1980 in video gaming

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Notable releases

Games

• May 22, Namco releases Pac-Man, which is their biggest selling game of all time
• December, Nintendo releases the Radar Scope arcade game
• Namco releases Navalone, Kaitei Takara Sagashi, SOS, King and Balloon, which is the first game to feature synthesized voices, Tank Battalion and Rally-X, which is the first game to feature a bonus round.
• Rogue is written by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold, spawning the category of roguelike games.
• Nintendo releases the Game & Watch handheld LCD game by Gunpei Yokoi.
• Stern Electronics releases the Berzerk arcade game.
• Warner Communications' Atari releases the Missile Command arcade game, and the Battlezone arcade game (it was later enhanced for the US Army for military training)—albeit relying on specialized vector graphics hardware.
• Williams Electronics releases the Defender arcade game.
• Warner Communications' Atari releases the Centipede (by Ed Logg & Dona Bailey) and Warlords arcade games and also the Tempest color vector arcade game.
• Universal release the arcade game Space Panic, often cited as the first platform game.
• Edu-Ware releases The Prisoner, loosely based upon the 1960s TV series of the same name. Programmed by David Mullich, it became a classic of the Apple II platform.
• Infocom releases Zork I, the first Zork game and the first Infocom game.

Hardware

• Mattel releases the Intellivision video game console.
• Sinclair Research releases the ZX80 home computer and Acorn Computers release the Atom, the first 'domestic' computers to play games in the UK.

Business

• New companies: Mindscape, Inc., Sierra On-Line.
• Mattel creates the original five-programmer Intellivision game design team, nicknamed the Blue Sky Rangers by a magazine writer when the company keeps their names secret in a TV Guide interview.