Talk:Space Invaders

Featured article in need of review

This is a 2000s promotion that needs to be check by current FA standards.

• Prose suffers from awkward sentences
  • "that move horizontally back and forth across the screen as they advance toward the bottom of the screen."
  • "The game's inspiration is reported to have come from varying sources, including an adaptation of the mechanical game Space Monsters released by Taito in 1972, and a dream about Japanese school children who are waiting for Santa Claus when they are attacked by invading aliens.[18][22] Nishikado himself has cited Atari's arcade game Breakout as his inspiration." So if there's varying reports, why is this sentence giving Breakout as the most-likely true inspiration? Possible undue weight. Also, who had that Santa Claus dream?
  • "Early enemy designs for the game included tanks, combat planes, and battleships.[21] Nishikado, however, was not satisfied with the enemy movements; technical limitations made it difficult to simulate flying"
  • "Humans would have been easier to simulate," NPOV issue
  • Music section is one long quote, and only two opinions are represented
• First para of "Rankings" section isn't about rankings, and the second para is mostly an indiscriminate list of ratings with no attempt at summarizing retrospective opinions
• Reception: There are ratings of reviews that are never covered in prose.
• References suffers from questionable sources (What is The Arcade Flyer Archive?, Game Maestro?, NOTsoNOISY?, members.cox.net?, Warp Zoned?, Discogs is unreliable), and some citations are incomplete. Ref 2 is just a list of Bare URLs

👨x🐱 (talk) 21:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Following up with this: I think the later parts of the article have small, one-or-two sentence paragraphs that should be reformatted more effectively, and the "Remakes and sequels" section is quite long and should either be summarised more effectively or broken up with headings. The game's reception and rankings sections suffer from the "X says Y" pattern. There are unreliable sources like "Discogs" used in the article and some uncited statements. @HumanxAnthro: are you or anyone else interested in bringing this to FAR? Z1720 (talk) 13:21, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Previous sources

Putting reliable sources from the article here that I can't find a use for right now.

• The beginning of the sentence (which has been incorporated elsewhere: This influence could be said to extend to most shooting games released to the present day,
• including first-person shooters such as Wolfenstein,
  • Gee, James Paul (2004). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. London, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 47. doi:10.1145/950566.950595. ISBN 1-4039-6538-2. Retrieved April 10, 2011.
• and Halo
  • Jones, Steven Edward (2008). The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual Studies. Taylor & Francis. pp. 84–85. ISBN 978-0-415-96055-7. Retrieved April 10, 2011. The developers of Halo are aware of their own place in gaming history, and one of them once joked that their game could be seen as "Space Invaders in a tube." The joke contains a double-edged insight: on the one hand, Halo is first and finally about shooting aliens; on the other hand, even the 1978 2-D arcade shooter, Space Invaders, designed by Tomohiro Nishikado for the company Taito, is more interesting than that would suggest.

More details from the sources would be helpful in making a determination, so keeping them in case they can be added back later. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 13:42, 2 July 2025 (UTC))

The Shmuplations translation of the 2008 Nikkei

• "Space Invaders – 30th Anniversary Developer Interview". Shmuplations.

I did not see a template attribute for an online translation link, so saving this for reference. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 02:48, 9 July 2025 (UTC))

Citation for the merchandising sentence:

• "There has also been Space Invaders-themed merchandising, including necklaces and puzzles."
  • Paige, Earl (September 25, 1982). "Children's Video Promotions Help Boost Volume". Billboard. Vol. 94, no. 38. p. 19. ISSN 0006-2510. Retrieved March 4, 2012.

Seems thin, but saving in case can be combined with more substantial sourcing. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 22:39, 9 July 2025 (UTC))

Sentence about the meta-analysis on the Video Game Canon website. Didn't find anything to support it as a reliable source.

• In 2018, it was ranked 87th in Video Game Canon's statistical meta-analysis of 48 "top games" lists published between 1995 and 2017.
  • "Space Invaders". Video Game Canon. February 17, 2017. Archived from the original on December 5, 2018. Retrieved December 5, 2018.

Saving for possible future use. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:04, 23 July 2025 (UTC))

Sentence about number of daily players. A time frame would give this proper context; the inflation templates use 1978 and the article was published in 1981. I can't find the source to nail down the date.

• Space Invaders had about 8 million daily players in Japan, with daily revenue peaking at $12.4 million (equivalent to $59.2 million in 2025).
  • "The Games Boom Rolls On". Asiaweek. Vol. 7. Asiaweek Limited. May 1981. p. 32. Roughly 8 million people played the game daily, spending 2.6 billion yen (US$114m.) a day and forcing the Bank of Japan to make three special mintings of 100-yen coins.

Saving for possible future use. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 23:32, 29 August 2025 (UTC))

Santa Ana Orange County Register newspaper source

@Bastobasto: Regarding the newspaper source from the Santa Ana Orange County Register, honest mistake. Do you know which port it's referring to though? I can't access the source to see. I think the information might still be useful. If it's the Atari 2600 port, that is discussed in the next paragraph down in the "Reception" section. If the source corroborates the statement that it sold over a million copies its first year, I think we should include it. If it's a different port, I still think it's worth mentioning. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 19:14, 16 November 2025 (UTC))

The source says that the Space Invader cartridge was released in 1980 and was the year's "hot item", selling one million copies in its first year. From what I know, both the Atari 2600 and the Atari 8-bit versions used cartridges, so alas, it's not fully clear. That would have been the right move, though. Bastobasto (talk) 21:11, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification. Happy editing. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 22:48, 16 November 2025 (UTC))

Release date / first unveiling / upright vs. table version

What seems supportable from contemporaneous coverage is:

• Space Invaders was publicly unveiled at Taito’s new-product exhibition in mid-June 1978 (reported in the July 1, 1978 issue).
• By Game Machine no. 102 (August 15, 1978), p. 9, in the article 「迫り来るインベーダー」, the upright Space Invaders is described as having reached the release stage, with a listed price of 590,000 yen.
• By Game Machine no. 104 (September 15, 1978), p. 9, in the article 「発売待たれていたテーブルタイプ インベーダー」, the table-type version is being introduced separately, with a listed price of 430,000 yen.

So, at minimum, the contemporaneous trade press seems to support:

• first unveiling in mid-June 1978
• the upright version preceding the table version
• upright price 590,000 yen
• table version price 430,000 yen

MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 16:56, 1 April 2026 (UTC)

Hello. The details you mentioned above, except for the prices, are in the first paragraph of Space Invaders#Release.

So I assume you are talking about the release date in the article's information box. The April date comes from the filing with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Based on US copyright practices in the 1970s, I assume this was when the game was "finished" before the unveiling in June. I believe this is accurate because there is no verifiable information to suggest Taito lied about the date when it filed.

I agree the April date is not a "release date" in a practical sense. It is more of a publication date for copyright purposes. What do you recommend? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 19:09, 3 April 2026 (UTC))

Thank you. I think that makes sense.

My concern is not that the April date must be removed completely, but rather that it may not be appropriate to present it as the game's Japanese "release date" in the lead or infobox, if contemporaneous trade press instead supports a mid-June first unveiling and a later release stage in the market.

So, my suggestion would be:

- not to treat the April date as the practical release date in Japan;

- to base the release chronology mainly on contemporaneous trade coverage;

- and, if the April filing date is kept, to describe it separately as a legal filing/publication date, rather than as the release date itself.

At least from the Game Machine pages I checked, I can support:

- first unveiling in mid-June 1978;

- the upright version preceding the table version;

- and separate pricing/timing for the upright and table versions.

But I could not confirm an exact practical release date in April. MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 23:24, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

I agree with changing the wording in the prose for the April date.

Regarding the actual release date for the info box, I dug into VG Project talk archives for guidance. I found that Masumi Akagi's Arcade TV Game List is viewed as an authoritative source for Japanese arcade games since he founded and was the editor of the Game Machine magazine you're referencing. He listed Space Invaders' release date as July 1978 on page 41 of his book, which matches up the rest of the sources.

Thanks for bringing this up. I'll make edits shortly. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:01, 7 April 2026 (UTC))

Thank you very much for checking this and improving the article.

I think that sounds reasonable. Using July 1978 in the infobox, while treating the April date more carefully in the prose, seems much more consistent with the contemporaneous trade coverage I checked.

I appreciate your help on this. MOTOI Kenkichi(基 建吉) (talk) 10:17, 8 April 2026 (UTC)

Removal of two low-quality sources

Guyinblack25 wants to talk, so we talk. Earlier today, I removed two low-quality sources. This involved little removal of actual content as they were mostly being used as the third or greater source for basic facts, and in one instance I replaced the source with a better one. It did involve removing retrospective analysis by the authors since the sources were not appropriately analytical works. The sources:

Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition 2008: This is not a scholarly or journalistic work. It’s a work of entertainment, as all Guinness books are. There is no indication of rigorous fact checking, and many of the “firsts” are not even accurate. It’s lightweight and frivolous and contains no unique facts. Plenty of scholarly, journalistic, and critical works cover Space Invaders. This is not needed or useful.

The Cyberspace Handbook: This is from a real academic press, so that’s fine, but it is a media studies textbook rather than a scholarly or critical work covering the video game industry or Space Invaders. The publisher’s summary says it is “a comprehensive guide to all aspects of new media, information technologies and the internet. It gives an overview of the economic, political, social and cultural contexts of cyberspace, and provides practical advice on using new technologies for research, communication and publication.” That means the authors were not focusing on video games or history, and it is therefore a low-quality source on those topics. That’s probably why the excerpt previously quoted in the citation makes the laughably bad claim that Taito was a pachinko manufacturer when they launched Space Invaders (Narrator: It wasn’t).

Sources are not automatically reliable because they are published; the nature of the source needs to be considered as well. You don’t rely on fluffy entertainment fact books and textbooks on a completely different subject, especially in an FA. There is not a dearth of high-quality historical, journalistic, and critical works on Space Invaders. Use them, and keep the dross out. Indrian (talk) 23:47, 6 May 2026 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this to the talk page. Regarding your points, I disagree that the sources qualify as low quality. Video games are intertwined with pop culture and technology and high quality coverage for them is not siloed in purely analytical works. For example, I would not consider IGN, GameSpot, Edge magazine, and Retro Gamer magazine very analytic, but they produce high quality sourcing.

I can't speak to the whole Guinness World Records series, but the 2008 Gamer's Edition relied on industry experts to compile the information. They are credited as Video Game Consultants in the book and have short CV/bios in the sections they were consulted on. The book includes a section on accuracy in the front and provides readers a method to contact them about corrections. The fact that the book was also used to support information that was corroborated by other high quality sources, is an indicator of its quality. Regarding the relevant book contributors:

• The shooting games consultant, David McCarthy had written the books "The Art of Producing Games" and "Game On!: From Pong to Oblivion" as well as being a journalist for Edge and PC Gamer magazines before 2008. He also has producing and marketing/PR credits on AAA games before this book was published. Since writing the book's contributions, McCarthy's gaming industry resume has expanded further. To avoid the confusion, I will look at the Cite book template parameters to see how his name can be add as a contributor or author for the citations that rely on his part. Currently only Glenday is listed as the editor-in-chief
• For record scores, Guinness obtained the on Twin Galaxies, which has a its own record for reliability, accuracy, and corrections.

The Cyberspace Handbook does not need to be a video game book to be relevant. It looks at Space Invaders' impact in a higher level view of media, which is fine for a media product that changed its industry. Additionally, the statement about Taito being Pachinko manufacturer is corroborated in other books, which makes sense because the company entered the amusement industry with jukeboxes and electro-mechanical games in the 1960s. Although I admit that such wording over-generalizes Taito's history in way that appears intended to characterize the company as coming from humble or lower beginnings (my two cents though).

• "Trigger Happy: Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution" by Steven Poole (p. 20)
• "Phoenix: The Fall & Rise of Videogames" by Leonard Herman (p. 33)
• "Video Game Art" by Nic Kelman (p. 315) - couldn't find a link but I have this book.
• "Attract Mode: The Rise and Fall of Coin-Op Arcade Games" by Jamie Lendino (p. 44)

All that being said, I agree with some of parts of your edits and will integrate them into the article with some copy edits after this discussion concludes.

• A fifth source is probably not needed for the gameplay section.
• The source you found for Sea Wolf high score feature is better because that information does not need to be framed as a world record.
• The 1977 crash was a localized event that isn't really relevant and it makes sense to remove mention of it.

(Guyinblack25 ^talk 22:17, 7 May 2026 (UTC))

Taito was not a pachinko manufacturer, and your insistence to the contrary is worrying in the context of this conversation. They imported jukeboxes, pinball tables, and amusements like crane machines and started manufacturing their own in the late 1960s. They also operated jukeboxes and coin-operated games on location, including their own game centers, and were a general import-export company on top of their amusement business. None of that is pachinko manufacturing. The "sources" you have chosen to represent this erroneous claim appear uniformly poorly researched, out of date, or both. For instance, the latest edition of Phoenix does not call Taito or Nintendo (that is even more groan inducing) pachinko companies because Leonard Herman has learned a thing or two since 1997... This demonstrates the peril of grabbing the first book one sees to support a claim rather than high-quality, generally accurate sources. Anyway, McCarthy as an author sounds reliable, but the book is still fluff. I would potentially be okay with his specific contributions being included if they are unequivocally his. It would still be preferable to capture his views from another, more reputable, source like the magazines he wrote for. The Cyberspace book is not reliable or useful on this topic and remains low quality in this context. The factual errors in the quoted excerpts are enough to show that on top of the topic mismatch. And yes, sources focused on the actual topic are necessary because the further removed an author is from a topic, the less likely they are to have researched the details or formed an expert opinion. And textbooks are poor sources in general regardless of expertise because they are broad summaries for students. There are always better in-depth sources out there than textbooks, and indeed this article is already full of them. Indrian (talk) 23:42, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Regarding your points:

• It is not my insistence, it is what the sources verify. If you have sources that refute this, please provide them so we can see how to reconcile any differences. I go by what is verifiable; feel free to check the talk archive of this article. I've upheld claims in the past that were supported by reliable sourcing that I later changed course on because of new evidence (for example, the game's inspiration and the yen shortage). It is not enough for you to say these sources are wrong. If you want to change minds, you need to show evidence. Otherwise the consensus will not be on your side.
  • The fourth edition of Phoenix is a step in the right direction but insufficient by itself; can you provide a link or the relevant sentences? I would like to determine whether it was a stylistic rewrite or a correction (or inconclusive if there isn't more information).
• Regardless of your feelings about the Guinness Gamer's Edition book, the information in it has sufficient backing. In addition to having an editorial process and subject matter experts, you pointed out that it was being used to support claims that are factual.
• Wikipedia considers textbooks reliable scholarly sources. Your assumption about the Cyberspace book is that because it is a textbook with a broad focus, it is low-quality. I agree that many high-quality sources are in-depth, but a broad overview provides quality information as well; and you need both when writing article content.
  • Regardless, you can't simply assert the information in a quote is a factual error without providing evidence. That is not how consensus is reached. As the factual accuracy of a single description of Taito a decade before Space Invaders is only point of contention, I'm not convinced (also because his analysis is in line with the other commentators). If this is a factual error, I am open to changing my mind though but evidence is needed.
  • Since you have not provided sources supporting your claim, the source and it's content will need to be restored.

After reviewing the edits you made and your reasoning, I have to say that the majority of the content needs to be restored. Exceptions which should remain as is are:

• Gamer's Edition 2008 as a fifth citation is not needed in the gameplay section.
• The source you found for the Sea Wolf high score feature is better because that information does not need to be framed as a world record.
• The 1977 crash was a localized event that isn't really relevant and it makes sense to remove mention of it.
• I am inclined to remove the "top-rated arcade game in terms of technical, creative, and cultural impact" content from Guinness. I always felt it was an awkward distinction, and I'm willing to compromise to reach a conclusion to this.

Of course, I will not implement any of this right away. I want to give you a chance to find and provide evidence to support your claim. Or if you know of others that can provide insight towards a resolution, please invite them to the discussion. I'm always open to improving the article and appreciate you bringing up your concerns. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:19, 8 May 2026 (UTC))

The Cyberspace book is a low-quality source for this topic. I make no judgment as to its quality as a source on its actual topic, as I am not an expert in that field. I am happy to compromise on the Guinness book insofar as it pertains to McCarthy's views on Space Invaders since he is a reputable journalist. It is not my job to educate you on video game history. If you want to learn more about that, read Smith, Akagi, Horowitz, Guins, Nooney, Kocurek, the MIT Platform studies series, and the many other high-quality works on the subject. It is also not my job to prove a negative. If you want to insist that Taito made pachinko machines, I am going to need you to provide primary sources. To start, show me an image of one Taito pachinko machine. Just one. They have made pachislot and medal game machines, but that is not the same thing. Of course that is just a starting point. From there, I am going to need primary sources showing that this was considered an ongoing part of their business as opposed to a one-off or brief experiment to justify the exceptional claim that they were a pachinko manufacturer. It is possible I have missed something in the record, so I am always open to that kind of evidence. I have never claimed to be perfect or all knowing, but I guarantee you I am more well-read on this subject than you. Propagating information without regard for its accuracy just because someone once read it in a book somewhere does far greater harm to the historical record than printing the erroneous information in the first place. Wikipedia deserves better than to be a place to gather misinformation. So tl;dr, you want to restore McCarthy, fine. If you insist on reverting other changes, well that would be edit warring on your part. Indrian (talk) 16:03, 8 May 2026 (UTC)

I respectfully reiterate my disagreement with parts of your point of view. Regarding your points:

• Whittaker provides a broad overview of something that was new technology at its time and changed a global industry. The book's description states it is about "all as­pects of new media," among other technology and information topics. Broad analysis does not exempt a source from being high quality. This is not sufficient reason to remove it from the article.
• Regarding the pachinko statement, it is turning into a tangent, so I'll try to be succinct. I know you brought it up to convey that Whittaker's book is low quality for Space Invaders. Because this is not about adding Taito's relationship with pachinko to this article, it has little impact to my decision above. Riddled with mistakes is one thing, but this is one minor statement. Every expert makes a mistake (though you are right to hold them to high standards), which is why they have an editorial process to correct them in the future.
  • Regardless, if you plan to pursue this pachinko thing further, I ask that you explain why you say those four books that corroborate it are poorly researched or out of date. Relying on your original assertion (it's laughable to believe so everyone who says that is wrong) isn't moving the conversation forward.
  • To your point of proving a negative, I don't expect a reliable source to explicitly state "Taito never made pachinko machine". I'm asking you to provide the information and context from the reliable sources you have that brought you to your position. During the recent FAR, I made an argument to remove a sentence based on the lack of corroborating evidence. Others agreed and I removed it. If you have a thought process to this, I am willing to understand it if you walk me through it.
  • Just to be clear, I acknowledge Whittaker could have gotten that bit wrong. Maybe the first instance in a book was wrong and subsequent authors pulled that fact from there. Maybe one or more of them saw the pachislot or medal game machines and assumed they were pachinko, which would make them wrong on a technicality. I acknowledge those possibilities. But they are speculation without more to back it up. This is why I asked for more.

I share your concern for misinformation on Wikipedia and believe that the site is a great opportunity to accurately chronicle video game history. Wikipedia's verifiability policy must guide this though. If you feel we're at an impasse, I suggest you ping WT:VG to get more point of views because I maintain that the other parts removed need to be restored with some copy edits to account for this discussion. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 22:00, 8 May 2026 (UTC))

Following up- if there are no new points to the discussion, I'm going to restore content cited by Whittaker's book and Twin Galaxies' tracking cited by the GWR book, as well as some copy editing based on the above discussion. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 19:47, 11 May 2026 (UTC))

That would be reverting a change without consensus seeing as we are just two editors here. So try not to violate the 3RR rule as you revert my edit to remove the low-quality Whittaker source. Because I will be defending my valid edit to the article. I compromised on the Guinness Source and the Whittaker source adds nothing unique to the article, so I feel we are in quite a good place without it. In the spirit of further compromise, I will even find a couple more high-quality sources that make similar points if you want me too, but the Whittaker source is quite simply not staying on your word alone. Indrian (talk) 23:26, 11 May 2026 (UTC)

The article's content and sources were deemed good in a recent FAR, establishing a consensus for the previous state. You are, of course, encouraged to make and suggest improvements, but when you make edits unilaterally that turn out to be contentious, supporting evidence is required. While you provided a rationale, it did not hold up against other evidence. You did not compromise on the Guinness Gamers source, I provided a rationale with evidence that demonstrated it was not the type of source you assumed it to be. I compromised by agreeing to leave the top arcade distinction out. For Whittaker's book, you simply disagree with the counter argument I provided, which included supporting evidence refuting one of your points.

Right now, you are asserting your position on "your word alone." Your approach has not been collaborative and the condescension is not appreciated (if you'd like to cite a policy, please see Wikipedia:Civility). Honestly, your accusatory language to suggest I'm going to start an edit war comes across as you trying to hijack the article. If you want to change the consensus established in the FAR, walk me through your thought process (no one is required to belief your "trust me, you're not as well read as I am" attitude) or ask for outside opinions from WT:VG. If you're more comfortable with me asking the VG project, I can do that. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 03:30, 12 May 2026 (UTC))

Your WP:OWN is getting tedious, and the edit history will show I restored Guinness material related to McCarthy's comments after our discussion. I would rather Guinness be kept out, but I recognize your arguments as to McCarthy, so I held my nose on the source and put it back. That is indeed compromise. I still maintain it is not my role to write a thesis on all the problems with a source when it is easily replaced with other, better sources, but if there is no other choice, I will try. I don't know that I can find a way to evaluate all the relevant portions (I am not buying it), but if I can, I will examine everything he wrote on the topic in the book and give my honest critique on all of it. I still maintain the simpler solution would be to replace it with higher quality sources that get to the same point, which I am happy to facilitate myself, but you are clearly not open to that compromise, so yeah, only one inflexible person I see here honestly. Indrian (talk) 03:49, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Finding other sources is always a good alternative. Please feel free since the goal is improve the article. Since you have repeatedly ignored the suggestion to seek outside opinions, I assume you're more comfortable with me posting to the VG project talk page. I will ask for outside opinions tomorrow. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 03:56, 12 May 2026 (UTC)) Guyinblack25 ^talk 03:56, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

On the Guinness source, I think you both came to an appropriate compromise to focus use of the source where a subject matter expert authors the content, and not for ambiguous accolades such as "top-rated arcade game". On the Whittaker source, the statements, including that the game is responsible for the dominance of a genre, are brief, narrative and sweeping, and could be better supported given they are presented as statements of fact on its impact rather than opinion. Given that the source analysis does demonstrate a genuine pattern of factual unreliability, it's a fair case that an assessment that broad is not a strongly-evidenced one, and the source should be omitted.

In the context of turn of the millennium scholarship, new media studies are legitimate and relevant to games studies which broadly was not a large discipline until much later. The argument that an FA should legitimise the content of a page is faulty; whilst radical revisions should be obviously strongly cautioned, continuous improvement should be a goal of any page in any state. I'm glad you both worked to make compromises and eventually focus the discussion, but I think the article edit log and tenor of the discussion suggest improvements for handling it next time. ＶＲＸＣＥＳ (talk) 03:14, 13 May 2026 (UTC)

@Indrian: Following up on the remaining part of the Guinness Gamer's Edition 2008 as it was never addressed above. The other part that was removed from the article pertained to the high scores provided by Twin Galaxies. While the organization hasn't been the same since Walter Day left, the 2008 records were under his strict watchful eye. Reiterating that despite having the Guinness World Records name, the book draws the information from industry experts and clearly indicates that throughout the book.

@Vrxces: Also pinging you since you were kind enough to weigh in. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 03:03, 17 May 2026 (UTC))

Following up- if there's no further input, I'm going to restore the portions cited by Twin Galaxies in the 2008 Gamer's Edition. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 14:29, 26 May 2026 (UTC))

Thanks for pinging; did not mean to ignore this. I guess I am pretty meh about this. Not so much about the source; it’s fine for this specific statement, but the presentation. Pretty sure almost every old coin-op still has someone competing over high scores, but it’s not mainstream. This fact was in a section titled “growth of industry” and juxtaposed with a national tournament that was actually a really big deal in 1980. A handful of people score chasing on an old game are not growing the industry, nor does their competition indicate any kind of continuing cultural relevance or significance for Space Invaders anymore than enthusiasts playing baseball according to 1876 rules are an indication that 19th century baseball is still widely relevant today as a spectator sport (of course Space Invaders still has relevance, but the score chasing is not an indicator of that). Feels like this kind of thing should be treated same as speed running or any other niche activity (speedrunning is not so niche, but speedrunning an obscure NES game is): when there is significant coverage of some aspect of score chasing (like the Pac-Man kill screen or the whole King of Kong thing), it merits a mention. Including a certified current high score would also be fine. If its just to say “people still compete for high scores” I don’t think we are saying anything and may even be amplifying importance too much. Do I feel as strongly about this as the other stuff I protested? Not really. Will I militantly revert over it? No. Do I feel this should just be put back as is? I really don’t. At the very least it should be shifted out of its current section. Indrian (talk) 17:14, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

My apologies for the confusion. I just noticed that it is already back in the article; I assume you restored early into the discussion.

If you don't feel that strongly about it, I won't dwell on any points we disagree on as I'm not looking to start a debate just for the sake of it.

More importantly, I do agree that the connection to industry growth is thin. Since the first sentence focuses on how it moved to a mainstream hobby, how about I move it the "Cultural impact" section? (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:15, 27 May 2026 (UTC))

Sure. Indrian (talk) 21:24, 27 May 2026 (UTC)

Updated the article. Thanks for the input. Without statements directly tying score competition to industry growth, it does make more sense in the cultural section. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:42, 27 May 2026 (UTC))

Cyberspace Handbook by Jason Whittaker: A critical analysis of its utility as a source on video games

Overview

The Cyberspace Handbook is a textbook in the Routledge Media Studies series. Routledge is an academic press, so sources published by it can generally be considered reliable. Therefore, this analysis will not focus on whether the book as a whole is reliable for its core subject, but whether its coverage of video games is sufficiently developed and accurate to prove that it is a high-quality source for citing on topics in video game industry history and cultural impact.

First, the author. According to his author bio page in the book, Jason Whittaker "teaches journalism and new media at Falmouth College of Arts, and has been a computer journalist for nearly a decade. His previous publications include Web Production for Writers and Journalists and The Internet: The Basics, also published by Routledge.”

Next an overview of the book via a summary of its contents that appears in the book itself:

"The Cyberspace Handbook is a comprehensive guide to all aspects of new media, information technologies and the Internet. It gives an overview of the economic, political, social and cultural contexts of cyberspace, and provides practical advice on using new technologies for research, communication and publication.

The Cyberspace Handbook explores how cyberspace has been constructed, as well as its functions, which range from providing us with immediate news to immersive games and virtual reality. The Cyberspace Handbook also addresses the challenges raised by computer and communications technologies in the areas of copyright and cybercrime, as well as key skills in employing the Internet for research or writing and designing for the Web."

From this evidence, it appears that Whittaker is a general tech author with a specialization in the intersection between journalism, writing, and the internet. There is no indication he is an expert on the history of the video game industry or on early movements in technology, like the birth of electronic games. This does not automatically disqualify him as a writer on these subjects, but it does mean that his specific claims should be subject to increased scrutiny.

Also worth noting is that the book was published in 2004. This is ancient in terms of video game history books and means his range of sources to develop his own work on the subject was incredibly limited. Scholarship on the topic has come a long way in the past 22 years.

Whittaker devotes one chapter to video games. Within this chapter is one section on video game history. This history section covers a mere five pages (121-126) of a 321 page book (including index), or roughly 2% of the book's total length. This does not evince a deep engagement with the topic. Now, let's examine this section in detail to see if it holds up against known well-researched works in the field.

Analysis

Early History

The first subject Whittaker discusses is the earliest video games:

"The beginning of actual computer games is usually traced to the invention of Spacewar for the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1 in 1962 (Herz 1997; Le Diberder and Le Diberder 1998). As Herman (1998) and Poole (2000) note, however, the world’s first videogame actually came into existence in 1958 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility in the USA. Here, William A. Higinbotham designed a rudimentary tennis game for visitors to Brookhaven: what would later take worldwide markets by storm as Pong never left the research centre, and Higinbotham remarked wryly that he had not considered applying for the patent that would have made him a rich man (Poole 2000: 30)."

Whittaker is correct that Spacewar is often considered the first notable computer game. He is incorrect in his analysis that Higinbotham's tennis game is the first videogame. While different people could have different definitions about what constitutes a game, at the very least the MIDSAC Pool game (1954) combines real-time gameplay and graphics before Higinbotham. If we don't limit ourselves to real time games, then Bertie the Brain (1950), Nimrod (1951), the Alexander Douglas tic-tac-toe game (1952), and the Christopher Strachey draughts game (1952) all combine computing, game playing, and some kind of display. There are other edge cases as well that we won't hold Whittaker to, but this is enough to show that Whittaker's book is incorrect.

Our next paragraph of note:

"DEC licensed copies of Spacewar in order to demonstrate the capabilities of the PDP-1 to interested parties. Other early mainframe and mini-computer games of the 1960s included Lunar Lander, which did not even use a screen, but printed lines indicating descent and thrust and awaited the next instruction to simulate moon landings, and Hammurabai, a precursor to SimCity and Civilization, where players controlled a feudal kingdom."

Evidence does indicate DEC used Spacewar to help sell PDP-1 computers, but it did not license it, because the game was not copyrighted, patented, or trademarked. Lunar Lander absolutely used a screen if played on a computer with a display terminal. Presumably what Whittaker is trying to say is it was text only. Hammurabai [sic] is a game of controlling an ancient Sumerian city-state, not a feudal kingdom.

Pong, Home Markets, and Space Invaders

"Until the 1970s, however, the vast majority of consumers had no opportunity to play videogames since they had no access to computers. This changed with the introduction of Atari’s arcade tennis game, Pong, in 1972, hot on the heels of the Magnavox Odyssey, another tennis game (Atari was forced to pay a licence fee to Magnavox) and the first home console. Pong was not quite the first arcade game: its inventor, Nolan Bushnell, had developed the unsuccessful Computer Space a year before going on to found Atari."

The story of the creation of Pong is well documented in many sources good and bad (Kent, Donovan, Smith, Guins, etc.). All of them correctly identify Al Alcorn as the creator of the game. Nolan Bushnell had nothing to do with creating it other than asking Alcorn to create a table tennis game. This demonstrates a basic misunderstanding of a well-known fact and is therefore very disturbing for the reliability of the source. Also, Nolan Bushnell co-founded, rather than founded, Atari, and both Pong and the Odyssey game were table tennis games rather than tennis (the Odyssey also had a tennis game, but the game Bushnell saw and had Alcorn create a variation of was the table tennis game, insomuch as these distinctions matter when the graphics are abstract balls and paddles).

"With the success of Pong, however, particularly for the home console market, Atari had created a monster. By the mid-1970s every videogame manufacturer in the world had released a Pong clone so that the glut of hardware led to the first crash in 1977. As quickly as they had arrived, computer games appeared to be on the edge of extinction, but the arcade market was really only on the verge of a golden age. The renaissance came with Taito’s release of Space Invaders in 1978. "

This is one of the passages that was quoted in the article previously, and it includes a grave inaccuracy that pertains to our subject, namely that Space Invaders somehow revived a video game industry on the verge of collapse after a 1977 crash. Setting aside whether the 1978 downturn was actually a crash, Whittaker has conflated the home and coin-op markets, which were on separate trajectories.

The idea of a 1977 crash can be traced to Steven Kent's The Ultimate History of Video Games, in which Kent stated: "After Christmas 1977, the video-game market crashed. Manufacturers like Magnavox and Atari sold inventory at reduced rates. RCA pulled out entirely. As it looked like the video-game market was dead, tensions increased between Bushnell and the new owners of Atari."

Note this is in a section on the video game console market, which is why there is reference to Magnavox, Atari, and RCA, two of which were only in the home and the third of which, Atari, is being discussed in the book in the context of its dedicated consoles and VCS.

The first prominent academic source to examine console cycles was probably Mirko Ernkvist's Down Many Times, but Still Playing the Game: Creative Destruction and Industry Crashes in the Early Video Game Industry 1971-1986. This article traces the early ups and downs of the video game industry. With regards to 1977, Ernkvist states the following: "The early console industry had a similar dynamic of delimited differentiation and decreased entry barriers that characterized the early arcade industry, but the subsequent introduction of disruptive technologies in the form of programmable consoles and handheld games was a decisive difference that contributed to a full scale industry crash in 1977."

Note that Ernkvist specifies the 1977 crash as a console crash and does not link it to coin-op, same as the more journalistic history written by Kent. As for why that Crash ended, Ernkvist specifically links it to advances in the home market and not anything in the arcade, including Space Invaders. "Although programmable consoles where released in 1976-1977, it took a few years to reveal their true innovative opportunities until the large number of diversified innovative software had emerged and created a positive upward spiral, most visible for Atari VCS/2600 (table 3). It was the programmable consoles separation of hardware and software into two separate modules (console and cartridges) that spurred the creation of the differentiated software market and provided a way out of the destructive 3D factors behind the Pong console crash.

Later sources also treat them separately. While Smith does not speak of a 1977 Crash in They Create Worlds, he describes the destruction of the dedicated console market in 1978 in the face of handheld games and programmable consoles and the eclipsing of handhelds by programmable consoles in 1980 due in part to the launch of Space Invaders on the VCS (NOT the arrival of Space Invaders in the arcade in 1978 as Whittaker claims). He traces the coin-op ebb and flow separately: stagnation in new video releases in 1977, solid state pinball eclipsing video, and a new video game craze in Japan sparked by the arrival of Breakout leading to the development of Space Invaders, which then took worldwide arcades by storm. At all junctures, the fortunes of the arcade and of the home are treated separately, excepting where they occasionally collide such as a home port of Space Invaders being the killer app for the VCS in 1980. The economic forces and trends are treated separately, which is in line with other scholarly examinations like Ernkvist. Whittaker is an outlier, and as a non-expert, that makes him inherently suspect.

Taito as Pachinko Manufacturer

"Taito, a pachinko manufacturer, had kick-started the videogame revolution with Space Invaders, most successful games were being manufactured in the USA at this point. From the mid-1980s, however, arcade games and then consoles were dominated for a decade by the Japanese company Nintendo and its rival Sega."

And here we go, Taito was not a Pachinko manufacturer. I really did not want to go here, but I guess there is no choice.

Masumi Akagi It Began With Pong

Machine translated from Japanese, so not perfect, but I guarantee you all the major machine translation apps know the Japanese characters for "pachinko." Akagi was the editor of the major Japanese trade publication Game Machine and is therefore an expert on the Japanese coin-op industry and its history.

"In August 1953, Kogan reorganized his previous businesses and established the Taito Trading Co. The company's two main products were vodka brewing and peanut vendors. Vodka was unfamiliar to the Japanese, but Kogan believed that it could be enjoyed and made into a business because of its different qualities from whiskey.

The brewing of the vodka was outsourced to Oyabu Brewing Company of Nagoya, which had a brewing license, and Taito Trading invested in equipment and invited Russian engineers from Australia to provide technical guidance over a six-month period. The resulting vodka, "Troika," was of such high quality that it was used in the bar of the Imperial Hotel, but when Kotobukiya (later Suntory), Nikka, and Morozov entered the vodka brewing business, the company withdrew from the market in 1955.

Vodka was mainly sold to wholesalers, but the company also sold directly to bars, so it placed peanut vendors in bars and coffee shops, which was a success, and the company decided to make it a business. The peanut vendor is a small, non-electric tabletop vending machine that produces a handful of peanuts when you insert a ten-yen coin and pull a lever, but Taito Trading installed them in bars and coffee shops and increased its profits by charging a percentage of the collected ten-yen coins as a commission for installation.

Due to the success of the peanut vendor, in 1954, the Taito Trading Company began installing jukeboxes in restaurants and other businesses. But the imported used ones were barely enough to make it to a single unit after a few were dismantled, so they had to rely on the U.S. military's disbursements. Service Games was ahead of the competition in terms of salvaged jukeboxes, followed by V&V Trading, which had the most growth, but Taito Trading was not to be outdone. At a time when new jukeboxes cost more than 2 million yen each and highballs were priced at 50 yen per cup, the monthly installation fee paid by the store was 40,000 yen per month, but when the jukeboxes were priced at 10 yen per song, the sales turned out to be 50,000 to 60,000 yen per month, with the store splitting the excess with the store.

As the hot spring boom spread to inns and tourist hotels all over Japan in 1957, Taito Trading set up sales offices in various locations. Due to the success of these offices, the company moved its headquarters to the Masonic Building in 1955, to Gobancho (Yotsuya), Chiyoda-ku in 1956, and to the Fukoku Seimei Building in Uchisaiwaicho, Chiyoda-ku in 1961. At this time, the charge for using the jukebox was 20 yen per song. Akio Nakanishi, the head of the sales division, who had developed the main business of Taito Trading in Nagoya during the company's founding days, became the managing director in charge of domestic operations in June 1965.

Taito Trading decided to produce a full-scale jukebox domestically, and the first product, "Juke J40", was completed in 1956, but only 10 units were produced due to the high production cost. The company then decided to focus on imports and obtained the rights to sell the products of AMI of the U.S. in Japan in 1958, followed by Seeburg in 1962 and NSM of Germany in 1969. In addition to expanding the range of locations to health centers and drive-ins, the company also began to handle elemec-type game machines such as gun consoles and flippers. In addition to single locations, the company also focused on opening directly managed stores, starting with a full-scale arcade in Ueroku, Osaka, in July of 1960 and expanding to other locations such as the Chunichi Cinerama Theater in Nagoya in 1963.

The bowling craze that began around 1965 further stimulated the gaming parlors attached to bowling alleys by customers spending their waiting time on the gaming machines. In game consoles, the company obtained the rights to sell Gottlieb's game machines in Japan in 1963 and Bally's flippers in 1969. In addition to importing these foreign products, Taito Trading also developed and manufactured crane game machines and expanded its product line. For this reason, a maintenance factory was established in Akabane in 1961, and in 1963, a development subsidiary, Pacific Industries, was established in Tsunashima, Yokohama, where the Central Research Institute, which would later become the development division, was located."

Excerpts from the Taito 40th Anniversary book as tweeted by the official Taito English twitter account:

Note: The first tweet in this series was posted on March 7, 2010, and can be seen at https://x.com/TaitoCorp/status/10155841298. A whole slew of additional tweets followed over the coming months. I have collected the text of the relevant tweets here and rendered them in paragraph form to make them more readable.

"Taito began as a trade company founded by a Russian, and was the first to import (and later distill) vodka in Japan! Taito's first Japan-produced vodka was called Troika. High quality and acclaimed, even the discriminating Imperial Hotel's bar carried it. In the early days, Taito also imported peanut vending machines and jukeboxes. Taito was also the first to manufacture jukeboxes in Japan. This experience with jukeboxes and vending machines became a huge advantage in the '70s, when the arcade boom was getting underway.

The peanut vending machines TAITO sold in the '50s were popular, but our perfume(!) vending machines never caught on outside of Tokyo. In 1950, the Taito Trading Company shared a building with Rosen Enterprises, the company that later became Sega Enterprises. Taito imported Seeberg jukeboxes, while Sega distributed Rock-ola jukeboxes! In the early '50s, Taito was legally unable to import jukeboxes directly. We had to buy broken-down used ones from US military bases. Most of the used jukeboxes were busted; it often took parts cobbled together from 3 or 4 used ones to make one sellable working model! The first imported jukeboxes in Japan ran about 2-2.5 million yen. At the time, a glass of whisky cost about 50 yen. The jukeboxes weighed about 120kg (260lb) and took 3 people to move. Service calls when gum got stuck in the coin slot were not fun! Taito saw a huge surge in orders when Japanese music was mixed in with the default Western selection of songs. Taito Trading Company soon had to buy its own truck to ship all the jukeboxes, and cars were still rare in Japan. It's hard to imagine now, but people would apply for jobs at Taito Trading Company just because they wanted to ride in the truck!

Taito attempted to manufacture jukeboxes domestically, but in the end it was more economical to import. In 1958 we received official rights to sell American AMI jukeboxes in Japan. (No more beat-up hand-me-downs from military bases!) By '58 Japan's amusement industry had heated up. Rosen Ent. (now Sega) joined, and Nakamura Manuf. (now Namco) had been active for 3 years. The spread of cars in Japan led to drive-ins, another outlet for Taito products. In addition to jukeboxes, we began to sell pinball games. Taito Trading Company's first large-scale arcade opened in July, 1960, near Osaka's Ueroku station. This first Taito arcade held 40 mechanical shooting games and pinball tables. Our other business was still going strong, too, with jukeboxes appearing in trains such as the posh Tobu Nikko Romance Car. Installing jukeboxes on trains was one tricky feat. We ended up using special shock absorbers to minimize record skipping. Experience with train installations adapted well to boats, too, helping Taito jukeboxes spread even further.

In 1963 Taito Trading began selling Gottlieb pinball games in Japan. Our arcade at Nagoya's Chunichi Cinerama held about 150! In the 60s games were booming, but competition was fierce. We founded Pacific Industries Ltd. to develop our own new products. In Japan, pinball machines are popularly known as "flipper" games. In 1965 we developed Japan's first claw crane game, the Crown 602. It was an instant hit. In the following year, we released improved crane games: the Crown 603 and 605 (no 601 or 604!). Early prizes included candy in round capsules. Before long there were huge (330 sq. meters/3550 sq ft) arcades in Osaka, etc., with nothing but rows of crane games.

1967 was a busy year; we released Periscope , Thunderbird, Basketball, and Soccer Game. In Basketball players raced to shoot balls from numbered holes and into their opponent's basket. Basketball was a smash hit machine at the time, and even today there remains a small but dedicated group of fans in Japan. 1968 saw the release of Supersonic Bomber and Touch & Go. In the mid-'60s, bowling was big in Japan, with the first pro players like Ritsuko Nakayama appearing on TV. Bowling alleys (and their arcade spaces!) spread across Japan, helping bring Taito Trading Co.'s games to a wider audience. In 1969, our releases included Intelligence Computer and Golden Arm. 1970 saw the World Expo in Osaka, displaying Japan's technical and engineering ability. Also in 1970, Taito Trading greatly expanded its engineering dept and assembly lines to cope with the demand for new products. In '70 we released Super Road 7, our first arcade driving game. Arcade driving soon became a Taito specialty. Other 1970 Taito releases included Sky Fighter, Cycle Rider, and Space Docking. Super Road 7 was designed and manufactured by Pacific Industries Ltd., a Taito subsidiary that has since ceased to exist.

In '70 we branched out, selling New Zealand honey and jam(!!) and Electrolux fridges and vacuums as well as arcade games. In '71, an Electrolux space heater we distributed in Japan fast became a hit seller. In '71 we bought Japan Vending Machine Ltd., a market leader in outdoor amusement facilities and games for kids. Japan Vending Machine was experienced in an area where Taito Trading Company was weak: coin-op rides and child-oriented games. Shopping malls were becoming common in Japan, and game corners were popular. August 1972 marked 20 years since Taito Trade Company's founding. That same year we changed our name to TAITO Corporation. By then we had grown to include more than 700 employees and 50+ office locations, as well as factories and subsidiaries."

They did not make pachinko machines in the 1960s and 1970s. No recent sources (Smith, et al) claim they do. Leonard Herman no longer claims they do in Phoenix. It's plain wrong. This was a completely separate industry in Japan with its own established manufacturers. Even in later years, there was very little overlap. A few companies like Universal/Aruze and Sammy Industry made both amusements and pachinko machines. Few did.

Odds and Ends

"As Steven Poole remarks, videogames such as Donkey Kong (in which Mario was first introduced, although he was known as Jumpman at that time) and Pac- Man represented the emergence of a new and surreal aesthetic. "

Jumpman was always Mario in the United States. Look at any advertisement in the coin trades when Donkey Kong was released. He is referred to as Mario in all of them. He was called Jumpman on the instructions on the game cabinet itself.

"such as that for the Atari VCS, released in 1978"

The Atari VCS was released in 1977. If one or two mistakes like this were the only sins of the book, I would of course not hold them against the author, but the totality of errors adds up.

"Consoles for the home began with the mass of Pong boxes that became a plague in 1977, only to be relieved by the introduction of the Atari VCS the following year."

Okay, I take it back; he really does think the VCS was released in 1978. That's just ugly.

Conclusion

Okay, I could go on, but really this post is already super long and the material I have posted already tells the tale. Whittaker makes basic factual mistakes about the industry (Bushnell invented Pong, the VCS was released in 1978), and everything he has to say about Space Invaders contains some kind of gaffe (Taito was not a pachinko manufacturer, the rise of coin-op games and the fall of console games in the 1977-78 period were not connected). Of course, most or all of the sources I have provided as counterweight will also have a few errors in them as no one is perfect, but these handful of errors are spread across dozens or hundreds of pages. The above errors are concentrated in a space of just five. This source is not of high-quality as it pertains to providing a survey of the history of the video game industry, and his opinions on the matter do not enhance this article. Indeed, including this source on Wikipedia in an FA-quality article imparts an implicit reliability that is not justified and calls attention to a source that should be forgotten (at least in the context of video games) in favor of better-researched fare. That is why I will continue to resist efforts to include this low-quality source on this page. Indrian (talk) 05:26, 12 May 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for walking me through your thought process.

• I disagree with your first point and still maintain that a broad view point does not preclude a source from being high-quality.
• However, the details in your thorough second point about accuracy does make me re-evaluate it; I don't think it's a poor source but this does cast doubt on whether it's high-quality (some mistakes are minor, but the number and breadth in a single chapter must be considered together) even if his analyses are in line with other commentators.

In a discussion with several people, I'd probably be indifferent and let the consensus play out, so since it's just the two of us I concede your point: removing Whittaker's book is what's best for the article. If you can point me in the right direction for a comparable source to replace it (because his overview was a good summary that helped the cohesiveness of two paragraphs), I'd appreciate the help.

Regarding the remainder of the discussion, I'll respond in the previous section above when I have time. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 02:58, 13 May 2026 (UTC))

I find that all very reasonable. I will find some more solid sourcing for some of the points the source was used for in the next fee days. Indrian (talk) 03:22, 13 May 2026 (UTC)