Space Invaders launched in Japanese arcades in 1978 and became such an immediate cultural obsession that it sparked a widespread urban legend claiming the game caused a nationwide shortage of 100-yen coins.

A closer look

Space Invaders launched in Japanese arcades in 1978 and became such an immediate cultural obsession that it sparked a widespread urban legend claiming the game caused a nationwide shortage of 100-yen coins. While the coin shortage was actually due to broader economic factors at the time, the sheer volume of money being pumped into these machines was undeniably staggering. The game's famous increasing speed mechanic was not even an intentional design choice, but rather a hardware limitation; as you killed more aliens, the processor had less to render and naturally sped up. So, the heart-pounding panic you felt as the last few ships rushed the bottom of the screen was not brilliant game design, but just a 1970s microchip struggling slightly less to do its basic computational job