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Space Invaders
1978 video game From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Space Invaders[b] 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 wave after wave 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),[16] 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 video 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. More broadly, the pixelated enemy alien has become a pop culture icon, often representing video games as a whole.
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Gameplay
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Space Invaders is a fixed shooter in which the player moves a laser cannon horizontally across the bottom of the screen and fires at a group of aliens overhead. The aliens begin as five rows of eleven—the amount differs in some versions—that move left and right as a group, advancing on the shooter by shifting downward each time they reach a screen edge. The goal is to eliminate all the aliens by shooting them. Regardless of how many game lives remaining the player has, the game ends if the invaders reach the bottom of the screen.[17][18][5][19]
The aliens attempt to destroy the player's cannon by firing projectiles. The laser cannon is partially protected by stationary defense bunkers that are gradually destroyed from the top by the aliens; the bottom will be destroyed if the player fires when beneath one. As aliens are defeated, their movement, as well as the accompanying music, speeds up. Defeating all the aliens brings another wave which starts lower, a loop that can continue endlessly. A special "mystery ship" will occasionally move across the top of the screen and award bonus points if destroyed.[17][18][5][19]
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Development
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Space Invaders was developed by Japanese designer Tomohiro Nishikado, who spent a year designing it and developing the necessary hardware to produce it.[20] The game was a response to Atari, Inc.'s 1976 arcade game Breakout. Nishikado wanted to adapt the same sense of achievement and tension from destroying targets one at a time, combining it with elements of target shooting games.[20][21][22][23] The game uses a similar layout to that of Breakout but with different game mechanics; rather than bounce a ball to attack static objects, players are given the ability to fire projectiles at moving enemies.[24]
Nishikado added several interactive elements that he found lacking in earlier video games, such as the ability for enemies to react to the player's movement and fire back, and a game over triggered by the enemies killing the player character (either by getting shot or enemies reaching the bottom of the screen) rather than simply a timer running out.[21] He replaced the timer, typical of arcade games at the time, with descending aliens who effectively served a similar function, where the closer they came, the less time remained for the player.[22]
Early enemy designs included tanks, combat planes, and battleships.[20][23] However, Nishikado was not satisfied with the enemy movements; technical limitations made it difficult to animate flying.[20][25] The designer believed animating human characters would have been easier to program, but he considered shooting them immoral.[25][26] Nishikado also said that shooting people was frowned upon.[23] After seeing the release of the 1974 anime Space Battleship Yamato in Japan,[27][28] and seeing a magazine feature about the 1977 Star Wars, he thought of using a space theme.[20][21] Nishikado drew inspiration for the aliens from a novel by H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, and created initial bitmap images after the octopus-like aliens.[20][21][25][23] Other alien designs were modeled after squids and crabs.[20][25][23] The game was originally titled Space Monsters after a popular song in Japan at the time, "Monster", but was changed to Space Invaders by the designer's superiors.[20][21]
Hardware
Nishikado designed his own custom hardware and development tools for Space Invaders.[20][25] The game uses an Intel 8080 central processing unit (CPU) and displays raster graphics on a CRT monitor using a bitmapped framebuffer.[26][29] The game outputs monaural sound hosted by a combination of analog circuitry and a Texas Instruments SN76477 sound chip.[26][29][30][31] The adoption of a microprocessor was inspired by the 1975 arcade game Gun Fight, Midway's microprocessor adaptation of Nishikado's earlier discrete logic game Western Gun, after the designer was impressed by the improved graphics and smoother animation of Midway's version.[32][33]
Despite the specially developed hardware, Nishikado was unable to program the game as he wanted—the Control Program board was not powerful enough to display the graphics in color or move the enemies faster—and considered the development of the hardware the most difficult part of the process.[20][25] While programming, Nishikado discovered that the processor was able to render each frame of the alien's animation graphics faster when there were fewer aliens on the screen. Since the alien's positions updated after each frame, this caused the aliens to move across the screen at an increasing speed as more were destroyed;[21][34] the accompanying audio sped up as well.[34][35] Rather than design a compensation for the speed increase, he decided to keep this undocumented feature as a challenging gameplay mechanism.[21]
The cabinet artwork features large humanoid monsters absent from the game, which Nishikado attributed to the artist basing the designs on the original "Space Monsters" title rather than referring to the in-game graphics.[20] In the upright cabinets, the graphics are generated on a hidden CRT monitor and reflected toward the player using a semi-transparent mirror, behind which is mounted a plastic cutout of a moon bolted against a painted starry background. The backdrop is visible through the mirror and thus appears "behind" the graphics.[5] Both Taito's and Midway's first Space Invaders releases have black-and-white graphics with strips of transparent orange and green cellophane over certain portions of the screen to add color to the image. Later Japanese releases feature a rainbow-colored cellophane overlay, and these were eventually followed by versions with a color monitor and an electronically generated color overlay.[5]
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Release
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Cocktail table arcade cabinet
Modified upright arcade cabinet
Taito released Space Invaders in several types of arcade cabinets, some of which have since become collector's items.
Taito released Space Invaders in July 1978.[13] The company released both an upright arcade cabinet and a cocktail-table cabinet;[20][29] Taito named the cocktail version T.T. Space Invaders in Japan to indicate it was a "table-top" version.[29] Midway released its upright version a few months later and its cocktail version several months after that. Space Invaders cabinets have since become collector's items, with the cocktail and cabaret versions the rarest.[36] At the end of 2003, Taito announced plans to produce 10,000 Space Invaders cabinets to sell again for the game's 25th anniversary.[37]
The 1980 port to the Atari 2600 was the first official licensing of an arcade game for consoles and became the first killer app for home video game consoles after quadrupling the system's sales.[5][38] After selling over 1.0 million units in its first year, the Space Invaders port sold over 4.2 million copies by the end of 1981, becoming the best-selling Atari 2600 game until the 1982 Atari version of Pac-Man released. By 1983, the Atari 2600 version had sold almost 6.1 million cartridges.[39] Other official conversions were released for the Atari 8-bit computers and Atari 5200 console, while Taito later released it for the Nintendo Famicom in 1985 exclusively in Japan. By 1982, versions of Space Invaders were available for handheld electronic game devices, tabletop dedicated consoles, home computers, watches and pocket calculators.[4]
More than a hundred Space Invaders video game clones were released for various platforms,[40] such as Super Invader (1979)[41] and TI Invaders (1981); the latter was the top-selling game for the TI-99/4A through at least 1982.[42] Prior to its industry dominance, Nintendo's foray into arcade games consisted of clones of existing popular games, including the Space Invader clone Space Fever. The influx of clones led to the term "Invader game" to identify the generic classification of games.[43] Unofficial copies dominated the video game market in South Korea. The market demand for hardware to create the machines helped spur the early growth of Korea's semiconductor industry.[44]
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Reception
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Space Invaders initially received mixed responses from within Taito and amusement arcade owners. Nishikado's colleagues praised it, applauding his achievement while queuing up to play, whereas his bosses predicted low sales as games often ended more quickly than other timer-based arcade games at the time. A number of amusement arcade owners initially rejected it, but some pachinko parlors and bowling alleys adopted it; it quickly caught on, with many parlors and alleys clearing space for more Space Invaders cabinets.[45] In the first few months following its release in Japan, Space Invaders became popular to the point that specialty video arcades, referred to as "Space Invaders Parlours" and "Space Invaders Houses", opened with nothing but Space Invaders cabinets.[20][26][46]
A year after its release, Space Invaders had become the arcade game industry's all-time best-seller.[47] By the end of 1978, Taito had installed over 100,000 machines and grossed $670 million ($3.2 billion adjusted for inflation) in Japan alone.[4][48] By June 1979, Taito had manufactured about 200,000–300,000 Space Invaders machines in Japan, with each unit earning an average of ¥10,000 or $46 (equivalent to $199 in 2024) in 100 yen coins per day. However, this was not enough to meet the high demand, leading to Taito increasing production to 25,000–30,000 units per month and raising projections to 400,000 manufactured in Japan by the end of 1979.[13] In order to cope with the demand, Taito licensed the overseas rights to Midway for distribution outside of Japan. By the end of 1979, an estimated 750,000 Space Invaders machines were installed worldwide, including 400,000 in Japan, 85,000 in the United Kingdom,[1] and 60,000 within a year in the United States[49][50][51] Space Invaders' popularity propelled it to become the first game that recouped an arcade machine's owner in less than a month, with some places seeing profits within one week;[51] prices ranged from $2,000 to $3,000 per machine.[52] The game eventually sold 72,000 units in the United States by 1982.[53]
Space Invaders had about 8 million daily players in Japan, with daily revenue peaking at ¥2.6 billion or $12,000,000 (equivalent to $58,000,000 in 2024).[54] Space Invaders machines had grossed more than four billion US quarters ($1 billion at the time, or $4.8 billion adjusted for inflation) by 1979.[55] It remained the top arcade game for three years through 1980.[4] In 1981, several years after its release, it still had weekly earnings of $7.7 million in the United States, second only to Pac-Man.[56] By 1982, it had crossed $2 billion in quarters[57][58] (equivalent to $9.64 billion adjusted for inflation),[59] with a net profit of $450 million[58] (equivalent to $2.17 billion adjusted for inflation).[59] This made it the best-selling video game and highest-grossing "entertainment product" of its time,[57] with comparisons made to the then highest-grossing film Star Wars,[57][60] which had grossed $486 million,[60] with a net profit of $175 million.[60] By 1982, it had grossed $3.8 billion, equivalent to over $13 billion as of 2016.[16] Space Invaders earned Taito profits of over $500,000,000 (equivalent to $2,400,000,000 in 2024).[20][61] The Arcade Awards ceremony was created that same year to honor the best video games, with Space Invaders winning the first Best Coin-Op Electronic Game award.[62]
Ports have received mixed reviews; the Atari 2600 version was successful, while the Famicom version was poorly received.[5]
Retrospective
Reception
In 1995, Flux magazine staff ranked Space Invaders first on their "Top 100 Video Games".[69] In 1996, Next Generation magazine put Space Invaders at number 97 on their list of the "Top 100 Games of All Time", saying that it "provides an elegance and simplicity not found in later games like Phoenix [1980]."[70] IGN listed it as one of the "Top 10 Most Influential Games" in 2007, citing it as a source of inspiration to video game designers and the impact it had on the shooting genre.[71] The Times ranked it No. 1 on its list of "The ten most influential video games ever" in 2007.[68] 1UP ranked it at No. 3 on its list of "The 60 Most Influential Games of All Time", stating that, in contrast to earlier arcade games which "were attempts to simulate already-existing things," Space Invaders was "the first video game as a video game, instead of merely a playable electronic representation of something else."[72] Guinness World Records considered Space Invaders one of the most successful arcade shooting games by 2008.[73] In describing it as a "seminal arcade classic", IGN listed it as the number eight "classic shoot 'em up".[74]
In 2008, Guinness World Records listed it as the top-rated arcade game in terms of technical, creative, and cultural impact.[18] Entertainment Weekly named Space Invaders one of the top ten games for the Atari 2600 home console in 2013.[75] In 2018, it was ranked 87th in Video Game Canon's statistical meta-analysis of 48 "top games" lists published between 1995 and 2017.[76] In 2021, The Guardian listed it as the third-greatest video game of the 1970s, just below Galaxian and Asteroids.[77] Space Invaders was inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame in 2016.[78]
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Legacy
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Remakes and sequels
Space Invaders has been remade on numerous platforms and spawned many sequels. Re-releases include ported and updated versions of the original arcade game. Ported versions generally feature different graphics and additional gameplay options—for example, moving defense bunkers, zigzag shots, invisible aliens, and two-player cooperative gameplay.[5] Ports on earlier systems like the Atari home consoles featured simplified graphics,[clarification needed] while later systems such as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and PlayStation featured updated graphics. Later games include several modes of gameplay and integrate new elements into the original design. For example, Space Invaders Extreme, released on the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable, integrated musical elements into the standard gameplay.[79][80] A 2008 spin-off for WiiWare, Space Invaders Get Even, allows players to control the aliens instead of the laser cannon in a reversal of roles.[81]
In 1980, Bally released a pinball version. However, few elements from the original game are included, and the aliens instead resemble the xenomorphs from the film Alien; Bally was later sued over the resemblance to the designs by H. R. Giger.[82] It became the third highest-grossing pinball machine of 1980 in the United States.[83] A stand-alone version was released by Super Impulse as part of its Tiny Arcade series, along with the Namco games Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Galaxian.[84]
Taito has released several arcade sequels. The first was Space Invaders Part II in 1979;[85][86] it featured color graphics, an attract mode, new gameplay elements, and added an intermission between gameplay.[87] According to the Killer List of Videogames, this was the first video game to include an intermission.[73][87] The game also allowed the player with the top score to sign their name, which would appear at the top of the screen for as long as the game was powered on.[88] This version was released in the United States as Deluxe Space Invaders (also known as Space Invaders Deluxe), but it featured a different graphical color scheme and a lunar-city background. Another arcade sequel, Space Invaders II, was released exclusively in the United States. It was in a cocktail-table format with very fast alien firing and a competitive two-player mode. During the summer of 1985, Return of the Invaders was released with updated color graphics and more complex movements and attack patterns for the aliens.[5] Subsequent arcade sequels included Super Space Invaders '91, Space Invaders DX, and Space Invaders '95. Each game introduced minor gameplay additions to the original design. Like the original game, several of the arcade sequels have become collector's items, though some are considered rarer.[36] In 2002, Taito released Space Raiders, a third-person shooter reminiscent of Space Invaders.[89][90]
Space Invaders and its related games have been included in video game compilations. Space Invaders Anniversary was released in 2003 for the PlayStation 2 and included nine Space Invader variants.[91] A similar game for the PlayStation Portable, Space Invaders Pocket, was released in 2005.[92] Space Invaders, Space Invaders Part II and Return of the Invaders are included in Taito Legends, a compilation of Taito's classic arcade games released in 2005 on the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC.[93][94] Super Space Invaders '91, Space Invaders DX, and Space Invaders '95 were included in Taito Legends 2, a sequel compilation released in 2006.[95]
Industry impact
"Space Invaders and games like it represent the roots of everything we see today in gaming. It represents the birth of a new art form, one that literally changed the world. Space Invaders is important as an historical artifact, no less than the silent films of the early twentieth century or early printed books."
Numerous figures in the video game industry have highlighted Space Invaders's milestones and the impact they have had. Shigeru Miyamoto, the longtime general manager of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis & Development, considers Space Invaders the video game industry's most revolutionary title.[97] According to video game historian Alexander Smith, by "allowing targets to attack the player and eliminating the timer, Nishikado created a new paradigm in video games."[98] Video game developer Eugene Jarvis stated it "laid the groundwork for a whole generation" of video games with the "animated characters, the story, this amazing crescendo of action and climax."[99] He further stated that many games "still rely on the multiple life, progressively difficult level paradigm" of Space Invaders.[100] Video game journalists Brian Ashcraft and Jean Snow also attribute the introduction of multiple video game lives to Space Invaders.[101] While several publications have credited the game for introducing the concept of saving high scores, Guinness World Records recognizes the 1976 arcade game Sea Wolf as the first to implement the feature.[71][17][73]
In addition to establishing the shooter genre, 1UP.com's Jeremy Parish credits Space Invaders with several industry-firsts: the first "hit game" developed in Japan and the first to capitalize on quirky characters. Parish further noted that the alien characters' "charm" and "rudimentary sense of personality" helped video games break away from a "realistic simulation" design style; previous games were predominantly inspired by sports and racing.[102] Technology journalist Jason Whittaker noted that Space Invaders helped action games become the dominant genre in arcades and on consoles, and he attributes the popularity of shoot 'em ups to the game's simple gameplay rules.[103] Whittaker further remarked that Space Invaders was the start of Japanese developers obtaining success in the video game market, a trend that culminated in the country's dominance of the industry in mid-1980s.[104] Electronic Games writers observed an increase of science fiction and space-themed games following Space Invaders's release. They noted that many built upon its gameplay through iterative changes, like Galaxian and derivatives with a similar style, while others drew inspiration from Space Invaders but took the design in new directions, such as Atari's Asteroids and Activision's Laser Blast.[105] Scott Osborne of GameSpy also noted the derivative design of Namco's 1979 Galaxian and 1981 Galaga games but acknowledged that their innovative changes and refinements made the games very successful in their own right.[106] The game's influence also extended to the development of Williams Electronics' first game, the 1981 Defender; early versions of the game drew heavily from Space Invaders before its developer, Eugene Jarvis, took it a different direction.[107] Outside shooting games, Sega/Gremlin's 1979 Head On adopted the concept of "going round after round" in lieu of a timer after a senior developer from its parent company, Sega, had seen Space Invaders. The game's designer, Lane Hauck, credits this change to Head On's success.[108]
Video game journalist David McCarthy considered Space Invaders an early game that helped shape the wider shooter genre.[109] In listing it as one of the ten most influential games, IGN's Ryan Geddes and Daemon Hatfield credited Space Invaders for introducing design elements that have since become common place in the industry. The two attributed the popularity of shooting-endless-waves-of-enemies gameplay to the creation of the shoot 'em up subgenre, citing titles like Galaga, Centipede, and Ikaruga as part of its lineage.[71] Kevin Bowen of GameSpy wrote similar observations, noting that numerous titles, like Galaga and Gradius, have been influenced by the gameplay established by Space Invaders.[17] Writing for 1UP.com, Benj Edwards also credited it for spawning the shoot 'em up subgenre, which was very prominent in Japan during the 1980s and early 1990s. He noted that though there were several notable shooting games before it, Space Invaders "put it all together" in way unseen before.[26]
Writing for GameSetWatch in 2010, Simon Carless noted a similar influence on contemporary first-person shooters like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, commenting that it and Space Invaders share core principles: take cover behind walls and shoot enemies to obtain a high score.[110] Ashcraft credits the game with the origin of the cover system of gameplay, as well as the use destructible barriers.[111] In observing the lineage between Space Invaders and Wolfenstein 3D, English professor Ronald Strickland commented that the two, as well as all previous first-person shooting games, were grounded on the same theme of "kill or be killed".[112] Interactive media professor Frans Mäyrä made a similar comparison to Doom, commenting that both present a clear challenge to survive by "shooting everything that moves."[113] Nishikado attributed the game's popularity among younger players to these elements, commenting that the more interactive attacks from enemies coupled with the requirement to defeat them all made the gameplay more thrilling.[21]
While earlier shooting games allowed the player to shoot at targets, Space Invaders was the first in which multiple enemies could fire back at the player.[114]
Noting its impact, music scholar Andrew Schartmann wrote that the fundamental techniques Space Invaders introduced shaped the industry and that the game's immense popularity facilitated a widespread adoption of those techniques. Prior to Space Invaders, music typically played during introductions or closings. Its continuously looped music plays during gameplay while the game's interactions generate sound effects, which together Schartmann described as a "rich sonic landscape". He further noted that while the four-note loop seemed "pedestrian", its ability to stir a reaction from players moved video games closer to an art form. Schartmann acknowledged how the title's changing tempo popularized variability in game music; developers later applied the strategy to pitch, rhythm, form, and other parameters to accommodate nonlinear aspect of games.[115] Karen Collins, a professor of interactive media, echoed similar statements, noting that the combination of introducing continuous background music and dynamically changing its pace during gameplay was a worthy milestone.[35] Next Generation editor Neil West cited Space Invaders' music as an example of great video game art, commenting on how the simple melody's increasing tempo and synchronization with the enemies' movement chills and excites the player.[116] Tommy Tallarico, a video game composer and sound designer, cited Space Invaders as an example of how video game music is "not a passive linear medium", stating that the interaction elevates the experience to a higher level for the senses. He echoed West's assessment, commenting that the simple beats increased the player's heart rate—instilling a sense of panic—as the invaders approached the bottom of the screen.[19] In describing the audio's increasing pace, video game journalist and historian Bill Loguidice likened the background music to the sound of a heartbeat. He noted that the effect carried forward into other games; for example, Dungeons of Daggorath features a similar heartbeat sound to indicate player health.[117]
Several game developers have cited Space Invaders as their introduction to video games. Miyamoto—the creator of Donkey Kong, Mario, and The Legend of Zelda—commented that before seeing it he was not interested in video games and had never considered pursuing video games as a profession.[97] In response to Miyamoto's acknowledgement, Geddes and Hatfield noted that the franchises he created were possible because of Space Invaders' influence.[71] During his time in junior high school, Pokémon creator Satoshi Tajiri felt inspired to make a Space Invaders sequel after playing it.[118] While Hideo Kojima, creator of Metal Gear, played Pong as a child, he cites Space Invaders as the first game that "pulled him in". When recalling the game's early media coverage, he expressed how impressed he was at the time with the game's existence.[119] Eugene Jarvis began his career at Williams Electronics developing pinball games but decided to pursue arcade games after seeing Space Invader' gameplay, leading him to work on Defender, Williams' first arcade game.[99][120] He further described the industry scene at the time as an "incredible universe now open to video game designers", citing the hype of Space Invaders and other popular space games released around 1979.[120] The two creators of Doom, John Romero and John Carmack, have also named it as their introduction to video games.[121][122] Romero commented that he thought games like Space Invaders and Targ were "cool" because they were not limited by physical materials like pinball and electromagnetic games and felt they opened up creative possibilities.[121] Writing for The Observer, Giles Richards attributed the popularity of the game's home console versions to encouraging users to learn programming, many of which later becoming industry leaders.[123]
McCarthy noted that players competed to achieve the highest score for Space Invaders, even decades after its release, and its sequels.[73] Twin Galaxies, who officiated and tracked competitive high scores for players, recorded high scores for the arcade version and some of its handheld ports into the 2000s.[124] In 1980, Atari sponsored a nation-wide Space Invaders tournament in the United States with regional qualifiers in Los Angeles, San Fransisco, Fort Worth, Chicago, and New York.[105][125] The company started the event to help promote its recent port of Space Invaders, which contestants played to earn the highest score.[125] Over 10,000 participants competed in the tournament, which culminated in a championship round between the five regional finalists at Warner Communications Inc.'s headquarters in New York.[105][125] The winner, Rebecca Heineman, would go on to become a video game developer.[105][125][126] Electronic Games magazine staff noted an increased amount of media coverage around the same time and stated that the event helped establish video gaming as a mainstream hobby.[105]
Numerous publications have pointed to the game's success as a catalyst to the video game industry's growth. Electronic Games's editors called Space Invaders the impetus behind video gaming becoming a rapidly growing hobby in 1981 and "the single most popular coin-operated attraction of all time."[127] Edge staff attributed the shift of games from bars and amusement arcades to more mainstream locations, such as restaurants and department stores, to Space Invaders.[128] Video game writer and collector David Ellis echoed similar comments, writing that by the end of the 1970s, arcade games began appearing in hotel lobbies, airports, and convenience stores.[129] Writing for IGN, Levi Buchanan attributed the launch of the "arcade phenomenon" in North America in part to the title.[74] Whittaker credited Space Invaders with ending the video game crash of 1977 and ushering in the golden age of video arcade games.[104] Staff for Game Informer magazine considered it, along with Pac-Man, one of the most popular arcade games for tapping into popular culture and generating excitement during the golden age of arcades.[130] Benj Edwards of 1UP.com wrote that Space Invaders demonstrated video games could compete against the major entertainment media at the time: films, music, and television.[26]
In media
Musicians have drawn inspiration for their music from Space Invaders. Soon after the game's arcade release, the Japanese synthpop group Yellow Magic Orchestra reproduced Space Invaders sounds in its 1978 self-titled album and hit single "Computer Game";[131][132] the latter sold over 400,000 copies in the United States.[133] The next year, the band Funny Stuff released "Disco Space Invaders" in Japan and songwriters Russell Dunlop and Bruce Brown released "Space Invaders" in Australia as the group Player One.[132][134][135] The trend continued in 1980 with two more songs titled "Space Invaders"; one on The Pretenders' self-titled album and another by WGCL disc jockey Victor Blecman.[132][136]
Decades later, Video Games Live performed audio from Space Invaders as part of a special retro "Classic Arcade Medley" in 2007.[137] In honor of the game's 30th anniversary, Taito produced an album titled Space Invaders 2008 that features music inspired by the game. Released by Avex Trax in December 2008, the album includes six songs that were originally in the PSP version of Space Invaders Extreme.[138] Taito produced a Space Invaders-themed animated music video to promote the album. Initially showcased only in its chain of stores (Taito Station) starting in April 2008, the company later released the video on DVD in October 2008.[139]
Multiple television series have aired episodes that either reference or parody Space Invaders; for example, Danger Mouse,[140] That '70s Show,[141] Scrubs,[142] Chuck,[143] Robot Chicken,[144] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles[145] and The Amazing World of Gumball.[146] Elements are prominently featured in the "Raiders of the Lost Arcade" segment of "Anthology of Interest II", an episode of Futurama.[147][148] The Space Invaders aliens also appear in the French online short film Pixels, which Happy Madison Productions later adapted into a feature film by the same name in 2015.[149][150]
In 2010, Warner Bros. Pictures approached Taito for the film rights to the video game, with Mark Gordon, Jason Blum, and Guymon Casady attached as producers.[151] By the time Warner Bros. acquired the rights in 2014, Akiva Goldsman was slated to produce.[152] In February 2015, Daniel Kunka was set to write the script for the production company, Safehouse Pictures.[153] The project stalled until July 2019, when Warner Bros.'s subsidiary, New Line Cinema, announced that Greg Russo would write the script. Goldsman remained the producer alongside Safehouse Pictures partners Joby Harold and Tory Tunnell.[154]
Space Invaders has been the subject of several books, such as the 1980 Space Invaders by Mark Roeder and Julian Wolanski, the 1982 Invasion of the Space Invaders by Martin Amis, and the 2006 Tomb Raiders and Space Invaders by Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska.[155][156][157] It has been recreated in other video games. Players have used the gameplay mechanics in the sandbox games Minecraft and Astroneer to reproduce Space Invaders.[158][159] Epic Games included a hidden game in Fortnite that features gameplay similar to Space Invaders.[160]
Cultural impact
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The impact of Space Invaders on the video game industry has been compared to that of The Beatles in the pop music industry.[161] Considered "the first 'blockbuster' video game", Space Invaders became synonymous with video games worldwide for some time.[162] Many publications and websites use the pixelated alien graphic as an icon for video games in general, including the video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly, technology website Ars Technica, and concert event Video Games Live.[26] There has also been Space Invaders-themed merchandising, including necklaces and puzzles.[163]
The game became the center of an urban legend that its popularity led to a shortage of 100-yen coins in Japan.[20][73][123] However, reports from those living in Japan at the time indicate "nothing out of the ordinary" around Space Invaders' release.[164] Nishikado had also expressed skepticism.[45] Numismatist Mark Fox noted that arcade operators would have regularly emptied their machines, keeping the currency in circulation.[164] He attributed the myth to lower 100-yen coin productions in 1978 and 1979.[165][164]
Within a year of its release, the Japanese PTA unsuccessfully attempted to ban Space Invaders for allegedly inspiring truancy.[48] In North America, doctors identified a condition called "Space Invaders elbow" as a complaint,[166] while a physician in The New England Journal of Medicine named a similar ailment the "Space Invaders Wrist".[167] Space Invaders was also the first game to attract political controversy when a 1981 Private Member's Bill known as the "Control of Space Invaders (and other Electronic Games) Bill", drafted by British Labour Member of Parliament (MP) George Foulkes, attempted to allow local councils to restrict the game and those like it by licensing for its "addictive properties" and for causing "deviancy". Conservative MP Michael Brown defended it as "innocent and harmless pleasure", which he himself had enjoyed that day, and criticized the bill as an example of "Socialist beliefs in restriction and control". A motion to bring the bill before Parliament was defeated by 114 votes to 94 votes; the bill itself was never considered by Parliament.[168][169][170] Similarly in the United States, in Westchester County, New York, there was a controversial political debate in 1981 over a resolution to place age restrictions on Space Invaders and other arcade games, following complaints that schoolchildren wasted time and lunch money, and went to school late; the resolution drew national attention.[171] A similar restriction occurred in Mesquite, Texas, resulting in a court case that was eventually appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States, who ruled the city ordinance unconstitutional.[26][172]
In 2006, Space Invaders was one of several video game-related media selected to represent Japan as part of a project compiled by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs.[173][174] That same year, Space Invaders was included in the London Science Museum's Game On exhibition, meant to showcase the various aspects of video game history, development, and culture.[175] Space Invaders is a part of the Barbican Centre's traveling Game On exhibition.[176] At the Belluard Bollwerk International 2006 festival in Fribourg, Switzerland, Guillaume Reymond created a three-minute video recreation of a game of Space Invaders as part of the "Gameover" project using humans as pixels.[177] The GH ART exhibit at the 2008 Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany, included an art game, Invaders!, based on Space Invaders's gameplay. The creator later asked for it to be removed from the exhibit following criticism of elements based on the September 11 attacks in the United States.[178] A bridge in Cáceres, Spain, projected by engineers Pedro Plasencia and Hadrián Arias, features a pavement design based on Space Invaders. The laser cannon, some shots, and several figures can be seen on the deck.[179] A French street artist, Invader, made a name for himself by creating mosaic artwork of Space Invader aliens around the world.[26][180] Locations include the International Space Station and European Space Agency installations.[181][182]
Brazilian zoologists, Adriano Kury and Carla Barros, named a new species of arachnid Taito spaceinvaders in 2014. Inspired the by resemblance of the species' fleck on its dorsal scutum to a Space Invaders alien, the zoologists named the arachnid after the game and the genus, Taito, after the developer.[183]
Highways England launched a safety campaign in 2018 titled "Don't be a Space Invader, Stay Safe, Stay Back"—featuring the game's logo and alien character—to raise awareness on the dangers of tailgating.[184][185] People were able to order a free car bumper stickers as part of the campaign.[184]
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