30 years of Space Invaders
June 30th, 2008 by Andre
Photo by (stacker)
Did you know that Space Invaders drove the Japanese so crazy, that the coins which were used to get a credit to play the arcade ran into a shortage? That it was programmed, designed and engineered by only one guy? Find more interesting facts here.
I would say, together with Pac Man, Tennis for Two (Pong) and Breakout, Space Invaders is one of the most famous and influential Video Games of all time. This month it turns 30 years!
(If you shamelessly forgot, what that game is about again, play it here).
A few years ago, an interesting project as a hommage to Space Invaders began all over the world. Space was invaded. Fotos were taken. And then some brave folks took up the challenge in the cinema:
Happy Birthday, Space Invaders! Here’s to you, for another 30 years.
July 8th, 2008 at 19:24
Indeed interesting, but I think one videogame far more influential than space invaders was Spacewar!. Some people say it is the First “Computer game”. While Space invaders became a trademark, it helped the commercialization of videogames in the forms of arcade; Spacewar! developed at MIT during the 60′s, was born from the hacker culture. It was aimed to demonstrate, what computers can do!. “Computers are not just big machines to perform calculations!”. They said at that time.
Hackers made Spacewar!,whereas planners did Space Invaders. In history of videogames and in games culture this is an important. difference.
July 8th, 2008 at 19:33
This project, by now a lit bit old 1998, shows Space Invaders in a different role.
Trigger Happy.
For those interested in Video games as art form or in digital art this is a remarkable piece.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:43
Well, Spacewar! was, as you stated, a computer game, not a video game. The difference is that video games are developed on a plattform solely used for this purpose (running the game, playing the game). The first video game was Tennis for Two, developed by a researcher at the Brookhaven National Labs who, by the way, witnessed the first detonation of the atomic bomb. The idea was later developed into a game we know today as (Ping) Pong.
It is very hard to say what influence Spacewar! actually had in comparison to those other video games. Quite sure I can say that the influence of games like Space Invaders, Pac Man, etc. was much more obvious on a general cultural level. On the technical level, Spacewar! definitely showed some new paths for software developers, but hardly anyone remembers that game by name nowadays.