How Full Sized Arcade Games Impacted the Future of the Gaming Industry

Full sized arcade games have been and continue to be one of the most entertaining ways to spend your time, whether it’s alone or with friends and family. From the twentieth century to the twenty-first, these games have been nothing less than spectacular at keeping that inner child spirit in us. Looking for the next best thing, or in this case, the next best game was something everyone anticipated to experience. That is no different today, as these machines continue to evolve and adapt to today’s trends.

Today’s games are things people back then could only dream of or things you have seen in futuristic movies. The technological advances have been happening since 1972 when Atari released Pong. When this happened, this started the spark that caused video games to begin replacing pinball machines, sparking the demand for “video projection” games. It sold over 35,000 units, making it a successful pioneer for coin-operated video games. This started a revolution in the gaming industry causing more than 15 other companies to start producing varieties of video games throughout the years.

1978 was the beginning of the Golden Age for video games and arcade games alike. One of the most popular arcade games of all time released that same year, Space Invaders. The following year Atari would bring Asteroids which became another hit for the company. In the years following that major successes like Pac-Man, Frogger, Centipede, and Galaxian would hit the arcades. These are only a handful of the many successful video games that would emerge from this era.

In this same time frame, home consoles were also starting to come out and gain popularity. What a time for players everywhere to not only have access to video games at the arcade but at home too. There were all kinds of arcade games for sale during that time that you were able to play multiple games on a single system instead of only having 1 option.

From the mid-’90s to the present, we’ve seen games becoming more and more immersive and interactive than they’ve ever been before. In 1999, Dance Dance Revolution hit arcades. This was such a different experience because the machine required players to actually interact with the game by dancing. While there was much speculation on whether it would work well with the American audience, it turned out to be extremely successful and is still in arcades today. Consoles like Nintendo 64, Playstation, and Xbox were huge successes when they first came out which is why they continued to make new and improved consoles as the years went by. So much new technology was pushing this gaming revolution to another level, and arcades were following suit.

Arcade cabinets were evolving into interactive machines that had people hooked. Mario Kart was a racing simulation game where there was a camera on top to take your picture that was included in the game. This game allowed multiple people to play against each other in real-time. Shooting games were widely popular as well because the controller replicated guns and required players to really aim and point accurately to accomplish game tasks.

Fast forward to today and we are seeing 4D arcade rides and virtual reality(VR) games in almost every arcade. When going to arcades today, you will see that full sized arcade games are adjusting to today’s trends and new immersive technology. Just like they were back then, arcades will always be a place where people young and old will go to play classics and the next best thing. They are, in a sense, timeless.