Arcade Report - May 2007

God Games (Populous)
Save-em-ups (Lemmings)

- Sentinel - was one of the first God style build games, though Populous is distinctively unique.

Love the 'Save-em-up' name, will have to think on that but next to MMORP I think you have found two unique genres to coin-ops 12!

ah Sentinel - what is Geoff Crammond up to these days?

aaaahhhhhhh!

I said Sentinel when I meant 'i-Robot', Atari 1983, the idea he based it on.


Regarding a 'Save-em-up's, I was sent a reply from a friend that said though a sports game - Atari's 'Football' used a trackball and individual player control methodology that is similar to this type of concept. A bit tenuous, but still a interesting point.

That's an interesting control idea, I can see it working for selecting the player to pass to, but other than that it may be a bit limiting for more direct control.

Anyway, just thought I'd follow up with a few other Genres that weren't in the arcades first.

Pen and Paper games - OXO - 1952
Sports Games - Tennis for Two - 1958
Shoot-em-ups - Spacewar - 1961

All of which were on very early computers and are regarded as some of the earliest computer/video games ever.

Well Tyrion, that’s an interesting perspective.

This really shows the difference in perception – when I state the phrase ‘Genre’ I am referring to the dictionary definition – favoring the establishing of the concept rather than a single experiment. Looking at experiments and prototypes that never make it to the general public – we could look at a whole raft of video games that were prototypes of important concepts but never made it to public circulation.

We have to separate from a prototypes or experiment. When you look at ‘SpaceWar’ you have to remember that more people have played it since it was emulated at the GameOn exhibition than played it when it was a PH1 experiment. But it was ‘Computer Space’ from Nuttings in 1969 that proved the viability of the genre.

When you look at ‘OXO’ you really are in ‘what if’ territory, a complex and problematic programming experiment. But it was the Atari ‘Quiz Show’ in 1976 that proved the genre.

Oh certainly, I agree that the arcades put these games into the public's hands, but does that diminish the initial invention? Did powered heavier than air flight not exist before the first commercial passengers were transported in the early 1900s? Or did Clément Ader's 50m flight on October 9, 1890 start the age of self-powered aircraft? The Ford Model T was the car that brought automotive freedom to the public in a big way, but nobody would claim it was the first example of a self-powered car.

Where do we draw the line? I mean, we could claim that Galaxy Game brought Spacewar to the public, since it was publicly installed two months before Computer Space was released. Or do we argue that the limited audience disqualifies Galaxy Game? Certainly more than a few people played Spacewar on the PDP1 and Tennis for Two was publicly displayed twice during visitor's days at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

By limiting yourself to "favoring the establishing of the concept" rather than the original, and in most of the cases I have pointed out influential, instances of the genre you may overlook some of the pioneering work done in the industry.

This is an interesting discussion and one that can probably run for ages. I do accept your principal assertion that the arcades popularised most of the genres we take for granted today, but I don't think they can lay claim to have "done it first" in the way that you stated in your original article.

read my second feature in this series and then tell me what you think.

Trust me, I read everything on SPOnG and I'm looking forward to your next piece.

Atari's Football in addition to being one of the first sports games, also introduced the trac-ball and scrolling screens.

Collect 'em ups like Katamari. Were they done in the arcade first?

Oh man, I loved "I, Robot" (which at the time I thought was called 1 Robot due to the logo's dodgy font and my lack of popular sci-fi knowledge)

It was such a fascinating game - kinda like a cross between Sentinel and Crystal Castles - and for the time had real ground breaking graphics.

Unfortunately the image linked doesn't work (the server blocks deeplinked images), so I just grabbed an emu and uploaded a few screens to SPOnG's I,Robot page if anyone's interested

You may be able to argue that Katamari is an evolution of games like Pac-Man, certainly that's the earliest example of a collect 'em up game I can think of.

You may be able to argue that with a straight face, I never could. Pacman is a maze chase, and you don't acrete the things you collect. Katamari is free roaming, and the build-up is part of the game dynamic.

I put it to the jury that Katamari and Pacman are unrelated, and Katamari has no arcade origins.

Indeed, with Katamari, the accretion of appropriately sized "stuff "is the only way to progress to acreting larger stuff in your route to acreting land mass (and celestial bodies)

While by the strict definition of a "collect 'em up", Pac-Man, Crystal Castles, Mr Do, Defender and Sonic may qualify, that is hardly their sole (or possibly even primary) game mechanic.