Space Invader
Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Taito for arcades. It was released in Japan in April 1978, and released overseas by Midway Manufacturing later that year. Space Invaders was the first video game with endless gameplay and the first fixed shooter, setting the template for the genre. The goal is to defeat waves of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser cannon to earn as many points as possible.
Designer Tomohiro Nishikado drew inspiration from video games such as Gun Fight and Breakout, electro-mechanical target shooting games, and science fiction narratives such as the novel The War of the Worlds, the anime Space Battleship Yamato, and the film Star Wars. To complete development, he had to design custom hardware and development tools. Upon release, Space Invaders was an immediate commercial success; by 1982, it had grossed $3.8 billion ($14 billion in 2023-adjusted terms), with a net profit of $450 million ($1.7 billion in 2023 terms). This made it the best-selling video game and highest-grossing entertainment product at the time, and the highest-grossing video game of all time.
Space Invaders is considered one of the most influential and greatest video games of all time, having ushered in the golden age of arcade video games. In addition to inspiring several prolific game designers to join the industry, it influenced numerous games across different genres and has been ported and re-released in various forms. The 1980 Atari 2600 version quadrupled sales of the Atari 2600 console, becoming the first killer app for video game consoles. The pixelated enemy alien has become a pop culture icon, often representing video games as a whole.
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