Arcades before video games
In the 1960s and early 1970s, coin-operated amusements were mostly mechanical or electromechanical: pinball tables, shooting galleries, driving simulators with moving film and similar machines. A game that displayed moving images on a television-style screen was new. Computer Space, released in 1971, is generally described as the first commercially sold coin-operated video game. A few caveats apply, covered below.
The people behind it
Nolan Bushnell, an engineer, had played Spacewar! while studying at the University of Utah and had worked at an amusement park, so he knew both the game and the coin-operated business. He wanted to make Spacewar! into a product that paid for itself with coins. Working with Ted Dabney, he designed the hardware in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The pair made the design while working with Nutting Associates, a company in California that made arcade machines, which agreed to manufacture it.
A computer in the 1960s cost far too much to put into an arcade, so the design could not simply copy the original. The team built the game from dedicated logic circuits, using standard integrated circuits connected together to produce the movement of two ships, a rocket and the stars. It did not contain a microprocessor, and in that sense the “computer” in the name is more about the style than the technology. Because the circuitry was fixed, the game logic could not be reprogrammed.
How it played
A player controlled a rocket ship against a pair of computer-controlled flying saucers, and the game was set against a starry background. Controls were four buttons: rotate left, rotate right, thrust and fire. The ship kept moving after thrust ended, as in the original, so players needed to manage momentum. The screen was a modified black and white television set.
The cabinet was part of the appeal. It was molded in fiberglass in a curved, futuristic shape, and was available in bright colors. This look fitted the space theme and made the machine stand out in a bar or arcade. It also helped to make it look like something from a science fiction film, and a version of the cabinet appeared in the 1973 film Soylent Green.
Commercial performance
Nutting Associates released the game in late 1971. It is widely reported that around 1,500 machines were built, though sources give slightly different totals. That was a respectable number for a new kind of product, but it was less than the company hoped for, and Computer Space is usually described as a modest commercial result, not a breakout hit.
Several explanations are given for the limited success. Many players found the controls and rules hard to learn without instructions. The game was installed in bars and taverns, where the audience might prefer familiar pinball. Some observers argue that the concept was simply ahead of its time. These explanations are partly guesses, because detailed records are limited.
The road to Atari
Bushnell and Dabney left Nutting to form their own company in 1972, first called Syzygy and soon renamed Atari. Their next project was a simpler game, Pong, which was easier to understand and became a hit when it was installed in a bar in California and drew crowds. The lesson from Computer Space, a simpler game that anyone could play at a glance, shaped what came next. The success of Pong established Atari and helped to start the video game industry.
Another early claim
Computer Space was not the only coin-operated video game of its time. Galaxy Game, built by Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck, was installed at Stanford University in 1971, a few weeks before Computer Space went on sale, by most accounts. It was another version of Spacewar!, run on a real minicomputer, and it was a one-off kind of installation, not a mass-produced product. That is why Computer Space is described as the first commercial arcade video game, though that wording should be read with care.
The wider arcade story
Arcade cabinets of the late 1970s contained microprocessors, color displays and sound chips, and they changed how people spent leisure time. Games such as Space Invaders in 1978 and Pac-Man in 1980 became cultural phenomena. Their commercial success rested on lessons learned from earlier attempts, including the effort to make a game quick to understand.
Legacy
Computer Space is remembered less for how many units it sold than for what it began. It showed that people would put coins into a machine with a video screen, and it launched the careers of people who shaped the industry. Original cabinets are collectors’ items today, and museums display them as examples of early video game design.