Requiem for a Pac-Man

In the mid-1970s a man named Nolan Bushnell changed the world when he convinced a bar to let him put in a coin-operated video game. The game was Pong, and players turned knobs to bounce a square “ball” back and forth on a blank screen. After a couple of days, the owner called him to complain that the game appeared to be broken. It turned out the game was full of quarters. Soon he formed a company to produce video games. Originally it was called Syzygy, which no one could pronounce or spell. Rechristened Atari, the company exploded overnight in the late 70s, and Bally-Midway and others rushed to meet Atari’s success. By the mid-80s arcades had replaced skating rinks as the place to spend your allowance.

Arcades have devolved a great deal since their heyday in 1983. Boys from 10—18 flocked to these dark chambers, illumined with the warm glow of monochrome and color screens and ringing with the cacophony of music, lasers, and synthesized voices that taunted you: “Bad move, Space Cadet.” We spent allowances, birthday money, food money—all for the thrill of making it to the next round or to have your initials up on the screen in pixilated glory. In the beginning we had those vector graphics games: first in monochrome (Asteroids and Lunar Lander); later in color (Missile Command). Then more sophisticated games like Space Invaders and Defender, which quickly yielded to Robotron: 2084 and the peak of video success: Pac-Man. (Anyone out there remember the ghosts’ names?) There was a TV game show, a video-game inspired movie, Tron, and a pop hit song, Pac-Man Fever.

Jump ahead 20 years, and today there isn’t much in an arcade to attract us Gen-Xers. First of all, I don’t know of any arcades that stand alone as a business anymore. Second, the vast majority of games today are either driving games (auto, jet-ski) or shoot-em-ups (shoot the insurgents, rescue the hostages!). Once in a while you might find a Galaga, with an obnoxious “20th Anniversary edition—don’t you feel old?” message. No Shinobi, Xybots, Gyruss, Donkey Kong, Pengo, Crystal Castles, Centipede, Moon Patrol, etc., etc., etc. I wander aimlessly around the arcades and blame Sony and Sega. A while back I bought the Sony Playstation game “Bally-Midway’s Greatest Hits” with Tapper, Joust, Robotron and a few others, but it’s just not the same with out the big console with the sturdy joystick, and the crowd of friends and strangers standing behind you and cheering you on to the next level.

Yesterday Sheridan and I met her friend Samantha and her mother Angela at Mountasia. It’s a putt-putt place with go-carts, boats and video games. Sheridan expressly went intending to play on a dancing game that blurs the line between arcade room and jazzercise. Dancers/players select a song and as the music plays, arrows move up the screen showing the player where she’s supposed to step (left, right, forward or back). There are big buttons on the floor that detect whether you are making the right steps and keeping the beat. This has to be the single most popular arcade game in the place, and takes us a long, long way from Pong.