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1982 was the peak year for the golden age of arcade video games as well as the second generation of video game consoles. Many games were released that would spawn franchises, or at least sequels, including Dig Dug, Pole Position, Mr. Do!, Zaxxon, Q*bert, Time Pilot and Pitfall! The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, for the third year in a row, while the year's best-selling home system was the Atari 2600 (Atari VCS). Additional video game consoles added to a crowded market, notably the ColecoVision and Atari 5200. Troubles at Atari late in the year triggered the video game crash of 1983.

Financial performance

• The US arcade video game market is worth $4.3 billion, equivalent to $13.6 billion adjusted for inflation.
• The US home video game market is worth $3.8 billion, equivalent to $12 billion adjusted for inflation.
• The Japanese home video game market is approaching ¥300 billion, equivalent to $4.35 billion adjusted for inflation.

Highest-grossing arcade games

The highest-grossing arcade game of 1982 was Pac-Man, which had accumulated a total revenue of $6 billion worldwide ($18.9 billion adjusted for inflation) by 1982.

Japan

In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1982, according to the annual Game Machine chart.

United States

In the United States, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade games of 1982, according to RePlay and Cash Box magazines and the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA).

The following table lists the top-grossing titles of each month in 1982, according to the RePlay and Play Meter charts.

Best-selling home video games

The following titles were 1982's best-selling home video games.

Best-selling home systems

Events

• December 27 – Starcade, a video game television game show, debuts on TBS in the United States.

Major awards

• Electronic Games holds the third Arcade Awards, for games released during 1980–1981. Pac-Man wins the best arcade game award, Asteroids (Atari VCS) wins the best console game award, and Star Raiders (Atari 8-bit computers) wins the best computer game award.
• Pac-Man wins the Video Software Dealers Association's VSDA Award for Best Videogame.

Business

• Eidansha Boshu Service Center shortens its name to Enix and in August establishes itself as a computer game publisher.
• New companies:
  • Argonaut
  • Artech
  • Compile
  • Cosmi
  • Data Age
  • Distinctive Software
  • Dragon Data
  • Electronic Arts
  • English Software
  • First Star Software
  • Gamestar
  • Imagine Software
  • Llamasoft
  • Lucasfilm Games
  • Martech
  • MicroProse
  • Richard Shepherd Software
  • System 3
  • Ultimate Play the Game
  • U.S. Games

Notable releases

Games

Arcade

• January – Sega releases Zaxxon, which introduces isometric graphics and looks far more 3D than any other raster game at the time.
• January 13 – Midway releases Ms. Pac-Man (despite it being copyrighted as 1981); it is (as the name suggests) the sequel to Pac-Man, but was created without Namco's authorization. They also release Baby Pac-Man and Pac-Man Plus without Namco's authorization later in the year; the former is a pinball/video game hybrid.
• April 19 – Namco releases Dig Dug, manufactured by Atari in North America.
• August – Nintendo releases Donkey Kong Jr., the sequel to Donkey Kong.
• August – Taito releases parallax scroller Jungle Hunt.
• September 24 – Namco releases Pole Position, one of the first games with stereophonic and quadraphonic sound. Featuring a pseudo-3D, third-person, rear-view perspective, it becomes the most popular racing game of its time.
• September – Sega releases maze game Pengo, starring a cute penguin.
• October – Namco releases Super Pac-Man, the third title in the Pac-Man series.
• October – Universal releases Mr. Do! solely as a conversion kit, the first game in the series.
• October – Gottlieb releases Q*bert.
• November – Konami releases Time Pilot.
• Bally/Midway releases the Tron arcade game before the movie.
• Atari releases Gravitar which, though extraordinarily difficult, inspires a number of gravity-based home computer games.
• Williams Electronics releases Joust, Robotron: 2084, and the second game of the year with parallax scrolling, Irem's Moon Patrol. Robotron popularizes the twin-stick control scheme for fast action games.
• Data East releases BurgerTime.
• Taito releases Front Line, which creates the blueprint for mid-80s, vertically scrolling, commando games.
• Electro Sport releases Quarter Horse, the first Laserdisc video game.
• Kangaroo is one of the first Donkey Kong-inspired games to become popular in arcades.
• Gottlieb releases Reactor.

Console

• February – Atari releases Haunted House for the 2600, which is later considered one of the first survival horror games.
• March – Atari's Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man hits stores.
• April – Activision releases Pitfall!, which goes on to sell 4 million copies.
• May – Atari releases Yars' Revenge.
• August – Overlooked arcade games are revitalized as ColecoVision launch titles, including Cosmic Avenger, Mouse Trap, Lady Bug, and Venture.
• October – Atari releases Swordquest: Earthworld, the first title in a planned four-game contest.
• December – Atari releases E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Written in five and a half weeks, it's one of the games that sparks the video game crash of 1983.
• Activision releases River Raid, Megamania, Barnstorming, Chopper Command, and Starmaster for the Atari 2600. River Raid becomes one of the all-time bestselling games for the system.
• Starpath releases Dragonstomper (the only RPG for the Atari 2600) and Escape From the Mindmaster.
• Parker Brothers releases Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back for the Atari 2600, which is the first Star Wars video game.
• Imagic releases Demon Attack, Atlantis, Cosmic Ark, and Dragonfire for the 2600. Atlantis sells over a million copies while Demon Attack doubles that.

Computer

• March 11 – Infocom releases their first non-Zork title, Deadline.
• August 24 – Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress is released.
• November – Microsoft Flight Simulator 1.0 is released for MS-DOS. It becomes a standard compatibility test for early PC clones.
• Big Five Software releases the widely ported Miner 2049er, a platform game with ten screens compared to the four of Donkey Kong.
• Broderbund releases Choplifter for the Apple II.
• Edu-Ware releases Prisoner 2 for the Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, and IBM PC compatibles.
• Koei releases The Dragon and Princess, the earliest known Japanese RPG, for NEC's PC-8001 home computer platform. It is an early example of tactical turn-based combat in the RPG genre.
• Koei releases Night Life, the first erotic computer game (Eroge). The company also released the erotic title, Seduction of the Condominium Wife (団地妻の誘惑, Danchi Tsuma no Yūwaku), which was an early role-playing adventure game with color graphics, owing to the eight-color palette of the PC-8001 computer. It became a hit, helping Koei become a major software company.
• Pony Canyon releases Spy Daisakusen, another early Japanese RPG. Based on the Mission: Impossible franchise, it replaces the traditional fantasy setting with a modern espionage setting.
• Sir-Tech releases Wizardry II: The Knight of Diamonds, the second scenario in the Wizardry series.
• Sierra On-Line releases Time Zone for the Apple II. Written and directed by Roberta Williams, the graphical adventure game shipped with 6 double-sided floppy disks and cost US$99.
• Synapse releases Necromancer and Shamus for the Atari 8-bit computers.
• Hiroyuki Imabayashi's Sokoban is released for the PC-88 and becomes an oft-cloned puzzle game concept.
• Datamost releases the action/adventure game Aztec for the Apple II.
• The Arcade Machine from Broderbund is one of the first general-purpose game creation kits.

Hardware

Arcade

• January – Sega releases the Sega Zaxxon, an arcade system board that introduces isometric graphics.
• September – Namco releases the Namco Pole Position, the first arcade system board to use 16-bit microprocessors, with two Zilog Z8002 processors. It is capable of pseudo-3D, sprite-scaling, and displays up to 3840 colors.

Console

• May – Emerson releases the Arcadia 2001.
• August – Starpath releases the Starpath Supercharger add-on for the Atari 2600
• August – Coleco launches ColecoVision in North America, the first console with versions of Donkey Kong and Sega's isometric Zaxxon.
• November – General Consumer Electronics releases the Vectrex with built-in vector monitor.
• November – Atari renames the venerable Atari Video Computer System to the Atari 2600.
• Atari releases the Atari 5200, a console based on the hardware of Atari 8-bit computers with analog joysticks and no keyboard.
• Entex releases the Adventure Vision tabletop console.

Computer

• July – Timex Sinclair releases a modified ZX81 in the US as the TS1000. It's the first sub-$100 home computer.
• Commodore Business Machines releases the Commodore 64 home computer, which would become one of the best-selling computers of all time.
• NEC releases the NEC PC-98, which would become the Japanese market leader and one of the best-selling computers of all time. It is released as the APC overseas.
• Sharp releases the X1.
• Sinclair Research releases the ZX Spectrum home computer, which would become Britain's best-selling computer.
• Dragon Data, initially a subsidiary of Mettoy, releases the Dragon 32 home microcomputer.

See also

• 1982 in games

Notes

1. Atari VCS version sold 7,271,844 cartridges ($200 million). Coleco's Mini-Arcade version sold 1.5 million units. Nelsonic Game Watch version sold more than 500,000 units.
2. ColecoVision version sold 550,000 cartridges. Atari VCS version sold 4 million cartridges ($100 million).

References

1. Video Game Myth Busters - Did the "Crash" of 1983/84 Affect Arcades?, The Golden Age Arcade Historian (December 27, 2013)
2. Everett M. Rogers & Judith K. Larsen (1984), Silicon Valley fever: growth of high-technology culture, Basic Books, p. 263, ISBN 0-465-07821-4, Video game machines have an average weekly take of $109 per machine. The video arcade industry took in $8 billion in quarters in 1982, surpassing pop music (at $4 billion in sales per year) and Hollywood films ($3 billion). Those 32 billion arcade games played translate to 143 games for every man, woman, and child in America. A recent Atari survey showed that 86 percent of the US population from 13 to 20 has played some kind of video game and an estimated 8 million US homes have video games hooked up to the television set. Sales of home video games were $3.8 billion in 1982, approximately half that of video game arcades.
3. "The Home Video-Game Industry (1983-1996) - Competitive Strategy Revolving around Industry Standards" (PDF). gbrc.jp. p. 43.
4. Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader. Portable Press. September 1999. p. 373. ISBN 978-1-879682-74-0. In 1982 alone, Americans pumped $6 billion in quarters into Pac-Man's mouth—more than they spent in Las Vegas casinos and movie theatres combined.
5. Uncle John's Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader. Simon and Schuster. November 2012. p. 348. ISBN 978-1-60710-670-8. In 1982 alone, Americans pumped $6 billion in quarters into Pac-Man's mouth—more than they spent in Las Vegas casinos and movie theatres combined.
6. ""Pole Position" No. 1 Video Game: Game Machine's "The Year's Best Three AM Machines" Survey Results" (PDF). Game Machine. No. 207. Amusement Press, Inc. March 1, 1983. p. 30.
7. "1982 Jukebox / Games Route Survey". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co. November 20, 1982. p. 53.
8. "AMOA Announces Jukebox and Games Awards Winners". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co.: 37 October 30, 1982.
9. ^ "1982". Play Meter. Vol. 20, no. 13. December 1994. p. 68.
10. ^ "Top Hits of Last 5 Years". RePlay. March 1987.
11. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. January 1982.
12. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. February 1982.
13. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. March 1982.
14. ^ "Top Videos". Play Meter. May 1, 1982.
15. "Ten Years Ago". Play Meter. Vol. 18, no. 5. April 1992. p. 52.
16. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. April 1982.
17. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. May 1982.
18. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. June 1982.
19. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. July 1982.
20. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. August 1982.
21. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. September 1982.
22. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. October 1982.
23. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. November 1982.
24. "RePlay: The Players' Choice". RePlay. December 1982.
25. Sullivan, George (1983). Screen Play: The Story of Video Games. F. Warne. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-7232-6251-0. Before the end of the year Ms. Pac-Man had climbed to the top of the Play Meter chart.
26. ^ Cartridge Sales Since 1980. Atari Corp. Via "The Agony & The Ecstasy". Once Upon Atari. Episode 4. Scott West Productions. August 10, 2003. 23 minutes in.
27. Green, Mark J.; Berry, John Francis (1985). The Challenge of Hidden Profits: Reducing Corporate Bureaucracy and Waste. W. Morrow. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-688-03986-8. By 1981, Atari's sales grew to $1 billion as it controlled about 75 percent of the fast-growing video game market. The dizzying climb continued into 1982, with Pac-Man alone bringing in over $200 million.
28. "Coleco Mini-Arcades Go Gold" (PDF). Arcade Express. Vol. 1, no. 1. August 15, 1982. p. 4.
29. ^ "More Mini-Arcades Coming From Coleco" (PDF). Arcade Express. Vol. 1, no. 13. January 30, 1983. p. 2.
30. Shea, Tom (December 20, 1982). "Shrinking Pac-Man leads game-wristwatch market". InfoWorld. Vol. 4, no. 50. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. pp. 44–5. ISSN 0199-6649.
31. ^ Carlisle, Rodney P. (April 2, 2009). Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society. SAGE Publishing. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-4129-6670-2.
32. Kitchen, Garry E. (March 5, 2010). "Garry E. Kitchen". Expert Report of Garry E. Kitchen (PDF). United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. p. 2. Designed & programmed Atari 2600 adaptation of hit arcade game Donkey Kong, 1982 wholesale revenues in excess of $100 million on 4 million units.
33. "Ed English: 2600 (Frogger, Mr. Do!, Roc 'n Rope)" (PDF). Digital Press. No. 52. May–June 2003. p. 7. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
34. Sigel, Efrem; Giglio, Louis (1984). Guide to Software Publishing: An Industry Emerges. Knowledge Industry Publications. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-86729-108-7. Pitfall won the award from Electronic Games magazine as the best video game adventure of 1983, and in 1982 sold more than 1 million copies.
35. "Our games have birthdays, but they don't get old". Cash Box. Cash Box Pub. Co.: FS-5 October 8, 1983.
36. Guins, Raiford (January 24, 2014). Game After: A Cultural Study of Video Game Afterlife. MIT Press. p. 324. ISBN 978-0-262-32018-4.
37. Japan Company Handbook. Toyo Keizai. 1982. p. 729. In Aug. '82 term, sales of "Game & Watch" will increase from 4.6 million to 7 million units
38. ^ Secretan, Lance H. K. (1986). Managerial Moxie: A Basic Strategy for the Corporate Trenches. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-03-928852-5. Industry observers estimate that while Intellivision unit sales sank from 1.1 million units in 1982 to 550,000 in 1983, Coleco Vision unit sales rocketed from 550,000 to 1.2 million
39. ^ Libes, Sol (April 1983). "Bytelines: Market Share for the PC". BYTE. Vol. 8, no. 4. pp. 457–460 (458). Retrieved December 6, 2021 – via Internet Archive.
40. Reimer, Jeremy (December 15, 2005). "Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on June 7, 2012. Retrieved November 27, 2021.
    • Jeremy Reimer (December 7, 2012). "Total Share: Personal Computer Market Share 1975-2010". Jeremy Reimer.
41. Shea, Tom (December 20, 1982). "Shrinking Pac-Man leads game-wristwatch market". InfoWorld. Vol. 4, no. 50. InfoWorld Media Group, Inc. pp. 44–5. ISSN 0199-6649.
42. "Pac-Man Scores!". Electronic Games. Vol. 1, no. 11. January 1983. p. 12.
43. ^ Buchanan, Levi (August 26, 2008). "Top 10 Best-Selling Atari 2600 Games". IGN.
44. "ランダム・アクセス・メモ". Oh! FM-7. August 4, 2001. p. 4. Archived from the original on March 22, 2012. Retrieved September 19, 2011. (Translation)
45. "Dark Age of JRPGS (1): The Dragon & Princess (1982)".
46. Retro Japanese Computers: Gaming's Final Frontier, Hardcore Gaming 101, reprinted from Retro Gamer, Issue 67, 2009
47. "Danchizuma no Yuuwaku". Legendra. Archived from the original on July 13, 2011. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
48. "Danchi-zuma no Yuuwaku". GameSpot. Retrieved March 16, 2011.
49. Pesimo, Rudyard Contretas (2007). "'Asianizing' Animation in Asia: Digital Content Identity Construction Within the Animation Landscapes of Japan and Thailand" (PDF). Reflections on the Human Condition: Change, Conflict and Modernity—The Work of the 2004/2005 API Fellows. The Nippon Foundation. pp. 124–160. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 4, 2011.
50. "Dark Age of JRPGS (2): Some games we cannot play".
51. "Oh!FM-7：スパイ大作戦（ポニカ）". Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved November 6, 2014.
52. "Time Zone: An interview with Roberta Williams". Computer Gaming World. May–June 1982. pp. 14–15.
53. Defanti, Thomas A. (1984). "The Mass Impact of Videogame Technology" (PDF). Advances in Computers. 23: 115.
54. "MAME | SRC/Mame/Drivers/Polepos.c". Archived from the original on October 6, 2014. Retrieved 2014-11-06.
55. Cellan-Jones, Rory (April 23, 2012). "The Spectrum, the Pi - and the coding backlash". BBC News. Retrieved June 30, 2021.

History of video games

v t e Chronology of video games Early history 1947–1972 1970s 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980s 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990s 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000s 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010s 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020s 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Near future v t e Video game history by platform By platform Early mainframe games History of arcade video games Golden age Timeline History of video game consoles Crash of 1983 Console war History of mobile games By console generation First (1972–1980) Second (1976–1992) Third (1983–2003) Fourth (1987–2003) Fifth (1993–2005) Sixth (1998–2013) Seventh (2005–2017) Eighth (2012–) Ninth (2020–) v t e Video game genres List of video game genres Action Platformer Endless runner Platform fighter Shooter Arena First-person Hero Light gun Shoot 'em up Bullet hell Rail Twin-stick Tactical Third-person Survival Battle royale Survival horror Other Beat 'em up Hack and slash Fighting Platform fighter Maze Pac-Man clone Snake Stealth Action-adventure Grand Theft Auto clone Metroidvania Adventure Escape room Graphic adventure Interactive fiction Interactive film Visual novel Walking sim Digital tabletop Deck-building Roguelike deck-building Digital collectible card Puzzle Hidden object Sokoban Tile-matching Role-playing Action role-playing Looter shooter Soulslike Dungeon crawl MMORPG Monster-taming Roguelike Roguelike deck-building Tactical role-playing Simulation Life Dating Farming God Social Virtual pet CMS Business City-building Government Sports Fishing Racing Kart racing Sim racing Vehicle Flight simulation Combat Lunar Lander Space Submarine simulator Train simulator Vehicular combat Other Falling-sand Immersive sim Strategy 4X Auto battler MOBA Real-time strategy Time management Real-time tactics Tactical role-playing Tower defense Turn-based strategy Turn-based tactics Artillery Wargame Grand strategy Other genres Cozy Fitness Horror Survival horror Incremental Music Rhythm Non-game Party Photography Programming Typing Related concepts Themes Advergame Bishōjo Christian Comedy Educational Girls Licensed Otome Sexual Eroge Nonviolent Personalized Sci-fi Serious Art Climate change News Player modes Multiplayer Co-op MMO PVP Single-player Production AAA Indie Doujin soft Fan game Design Casual Hypercasual Emergent gameplay FMV Gacha Kaizo Masocore Nonlinear gameplay Open world Sandbox Side-scrolling Twitch gameplay Vertically scrolling Other Minigame Toys-to-life Video game clone Video game modding Video game remake v t e Video games by country Africa Ghana Kenya Nigeria South Africa Americas Latin America Brazil Colombia Canada United States Asia Bangladesh China India Indonesia Iran Japan South Korea Malaysia Philippines Russia Thailand Turkey Europe Belgium Czech Republic Finland France Germany Greece Ireland Italy Lithuania Netherlands Norway Poland Russia Spain Sweden Switzerland Turkey Ukraine United Kingdom Oceania Australia New Zealand

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