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Overview of the events of 1981 in video games From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
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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.
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]
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 |
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.
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] |
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 |
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] |
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