Video Game History Timeline

A missing slice of pizza inspires Namco’s Toru Iwatani to create Pac-Man, which goes on sale in July 1980. That year a version of Pac-Man for Atari 2600 becomes the first arcade hit to appear on a home console. Two years later, Ms. Pac-Man strikes a blow for gender equality by becoming the best-selling arcade game of all time.

Video game fans go ape over Nintendo’s Donkey Kong, featuring a character that would become world-famous: Jumpman. Never heard of him? That’s because he’s better known as Mario—the name he took when his creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, makes him the star of a later game by Nintendo.

Disney taps into the video game craze by releasing the movie Tron. An arcade game featuring many of the contests from the movie also becomes a hit.

Multiplayer play takes a huge step forward with Dan Bunten’s M.U.L.E. In the game, players compete to gather the most resources while saving their colony on the planet of Irata.

Russian mathematician Alexey Pajitnov creates Tetris, a simple but addictive puzzle game. The game leaks out from behind the Iron Curtain, and five years later, Nintendo bundles it with every new Game Boy.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) revives an ailing United States video game industry two years after the Nintendo Corporation released it in Japan as Famicom.

The emerging educational software market leaps ahead with the introduction of The Learning Company’s Reader Rabbit program. The educational computer business mushrooms with the introduction of CD-ROMs in the 1990s, but crashes with the rise of the Internet.

It’s a good year for fantasy Role Playing Games, as Shigeru Miyamoto creates Legend of Zelda, SSI wins the video game license for Dungeons and Dragons, and Sierra’s Leisure Suit Larry gives players a different kind of adult role playing game.

John Madden Football introduces gridiron realism to computer games, making this game—and its many console sequels—perennial best-sellers.

Nintendo’s Game Boy popularizes handheld gaming. Game Boy is not the first handheld system with interchangeable cartridges—Milton Bradley introduced Microvision 10 years earlier—but it charms users with its good game play, ease of use, and long battery life.