1982 IN VIDEO GAMING

Contents

Events

Notable releases

Hardware

Business

Events

★ December 27 - Starcade, a video game television game show, debuts on TBS in the United States.

Notable releases

★ October 13 - Mystique releases the ''Custer's Revenge'' adult video game for the Atari 2600 home console.

★ Activision releases ''Barnstorming'' and ''Megamania'' by Steve Cartwright for the Atari 2600.

★ Bally/Midway releases the ''Tron'' arcade game before the movie

★ Gottlieb releases the ''Q-Bert'' arcade game.

★ Atari releases ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'', possibly the biggest flop in video game history and one of two major video game releases (along with the Atari 2600 version of ''Pac-Man'') that helped spark the video game crash of 1983.

★ Mattel releases ''Utopia'' by Don Daglow for Intellivision; ''Utopia'' was the first sim game.

★ Namco releases ''Dig Dug'', ''Pole Position'', ''Super Pac-Man'', ''Pac-Man Plus'' and ''Xevious''.

★ SEGA releases the ''Zaxxon'' arcade game.

★ Starpath releases Dragonstomper by Stephen Landrum (the first and only RPG for the Atari 2600) and Escape From The Mindmaster also for the Atari 2600.

★ Warner Communications' Atari releases the ''Quantum'' arcade game.

★ Williams Electronics releases the arcade games ''Joust'' (designed by Barry Oursler, art by Constantino Mitchell) and '' (designed by Eugene Jarvis).

★ Parker Brothers releases '' (Atari 2600 and Intellivision), the first ''Star Wars'' video game.

★ Edu-Ware releases ''Prisoner 2'' for the Apple II, Atari, and IBM PC.

★ Sir-tech Software, Inc. releases '', the second scenario in the ''Wizardry'' series

Hardware

★ Atari releases the Atari 5200 home console.

★ Astrocade Inc. (formerly Astrovision) releases the Astrocade console.

★ Coleco Industries releases the Gemini home console, an Atari 2600 clone.

★ Commodore Business Machines releases the Commodore 64 home computer.

★ Emerson releases the Arcadia 2001 home console.

★ Entrex releases the Adventure Vision home console.

★ General Consumer Electronics releases the Vectrex home console.

★ Sinclair Research releases the ZX Spectrum home computer, which would become the most popular gaming computer of its generation in the UK.

★ Coleco releases the Colecovision home console.

Business

★ New companies: Electronic Arts Inc., Lucasfilm Games, MicroProse Software, Inc., Enix Corporation.

★ Ultimate Play The Game (later to be known as Rare) is founded.