The aliens attempt to destroy the player's cannon by firing projectiles. While the player has three lives, the game ends immediately if the invaders reach the bottom of the screen. The goal is to eliminate all of the aliens by shooting them. The aliens begin as five rows of eleven that move left and right as a group, shifting downward each time they reach a screen edge. Space Invaders is a fixed shooter in which the player moves a laser cannon horizontally across the bottom of the screen and fires at aliens overhead. The player-controlled laser cannon shoots the aliens as they descend. More broadly, the pixelated enemy alien has become a pop culture icon, often representing video games as a whole.

The 1980 Atari VCS version quadrupled sales of the VCS, thereby becoming the first killer app for video game consoles. It was the inspiration for numerous video games and game designers across different genres, and has been ported and re-released in various forms. It ushered in the golden age of arcade video games. Space Invaders is considered one of the most influential video games of all time.

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. Upon release, Space Invaders was an immediate commercial success by 1982, it had grossed $3.8 billion (equivalent to over $13 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2016 ), with a net profit of $450 million (equivalent to $2 billion adjusted for inflation). To complete development of the game, he had to design custom hardware and development tools. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser to earn as many points as possible.ĭesigner Nishikado drew inspiration from North American target shooting games like Breakout (1976) and Gun Fight (1975), as well as science fiction narratives such as the novel The War of the Worlds (1897), the anime Space Battleship Yamato (1974), and the film Star Wars (1977). Space Invaders was the first fixed shooter and set the template for the shoot 'em up genre.

It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado.

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