Uploaded November 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
One of Atari's 1981 "Have You Played Atari Today" series of commercials. This one illustrates the Space Invaders game and actually combined actual footage!
Rick Maurer's arcade port of Taito's smash arcade hit was worthy enough to yield similar results, as it was the first VCS game with over 1 million copies sold. Maurer started developing the game before Atari decided to license it, simply because he liked it. His in-house name for this game was "Ghost Invaders" before he solved the problem of eliminating the flicker of having so many objects on the screen at the same time. It's reported that Rick received a mere $11,000 for a game that grossed over $100 million for Atari, which eventually prompted him to transfer to Atari's coin-op division. The artist who did the box art obviously used the saucer design from Boston's (1976) debut album cover art as inspiration, and certainly the overall look from their 2nd album (Don't Look Back - 1978). Released in January 1980.
One of Atari's 1981 "Have You Played Atari Today" series of commercials. This one illustrates the Space Invaders game and actually combined actual footage!
Rick Maurer's arcade port of Taito's smash arcade hit was worthy enough to yield similar results, as it was the first VCS game with over 1 million copies sold. Maurer started developing the game before Atari decided to license it, simply because he liked it. His in-house name for this game was "Ghost Invaders" before he solved the problem of eliminating the flicker of having so many objects on the screen at the same time. It's reported that Rick received a mere $11,000 for a game that grossed over $100 million for Atari, which eventually prompted him to transfer to Atari's coin-op division. The artist who did the box art obviously used the saucer design from Boston's (1976) debut album cover art as inspiration, and certainly the overall look from their 2nd album (Don't Look Back - 1978). Released in January 1980.
