Arcade game history, and its cultural importance, by RPG.
Arcade games have been around since the early-1970's, with individuals paving the way in video game design when modifying and prototyping minicomputers; an infamous example is with Galaxy Game, being developed in 1971 and made available through a DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) PDP-11 minicomputer installed into housing and connected to a wooden control board, monitor and seats.
The first coin-op, or otherwise named "coin-operated" games were developed on mainframe computers (colloquially known as "early computers", with a very similar appearance to spectrum-analysers)
Soviet arcade games, like that of the original Tetris, were then developed into more Western-orientated games; in this case, Tetris was further adapted on by Nintendo. The originator for Tetris, Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov, created, designed and developed the game whilst working at Dorodnitsyn Computer Centre under the authority of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union (now the Russian Academy of Sciences). Despite him being the original creator of Tetris, he own creation didn't receive any royalties until 1996 when Henk Rogers founded the company "The Tetris Company".
Very first Tetris game being played on a Electronika-60, a computer made in the Voronezh, Soviet Union from 1978 till 1991.
Arcade games in Western-bloc countries VS Arcade games in Eastern-bloc/Soviet SSR countries:
Soviet SSR/Eastern-bloc countries:
Diversant (1989), made in the Ukrainian SSR;
The game Diversant follows the objective of defending your city from a Martian invasion; with similarities to Space Invaders.
In the game, you are expected to shoot down enemy spaceships flying overhead which then deploy ground soldiers. The initial focus of the game increases quickly as waves of spacecraft fly in spontaneously. If you let in 10 ground troops to successfully touch down, you would lose.
Development for the game was aimed for the "Radio86 PK" - a DIY kit game console. Unlike other games developed for the platform, Diversant had its own sound effects. Other games in the console's lineup only included "bleeps", "bloops" and "pews" - or simply didn't have any audio
Kommersant (Businessman) (1991 - End of Soviet Union), made in the Ukrainian SSR (Kyiv):
Kommersant introduces itself as a financial strategy game, where you are a businessman trying to stay away from bankruptcy. You begin with a house, a car, some oil and a small plot of land. For the average Soviet citizen, not yet accustomed to capitalism, it gave a rough idea on how a market economy worked. The objectives sometimes differed and demanded a quick reaction from the player - from eventual bankruptcy to mob kidnappings, with even natural disasters happening from time to time.
In game, you could also day-trade the stock market, place horse-racing bets and take part in casino games; detail even expanded to where the player could chase lucrative deals with chanced encounters in fancy restaurants. The main objective was about growing your fictional business as much as possible.
Welltris (1988), made in the USSR (Moskva):
A puzzle game emerging from the many trial-and-error experimentations of Alexey Pajitnov, the creator of Tetris. It was commissioned by the Moscow Centre for Scientific and Technical Creativity of the Youth, which at the time was creating educational computer assets.
Macintosh, Amiga and ZX Spectrum systems were among those that ran the game. Like Tetris, Welltris had block figures that the player had to arrange. The only exception from Tetris is that you had to clear the rows both horizontally and vertically.
Tweaking the size, and speed of which the blocks fell at allowed the user to gain more points.
(Above): Original 1989 copy of Welltris being played.
Tetris (Nintendo NES, Atari and Game Boy versions) (from 1989)
In 1989, six companies claimed rights to create and distribute Tetris for home computers, consoles and handheld consoles. ELORG, the board/bureau responsible for Tetris' copyright claimed that none of the companies who reproduced the game had any legal entitlement to, and thus rights were signed over to Atari Games. Non-Japanese console and handheld rights were signed to Nintendo.
These renditions included different cover-art, box-art and a overhauled starting screen; differing to that of the original Electronika-60 version.
Pac-Man (Namco/Midway Arcade Versions (From 1980, July in Japan)
Pac-Man, with its original name being "Puck" man (of which it derived itself paku paku teburu, meaning "gobbling something up") was developed initially in July of 1980 and release first for Japanese and Asiatic markets; December rolled around and it was set for stores in US, EU and UK domestic markets.
It falls in the category of a maze action video game, intentionally designed with playability in arcade attractions.
The objective in this game is to eliminate of all the dots in the game, also dodging the ghosts; these ghosts come in 4 colours: Pinky (Pink), Blinky (Red), Inky (Cyan) and Clyde (Orange).