref name="Kent-352">{{Citation|author=Steven L. Kent|year=2001|title=The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story behind the Craze that Touched Our Lives and Changed the World|publisher=[[Prima Games|Prima]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2MH05ogU9oC|page=352|quote=With more than 60,000 units sold in the United States, Donkey Kong was Nintendo's biggest arcade hit. ... Nintendo released Donkey Kong Junior in 1982 and sold only 30,000 machines, 20,000 Popeye machines (also 1982), and a mere 5000 copies of Donkey J (1983).}}</ref> ''[[Defender]]'' with 55,000,<ref name="Steven L. Kent 2001 147">{{Citation|author=Steven L. Kent|year=2001|title=The Ultimate History of Video Games: The Story behind the Craze that Touched Our Lives and Changed the World|publisher=[[Prima Games|Prima]]|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C2MH05ogU9oC|page=147|quote=Defender was Williams Electronics' biggest seller. More than 55,000 units were placed worldwide.}}</ref> ''[[Galaxian]]'' with 40,000,<ref name="Bureau of National Affairs 1983">{{Citation|title=United States Patents Quarterly, Volume 216|work=[[United States Patents Quarterly]]|volume=216|author=[[Bureau of National Affairs]]|publisher=Associated Industry Publications|year=1983|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EbVCAQAAIAAJ|quote=Since February 1980, Midway has sold in excess of 40,000 Galaxian games}}</ref> ''[[Donkey Kong Junior]]'' with 35,000,<ref name="Kent-352"/> ''[[Mr. Do!]]'' with 30,000,<ref name="Steve L. Kent 2001 352">{{Citation|title=The ultimate history of video games: from Pong to Pokémon and beyond : the story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world|author=Steve L. Kent|publisher=[[Prima Games|Prima]]|year=2001|isbn=0-7615-3643-4|page=352|quote=In 1982, Universal Sales made arcade history with a game called Mr Do! Instead of selling dedicated Mr Do! machines, Universal sold the game as a kit. The kit came with a customized control panel, a computer board with Mr Do! read-only memory (ROM) chips, stickers that could be placed on the side of stand-up arcade machines for art, and a plastic marquee. It was the first game ever sold as a conversion only. According to former Universal Sales western regional sales manager Joe Morici, the company sold approximately 30,000 copies of the game in the United States alone.}}</ref> and ''[[Tempest]]'' with 29,000 units.<ref name="atari_memo2"/> A number of arcade games also generated revenues (from quarters) in the hundreds of millions, including ''Defender'' with more than $100 million<ref name="Mark J. P. Wolf 103"/> in addition to many more with revenues in the tens of millions, including ''[[Dragon's Lair]]'' with $48 million and ''[[Space Ace]]'' with $13 million.<ref name="Allgame-Dyer">{{Cite web|title=Rick Dyer: Biography|publisher=[[Allgame]]|url=http://www.allgame.com/person.php?id=3332}}</ref> The most successful arcade game companies of this era included Taito (which ushered in the golden age with the [[shooter game]] ''Space Invaders''<ref name="Kent-500"/> and produced other successful arcade [[action game]]s such as ''[[Gun Fight]]'' and ''[[Jungle Hunt|Jungle King]]''), [[Namco]] (the Japanese company that created ''Galaxian'', ''Pac-Man'', ''[[Pole Position]]'' and ''[[Dig Dug]]'') and [[Atari]] (the company that introduced video games into arcades with ''Computer Space'' and ''Pong'', and later produced ''Asteroids''). Other companies such as [[SEGA]] (who later entered the home console market against its former arch rival, Nintendo), [[Nintendo]] (whose [[mascot]], [[Mario]], was introduced in 1981's ''[[Donkey Kong (arcade game)|Donkey Kong]]'' as "Jumpman"), [[Midway Games|Bally Midway Manufacturing Company]] (which was later purchased by Williams), [[Cinematronics]], [[Konami]], [[Centuri]], [[Williams]] and [[SNK Playmore|SNK]] also gained popularity around this era.
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