Quick, easy-to-learn games that are hard to put down are older than most of the people playing them. The browser games on Pikashowsgames belong to a tradition that began in coin-operated arcade cabinets more than fifty years ago. Here is a short tour of how we got from there to here.
The first cabinets: Computer Space and Pong
In 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney released Computer Space, generally regarded as the first commercial arcade video game. It was clever but hard to understand, and it sold modestly.
A year later, Bushnell and Dabney's new company, Atari, released Pong (1972), designed by Allan Alcorn. It was simply two paddles and a ball, and anyone could understand it in seconds. That simplicity made it a huge hit and showed the industry a lesson that still applies: the best quick games are easy to start and hard to master.
The golden age
The late 1970s and early 1980s are often called the golden age of arcade games.
- Space Invaders (Taito, 1978), designed by Tomohiro Nishikado, made high scores a reason to keep playing.
- Pac-Man (Namco, 1980), created by Toru Iwatani, brought characters, mazes and a friendlier style that attracted new players.
- Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1981), designed by Shigeru Miyamoto, introduced the character who would later become Mario.
These games set patterns that are still everywhere: lives, levels that get harder, power-ups and high-score tables.
More classics that shaped the arcade
Beyond the three famous names above, dozens of games in the late 1970s and 1980s introduced ideas that we now take for granted.
| Year | Game | What it introduced |
|---|---|---|
| 1979 | Asteroids (Atari) | Floating, momentum-based movement, and it helped popularise entering your initials on the high-score table |
| 1979 | Galaxian (Namco) | One of the first fully colourful screens, with enemies that swooped down to attack |
| 1981 | Defender (Williams) | A scrolling world bigger than the screen |
| 1981 | Frogger (Konami) | Crossing traffic and rivers, a template for countless "cross the road" games |
| 1982 | Ms. Pac-Man | New mazes and smarter ghosts, and one of the best-selling cabinets in the US |
| 1983 | Dragon's Lair | Hand-drawn animation played from a laserdisc |
| 1985 | Gauntlet (Atari) | Four players cooperating around one cabinet |
| 1986 | Out Run (Sega) | Fast scrolling driving with a choice of routes and a car radio soundtrack |
If you play driving games on our site, Out Run is a direct ancestor. Its idea of racing down a road while dodging traffic lives on in games like Highway Rider and Highway Rush 3D.
Why arcade games were so hard
If you have ever played an old arcade game and wondered why it was so punishing, the answer is money. Arcade machines earned their owners a coin for every attempt, so designers wanted games that were easy to start, exciting for a couple of minutes and then very likely to end, prompting another coin. Skilled players could last a long time, which made them local celebrities, but most people's games were short.
That design pressure produced brilliant ideas: clear goals, sharp controls and difficulty that ramps up quickly. Home games, which you only paid for once, could afford to be longer and gentler, which is why console games moved towards stories, saving and exploration. Browser games today often combine both traditions: the quick arcade loop with the free, endless retries of a home game.
The 1983 crash and the rise of home consoles
Home consoles existed almost as long as arcades. The Magnavox Odyssey arrived in 1972, and the Atari 2600, released in 1977, brought cartridge games into millions of homes. But in 1983 the North American video game market collapsed. Shops were full of low-quality games, too many consoles were competing, and sales fell sharply. Many people believed video games had been a passing fad.
The recovery came from Japan. Nintendo's Family Computer, or Famicom, launched there in 1983 and arrived in North America as the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. With games such as Super Mario Bros., it proved that home games could be as exciting as the arcade, and it changed where most people played.
The fighting game revival
Home consoles drew many players away from arcades in the mid-1980s, but Street Fighter II (Capcom, 1991) brought crowds back. Players lined up to challenge each other face to face, and competitive one-on-one play became a big part of arcade culture.
The 1990s: bigger cabinets and new ways to play
After Street Fighter II, arcades leaned into experiences that were hard to copy at home. Mortal Kombat (Midway, 1992) used digitised photographs of real actors and sparked a public debate about violence in games that led to the creation of game age ratings in North America. 3D racing cabinets such as Daytona USA (Sega, 1994) let several friends race side by side in linked seats. And rhythm games such as Dance Dance Revolution (Konami, 1998) turned the player's whole body into the controller.
In Japan, arcades, known as game centres, have stayed popular to this day, with crane games, rhythm games and card-based games. In many other countries they became rarer as home consoles and computers became more powerful.
Snake, mobile phones and the pocket arcade
A different kind of arcade appeared in 1997, when Nokia included a game called Snake on its phones, starting with the Nokia 6110. It was simple, endlessly replayable and always in your pocket. For millions of people it was their first mobile game, and it showed that a tiny screen and a few buttons were enough for a great quick game.
Games come to the web
As home internet spread in the late 1990s and 2000s, small games moved into the browser. Most of them were built with Flash, a browser plug-in. Flash games were quick to make and quick to play, and they gave many independent developers their start. Their weakness was that they needed the plug-in, which most phones never supported. Adobe ended support for Flash at the end of 2020.
The Flash era and the first game portals
Flash began life as a tool for web animation and was bought by Adobe when it acquired Macromedia in 2005. Through the 2000s it powered a huge wave of browser games. Websites such as Newgrounds, Miniclip and Kongregate hosted thousands of free games, many made by a single person in their spare time. Some of today's best-known independent developers first became known through Flash games.
Those portals created habits that still shape sites like ours: games sorted into categories, quick play with no installation, ratings from players and a constant stream of new titles.
Smartphones and app stores
Apple opened its App Store in 2008, and Android's store followed soon after. Simple touch games quickly became some of the most played games in the world: slingshot puzzles, fruit-slicing games, endless runners and, in 2013, the famously difficult Flappy Bird. Many of these were arcade games at heart, built on the same "one more try" loop that Pong had in 1972.
Apps had one drawback, though: you had to find them, download them and give up storage space. As phone browsers became more powerful, it became possible to get the same instant fun without any of that.
How the browser caught up
A few key steps turned the web browser into a games machine:
- 2004: Apple introduced the
canvaselement in its Safari browser engine, giving web pages a surface to draw graphics on. - 2011: the first version of WebGL was finalised, bringing hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser.
- 2014: HTML5 became an official W3C web standard.
- 2017: WebAssembly arrived in all the major browsers, allowing big game engines to run on web pages at high speed.
- 2020: Flash reached its end of life, and HTML5 became the home of browser games.
HTML5: arcade games in every pocket
Modern browsers can now draw graphics, play sound and use the graphics card directly, with no plug-in at all. Technologies such as Canvas and WebGL mean that a browser game can run on a phone, a tablet or a computer from a single link. That is how the games on Pikashowsgames work. Read How HTML5 Games Work for a simple explanation.
Games that keep the arcade spirit alive on our site
Many games on Pikashowsgames are direct descendants of arcade classics. Neon Bot Maze follows the maze-chase idea that Pac-Man made famous. Neon Wave Dash and Jet Dash are one-button survival games in the tradition of early arcade dodging games. Highway Rider carries on the traffic-dodging thrill of Out Run, and Neon Billiards Pool and Classic Bowling bring traditional arcade-hall pastimes to the screen. Play a few and you will feel fifty years of game design in a couple of minutes.
What has not changed
The technology is unrecognisable compared with 1972, but the formula behind a great quick game has barely moved:
- you understand the goal within seconds,
- each attempt is short,
- failing makes you want to try again immediately,
- and getting better feels like your own achievement.
Games such as Core Ball, Highway Rider and Jet Dash follow exactly that pattern. Browse our Arcade category to find more.
Preserving arcade history
Many original arcade machines have been lost, but a lot of effort goes into keeping these games playable. Museums and collectors restore old cabinets, and official collections re-release classic arcade games on modern consoles and computers, so new generations can try them. Studying these early games is also part of how designers learn their craft, because their simple rules make good design easy to see.
You do not need an old cabinet to experience that history either. Many of the ideas in this article are a click away in the browser, which is perhaps the most fitting home of all for the arcade spirit: instant, free and open to anyone.
Arcade game design lessons you can spot today
Next time you play a quick game, look out for these classic arcade ideas. You will find them almost everywhere.
- Attract mode: old cabinets played a demo when nobody was playing, to catch the eye. Modern games use animated title screens and trailers for the same reason.
- Difficulty that rises over time: Space Invaders' aliens sped up as there were fewer of them left. Endless runners like Jet Dash speed up the longer you survive.
- Short, fair failures: a good arcade game makes it clear why you lost, so you blame yourself, not the game, and want to try again.
- Score chasing: high-score tables have become personal bests, star ratings and leaderboards, but the urge to beat a number is the same.
- Instant restart: arcades charged a coin per go; modern games let you restart with a single tap, which makes the loop even tighter.
From a wooden cabinet in a bar in 1972 to a link you can open on your phone, the arcade has never really gone away. It has simply moved closer to the player.