Space Invaders
The game that made arcades a business
Emulator
MAME
Quality
Perfect
Bring Your Own ROM
The Story
Tomohiro Nishikado designed the aliens because he couldn't animate human figures running convincingly on the hardware. Space Invaders became so successful in Japan that it caused a nationwide shortage of 100-yen coins, prompting the Bank of Japan to quadruple production. It is the reason arcade gaming became a global industry. The descending rows speed up as you destroy them — not by design, but because the processor runs faster with fewer sprites to track. Nishikado left the emergent mechanic in.
Trivia
Atari paid $2 million for exclusive home rights — the most expensive game license at the time
The speed increase as enemies are destroyed was an accidental hardware artifact