In 1978 a small Japanese company called Taito & Midway released a stand up cabinet full of electronics and sporting a bright 14in screen. It was the latest experiment in electronic entertainment. For years, other companies had been toying with the concept of the "video game", most successfully Atari with its electronic tennis game Pong in 1972. No one, however, had achieved true mainstream success.

So nobody paid Taito's new gimmick much attention. It was called Invasion Space or Space Invaders or Space Raiders, or something. It was a silly black and white game where you shot aliens in spaceships. It cost an exorbitant 10p to play and had irritating sound effects.

But the world has never been quite the same since.

If Pong supplied the idea for an arcade industry, then Space Invaders made it a reality. It would have a profound effect on the taste, shape and form of every computer and video game to come. Like some modern games, it courted controversy and was nearly banned. But it also broke new ground, spawned a culture, a language, and inspired the generation who went on to form today's multi-billion dollar games industry.

At the time, Space Invaders was a staggering spectacle, proof positive that we were witnessing the dawn of a new technological Utopia. Mankind had invented the internal combustion engine, reached the Moon, and now could defend the Earth against aliens in chip shops. Surely it was only a matter of time before we would conquer the speed of light and explore the galaxy?

Even the novelist Martin Amis penned a little known eulogistic book in 1983 called Invasion Of The Space Invaders (with a foreword by one Steven Spielberg). Inside, the breathless writer gave moving accounts of his first introduction to the machine:

"I knew instantly that this was something different, something special. Cinematic melodrama blazing on the screen, infinite firing capacity, the beautiful responsiveness of the defending turret, the sting and pow of the missiles..."

The appeal for Amis was clear. The game gave "real drama on the screen... we were defending Earth, against monsters, in sublunar skies".

Star Wars and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind had hit cinema screens the year before. The fascination and fear of flying saucers and aliens had been simmering in the public consciousness for decades. Now it had found stunning, realistic life on the cinema screen. It followed that people would love to partake in the conflict themselves. From Space Invaders on, the most popular arcade games - the likes of Defender, Galaxians, Scramble, Moon Cresta - would feature single-handed aggression towards extra-terrestrials.

Elements we have taken for granted for so many years all came from that one ugly six-foot cabinet. Back in 1978, for the first time, for example, we had "three lives" to risk and could gain "extra-lives" if we achieved a "hi-score".

The hi-score chart completely altered the dynamics of the game. Instead of you versus the machine, it became you versus everyone else versus the machine - the perfect design ploy to keep people coming back. Teenagers would play for hours and hours to become the lords of their local arcades, piling hundreds of pounds into the machines every week to top the charts as 'AAA' or 'BUM'.

And that was when the problems started.

In May 1981, George Foulkes, MP for South Ayrshire (now Under Secretary of State for Overseas Development) tabled a Private Member's Bill to enable local councils to license or outlaw Space Invaders and other electronic games.

"Because," Foulkes observed, "our young people, they play truant, miss meals, and give up normal activity to play 'Space Invaders'."

He was goaded into action by newspaper reports of a growing menace. In Dudley, Worcestershire, a 13-year-old addict had stolen £106 from his grandmother's funeral savings. In London, a 17-year-old boy netted £900 by blackmailing a clergyman with whom he had previously had sexual liaisons. Petitions were being raised all around the country, from Hendon to East Lothian. The game was suddenly banned in the Philippines, and in February 1981, The Lancet published a rather premonitory article proposing that Space Invaders-style games could induce epilepsy.

For 22 minutes in the Commons the future of video games hung in the balance. Fortunately, Michael Brown (Conservative MP for Brigg and Southgate) made a brief, impassioned speech in which he admitted he had drunk half a pint of beer and played the game himself before entering the chamber. "Young people should be able to enjoy the innocent pleasure that the hon gentleman wishes to control," he insisted.

It went to a vote. The result was close, but the measure was defeated by 114 to 94. So the rise and rise of the arcade game continued unimpeded.

By 1982, Taito had sold 350,000 units worldwide. So popular was in it Japan that there was a national shortage of 100-yen coins. Millions were languishing in Space Invaders money trays.

But other companies were quick to cash in and threaten Taito's hegemony. The Betters graphics of games like Atari's Asteriods and Battlezone were wowing arcade audiences. Cheerier, less apocalyptic, more colourful games like Frogger and Millipede were making good headway. Audiences started growing out of the dull shoot-em-up, demanding more sophisticated games.

Like so many of the early Eighties technological crazes - digital watches, CB radios - Space Invaders struggled flared bright then died out almost instantly. But 20 years later its legacy is still felt. A healthy section of the population still remembers it with something close to nostalgia and affection.

As Amis puts it: "I still spend the odd night with Space Invaders, my first love - just for old times' sake."

ENDS
© David McCandless