1981 in video games

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List of years in video games
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Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade games in 1981 became much wider. Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems. Nintendo released the arcade game Donkey Kong, which defined the platformer genre. Other arcade hits released in 1981 include Defender, Scramble, Frogger, Galaga and Zaxxon.

Financial performance[]

• The arcade video game market in the US generates $4.8 billion in revenue^[1] (equivalent to $13.7 billion adjusted for inflation).
• The home video game market in the US generates $1 billion in sales revenue^[2] (equivalent to $2.85 billion adjusted for inflation), with Atari remaining the market leader.^[3]
• The home video game market in Europe is worth $200 million^[4] (equivalent to $569 million adjusted for inflation).

Highest-grossing arcade games[]

The year's highest-grossing video game was Pac-Man with $1.2 billion in arcade game revenue ($3.4 billion adjusted for inflation), three times the box office revenue of the highest-grossing film Star Wars (1977) in five years.^[5]

Japan[]

In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossing arcade video games of 1981, according to the annual Game Machine chart.^[6]

Rank	Title	Manufacturer	Genre
1	Donkey Kong	Nintendo	Platformer
2	Janputer	Sanritsu	Mahjong
3	Pro Golf	Data East	Sports
4	Pac-Man	Namco	Maze
5	Qix	Taito	Puzzle
6	Galaga	Namco	Shoot 'em up
7	Bosconian
8	Crazy Climber	Nichibutsu	Climbing
9	Crush Roller	Kural	Maze
10	Grand Champion	Taito	Racing

United States[]

In the United States, the following titles were the top three highest-grossing arcade games of 1981, according to the annual Cash Box and RePlay arcade charts.

Rank	Cash Box[7]	RePlay[8]	Revenue	Inflation	Genre
1	Pac-Man		$1,000,000,000[9]	$2,800,000,000	Maze
2	Defender		Un­known	Un­known	Shoot 'em up
3	Asteroids		Un­known	Un­known

The following titles were the top-grossing arcade games of each month in 1981, according to the Play Meter and RePlay arcade charts.

Month	Play Meter	RePlay	Ref
January	Pac-Man[10]	Asteroids	[11]
February			[12]
March			[13]
April		Defender	[14]
May			[15][16]
June		Scramble	[17]
July	Un­known	Pac-Man	[18]
August	Defender[19]	Defender	[20]
September	Gorf[21]		[22]
October	Donkey Kong[23]		[24]
November	Un­known		[25]
December	Vanguard	Pac-Man	[26][27]
1981		Pac-Man	[8]

Best-selling home video games[]

The following titles were the best-selling Atari VCS home video games in 1981.^[28]

Rank	Title	Sales	Genre	Licensor
1	Space Invaders	2,964,137	Shoot 'em up	Taito
2	Warlords	936,861	Action	N/A
3	Breakout	838,635
4	Night Driver	779,547	Racing
5	Asteroids	407,090	Shoot 'em up
	Football	Un­known	American football

Events[]

Magazines[]

• January – Atari computer magazine ANALOG Computing begins 9 years of publication. Most issues include at least one BASIC game and one machine language game.
• November – The British video game magazine Computer and Video Games (C&VG) starts.
• Winter – Arnie Katz and Bill Kunkel found Electronic Games, the first magazine on video games and generally recognized as the beginning of video game journalism.

Business[]

• New companies: DK'Tronics, Games by Apollo, Gebelli Software, Imagic, Spectravision, Starpath, Synapse Software
• Defunct: APF Electronics

Births[]

May[]

• May 11 – JP Karliak: American actor, voice actor and comedian

Notable releases[]

Games[]

Arcade

• February – Konami releases Scramble, the first side-scrolling shooter with forced scrolling and multiple distinct levels.^[29]
• February – Williams Electronics releases influential scrolling shooter Defender.
• July 9 – Nintendo releases Donkey Kong, which introduces the characters of Donkey Kong and Mario, and sets the template for the platform game genre. It is also one of the first video games with an integral storyline.^[30]
• September – Namco releases Galaga, the sequel to Galaxian which becomes more popular than the original.
• June – Konami releases Frogger.
• October – Frogger is distributed in North America by Sega-Gremlin.
• October 21 – Williams Electronics releases Stargate, the sequel to Defender.
• October – Sega releases Turbo, a racing video game that features a third-person perspective, rear-view racer format.
• October – Rock-Ola's Fantasy is the first game with a continue feature.
• October – Atari Inc. releases Tempest, one of the first games to use Atari's Color-QuadraScan vector display technology. It was also the first game to allow the player to choose their starting level (a system Atari dubbed "SkillStep").
• November – Namco releases Bosconian, a multidirectional shooter with voice.
• December – Jump Bug, the first scrolling platform game, developed by Hoei/Coreland and Alpha Denshi, is distributed in North America by Rock-Ola under license from Sega.
• Midway releases fixed-shooter Gorf with multiple distinct stages.
• Taito releases abstract, twin-stick shooter Space Dungeon.
• Data East releases the vertically-scrolling isometric maze game Treasure Island.

Console

• Atari, Inc.'s port of Asteroids is a major release for the Atari VCS, and is the first game for the system to use bank-switching.
• Mattel releases Utopia for Intellivision, one of the first city construction games and possibly the first sim game for a console.

Computer

• June – Ultima is released, beginning a successful computer role-playing game series.
• September – Wizardry for the Apple II is the first in a computer role-playing franchise that eventually spans eight games.
• IBM and Microsoft include the game DONKEY.BAS with the IBM PC, arguably the first IBM PC compatible game.
• Muse Software releases the stealth action adventure Castle Wolfenstein for the Apple II.
• The Atari Program Exchange publishes Caverns of Mars, a vertically scrolling shooter for the Atari 8-bit family, and wargame Eastern Front (1941). APX also sells the source code to Eastern Front.
• Epyx releases turn-based monster game Crush, Crumble and Chomp!.
• BudgeCo's Raster Blaster sparks interest in more realistic Apple II pinball simulations and is the precursor to Pinball Construction Set.
• Infocom releases Zork II: The Wizard of Frobozz.

Hardware[]

Arcade

• July – the Namco Warp & Warp arcade system board is released.
• October – the VCO Object, the first arcade system board dedicated to pseudo-3D, sprite-scaling graphics, debuts with the release of Turbo.

Computer

• March 5 – Timex releases the Sinclair Research ZX81 in the UK, which is significantly less expensive than other computers on the market.
• June – Texas Instruments releases the TI-99/4A, an update to 1979's TI-99/4.
• August 12 – the IBM Personal Computer is released for USD$1,565, with 16K RAM, no disk drives, and 4-color CGA graphics.
• Astrovision distributes the Bally Computer System after buying the rights from Bally/Midway.
• Acorn Computers Ltd releases the BBC Micro home computer.
• Commodore Business Machines releases the Commodore VIC-20 home computer.
• NEC releases the PC-8801 home computer in Japan.

Handheld

• November – Nintendo's Game & Watch is released in Sweden.
• Microvision is discontinued.

References[]