There was a time when playing a video game meant leaving the house, finding an arcade, and deciding exactly how much of your allowance you were willing to sacrifice one quarter at a time. For those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, arcades were more than places filled with video games. They were gathering spots, noisy temples of blinking lights and electronic music where a pocketful of quarters could determine how long your afternoon lasted. You learned which machines you were good at, which ones ate quarters faster than you could earn them, and when it was time to step aside and let someone else have a turn.
Bitmap Books is tapping directly into that nostalgia with The Arcade 1971–1999: The Stories Behind Classic Coin-Ops, a new hardcover book that looks back at the first three decades of the arcade industry through the people who actually built it. Written by veteran video game journalist Paul Drury, whose work includes Edge and Retro Gamer, the book covers 120 classic coin-op games. More importantly, it isn’t simply a trip through screenshots, release dates and cabinet specifications. Drury has spent years talking to hundreds of developers, artists and musicians, collecting the stories behind the games that defined an era.
That means there are plenty of reasons for longtime arcade rats to stop and flip through the pages. How did Ms. Pac-Man once involve a character called Otto? Who really created Donkey Kong? How did Q*bert learn to swear? And what happened on the night the first Pong machine was installed at Andy Capp’s Tavern?
Those stories are accompanied by rare personal photographs, design sketches, coding notes and other behind-the-scenes material. The book also includes early concept artwork licensed from The Strong National Museum of Play, offering a look at the ideas behind Atari classics including Star Wars, Paperboy and Gauntlet.
There is some serious arcade history behind the book as well. Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell wrote the foreword, while Eugene Jarvis, the creator of Defender and Robotron, provides the afterword. Arcade veterans including Pong creator Al Alcorn and Asteroids and Gauntlet creator Ed Logg also contributed their thoughts.
For Drury, the project is clearly a personal one. He describes arcade games as what introduced his generation to video games and calls the opportunity to speak with their creators a privilege. That comes through in the concept behind the book. This isn’t simply an encyclopedia of old arcade machines. It’s an attempt to preserve the memories and stories of the people who made them.
And, appropriately, Bitmap Books has treated the physical book like something worth keeping on the shelf. It features a foil-blocked hardback cover, high-quality paper, thread-sewn binding and arcade cabinet illustrations by artist Adam Rufino. The Arcade 1971–1999 is available worldwide now for £34.99 / $48.00 / €41.95.
The Arcade 1971–1999 is available worldwide now for £34.99 / $48.00 / €41.95. For today’s gamers, spending $48 on a book about games that once cost a quarter might sound a little strange. For those of us who remember standing in front of an arcade cabinet, hand hovering over that last quarter in our pocket, it makes perfect sense.
