A magazine story framed the issue as one of essential education in the technology of tomorrow: “Is it somehow more valuable to learn Missile Command than to learn English?”Ītari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America (MIT Press) Other adult authorities saw video games not just as diversions or toys, but as essential tools for training young people for a future of high-tech, computerized work and leisure. Many in positions of authority expressed fears about harmful effects of the electronic amusements and wanted to ban them or regulate their use.
Kids regarded them as the ultimate playthings and competed to master them and set the high score, or the record for longest time playing Asteroids. Hollywood movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High presented the video arcade as a quintessential teenage hangout.ĭecades later they give off a more innocent retro cool vibe, but arcade video games were treated as objects of urgent fascination and concern when they were new. Children begged their parents to buy them an Atari for Christmas or to give them a few quarters to drop in Pac-Man’s coin slot.
A 1982 cover of Time magazine screamed “GRONK! FLASH! ZAP! Video Games are Blitzing the World!” If you turned on the radio that year you’d likely hear “Pac-Man Fever,” a Top 40 hit by Buckner & Garcia. In the early 1980s, spurred by the incredible popularity of Atari, Space Invaders and Pac-Man, everyone seemed to be talking about video games, if not obsessively playing them.
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