1980 in video gaming

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1980 has seen many sequels and prequels in video games and several new titles such as Pac-Man, Battlezone and Crazy Climber.

Events[edit]

Electronic Games hosts the first Arcade Awards, the first video game awards ceremony. It awards games released during 1978-1979, with Space Invaders winning the overall Game of the Year award.

New companies: Brøderbund, Bug-Byte, HAL Laboratory, Human Engineered Software, Mindscape, On-Line Systems, Sirius, Sir-Tech
Mattel creates the original five-programmer Intellivision game design team, nicknamed the Blue Sky Rangers in 1982 by a magazine writer in a TV Guide interview.
The arcade game market in the US generates $2.81 billion in revenue^[1] (equivalent to $8.35 billion in 2018).

May 22, Namco releases Pac-Man (originally Puckman in Japan). It becomes the highest-grossing game of all time.^[2] It has the first gaming mascot character, established the maze chase genre, opened gaming to female audiences,^[3] introduced power-ups,^[4] and featured cutscenes.^[5]
May, Stratovox from Sun Electronics is the first game with voice synthesis.
July, Atari, Inc. releases the cold war inspired Missile Command.
October, Nichibutsu releases the vertically-scrolling Crazy Climber, the first video game with a climbing mechanic and an objective of climbing to the top of the level.
November 12, Stern Electronics releases Berzerk, with designer Alan McNeil's signature on the monitor glass of each cabinet.
November, Namco releases Rally-X, the first game with a bonus round. It also features multi-directional scrolling.
November, Universal releases Space Panic, often cited as the first platform game, though the term was still several years in the future.
Atari releases 3D tank shooter Battlezone (it is later enhanced for the US Army for military training—albeit relying on specialized vector graphics hardware).
Cinematronics releases Star Castle. In 1982 the Atari 2600 port ends up as Yars' Revenge.
Midway's Wizard of Wor is released, allowing two players to fight simultaneously in monster-filled mazes.
The multi-stage Phoenix sports one of the first video game bosses, in the form of a purple alien in a mothership.

Atari's port of Space Invaders becomes the 2600's killer app, and the first console title to sell a million copies.
The first batch of games from Activision, all for the Atari 2600, hits stores: Dragster, Fishing Derby, Boxing, Bridge, and Checkers.

December, Infocom releases Zork I, the first Zork game and the first Infocom game.
Rogue is written by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold, spawning the genre of roguelike games.
Edu-Ware releases The Prisoner for the Apple II, loosely based upon the 1960s TV series of the same name.
Strategic Simulations releases its first game: Computer Bismarck for the TRS-80.
Microsoft publishes Olympic Decathlon for the TRS-80, a track and field video game which precedes Konami's Track & Field and The Activision Decathlon by three years.
On-Line Systems publishes its first title, the graphic adventure Mystery House for the Apple II.

May, Namco Pac-Man hardware debuts.
December, Data East releases the DECO Cassette System, the first standardized arcade platform, for which many games are developed during the golden age of arcade video games.

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.
Tandy releases the Tandy Color Computer.