How Arcade Racing Machines Evolved

Arcade slot machines emerged in the early 1970s. At the time, the arcade industry was still in its infancy, and there was no question of a Vulkan Bet bonus offering. It was represented by video games and devices that could play them. However, even the very first arcade machines were very similar to their modern counterparts.

How the arcade machines evolved

In September 1971 the first experimental arcade machine with a game called Galaxy was installed at Stanford University. Two players, each controlling a spaceship, fought over a background of starry sky.

They tried to avoid both their opponent’s shots and the star on the screen, which attracted the ships and destroyed them on contact.

The success of the game was phenomenal. There were always 10-12 people lined up to play the first arcade battle, and more were lined up on weekends.

The machine was not commercially successful. It cost 10 cents to play one game and 25 cents for three games.

The first machine for the general public

In November 1971, programmers Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created Computer Space, a reworked counterpart to the 1962 computer game. Nutting Associates buys the rights to the game and releases it on 1500 arcade machines.

“Computer Space” was the world’s first computer game for the arcade machine, published for the general public, but not yet a commercial success.

Due to the relatively poor return on investment of Computer Space, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney left Nutting Associates to form Atari together.

That same year, on November 29, Atari released their first Pong game. It sold 19,000 units. It was a resounding success and world-famous. “Pong became the first commercially successful game in the world.

And so it began

Within a year arcade machines were appearing in Japan. Known to many giants of the modern gaming industry as Konami and Hudson Soft, having nothing to do with video games at the time, quickly picked up the trend yet gaining popularity, and switched to the production of arcade machines, as well as the development of their own video games.

By 1975, the initial market for arcade machines and game consoles had taken shape. It was taken up by four major companies

• Atari;
• Sears;
• Coleco;

On 22 May 1980, another Japanese machine saw the light of day with one of the first colour games, “PacMan”. 350,000 “PacMan” machines were sold.

At the time PacMan was created, video games revolved around two already tiresome themes:

• space shooters;
• sports games.

PacMan introduced a whole new arcade genre to games, filled with speed and drive. PacMan remains to this day the most recognisable character in video games. The game has become synonymous with video entertainment.

In 1983, the Dragon’s Lair slot machine was created with the first use of video inserts or cut-scenes. Inside the machine, the game was run from a LaserDisc. The game was an interactive cartoon that started the Wild Truck demo and other interesting games.