Was Space Invaders bigger than Pacman in the UK?

[giantkeeling]

Pacman is the highest grossing video arcade game of all time, and Space Invaders is the second highest. Do you think this was the case in the UK? I remember seeing a lot more Space Invaders cabs than Pacman cabs back in the day. Just thinking about my home town of Lichfield, we only had one (bootleg) Pacman, and we never had any of the sequels, were as i can remember at least 5 Space Invader cabs, not including Space Fever which we also had. I'm sure there must have been many more in pubs too, but i was too young to go in them at the time!

 

[PaulSwan]

I saw ridiculous quantities of Space Invaders in the Bridlington arcades BITD. Rooms full of the things.

 

[aeroflott]

Good question this. Did Pac-Man even receive an official UK licence? I have no idea. I only saw it in generic wooden cabs. Lots of bootlegs too.

Space Invaders were everywhere from what I recall.

 

[Fuzzy]

Yep, Space Invaders was massive.

I only ever remember playing Pac-Man bootlegs.

 

[strykr]

I would say even Galaxian might have been bigger then pac man, I remember them everywhere bitd,

 

[kingcraftwash]

I'd say different time periods, so hard to compare.

Space Invaders and the many clones (Sega and Nintendo being two notable culprits) and knock offs were everywhere tail end of the 70s. A lot were still there by 1980, but obviously less of a draw due to colourful stuff like Galaxians arriving on the scene.

Fast forward to 1980, and we got Midway Pacman in some places, others the odd occasional Namco Italian Puckman license, couple of UK licencors (Bell-Fruit, JPM Video) but the difference this time was there was a massive upsurge in bootlegs, mostly of the Japanese Puckman PCB (arguably the most bootlegged game ever), sometimes running on all kinds of hardware. They were certainly everywhere at many seaside resorts and Butllns and what operator wouldn't be tempted when they saw the cost and wait time of importing a Midway cab?

 

[RaveN]

Pacman/Puckman was never distributed to the UK, you had to rely on bootlegs or international shipping (with a few exceptions). Every single yellow cab has been specifically shipped over at some point.
With Space Invaders, you could order direct from Taito Japan (they accepted EU orders), or ship over an EU licensed one, or buy one of the licensed UK copies (The Invaders etc), or a bootleg.

 

[big10p]

I was too young to go into pubs at the time of the Space Invaders 'craze', but from what I've been told, A LOT of pubs had cocktails.

I only ever saw a proper Midway Pac-Man cab once, in Tucktonia. All others I saw were dodgy boots or Puck-man (Zaccaria?).

[edit] Just remembered an arcade in Weymouth had a legit Pac-Man cabaret.

big10p2018-05-11 18:40:30

 

[jengineer]

a while ago my dad told me that when Space Invaders came out, Hazel Grove Music filled the Red Lion pub in Hazel Grove with cocktails (now gone and home to a Macdonalds and KFC) they had something daft like x20 cocktails with just Space Invaders on every single one, at first they took a small fortune and then after a month or 2 they just tailed off to nothing, not surprised really

 

[giantkeeling]

This pic is taken from a series called One Summer, released in 1983. There must have been a few caberets around then?

 

[penrhos]

I remember most of the pubs where I lived had either space invaders or lunar lander. Then gradually the lunar landers were replaced by galaxians or moon cresta but the space invaders were still there (si1 & si2). The local nightclub had a Pac man but it was the only one in town.

 

[Body pop]

I’d say space invaders by an absolute mile
They just were everywhere ,I wasn’t old enough to play games then
But when I was they weee still everywhere
Anyone remember the episode of seaview ,where they got all space invaders into the bed and breakfast Blackpool while their parents were away .or maybe it was si 2 ,the red cab.
Always thought it was strange getting a pile of the same cabs ,
I must check that out ...

 

[ColinD]

I’d say space invaders by an absolute mile
They just were everywhere ,I wasn’t old enough to play games then
But when I was they weee still everywhere
Anyone remember the episode of seaview ,where they got all space invaders into the bed and breakfast Blackpool while their parents were away .or maybe it was si 2 ,the red cab.
Always thought it was strange getting a pile of the same cabs ,
I must check that out ...

New Brighton had an arcade with a LOT of space invader cabs, all converted to different variants if I recall correctly... and an arcade opposite (which is still there) had a Frogger / Frog cab which had a starfield in the background ( I know now, this must have been a galaxian conversion and then didn't know how to disable the starfield hardware)

I remember Seaview well... I seem to recall they were only getting one cab, but the lad changed the order to 5 as an older teenager said he could hack them or convert or something ??? (so fairly well researched if thats the case)

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1983-10-19#at-17.10

17.00:John Craven's Newsround

17.10:Seaview
by CHRIS BARLAS
A six-part comedy series
Sandy is trying to keep Seaview running while mum and dad are ill. But when George manages to get hold of five space invader machines, things start to go wrong. 3: In Sickness
Costume designer ANDREW rose
Make-up designer KEZIA DE WINNZ Designer GRAHAM LOUGH
Executive producer PAUL STONE Director MARILYN FOX

ColinD2018-05-11 21:32:37

 

[RygarR]

Even after Pacman had been released, Space Invaders was still more common as far as I can remember. Up my way, we used to call all arcade games 'Spacies'. Don't try that with Pacman kids.

Looks like another one of those arcade myths just got busted.

 

[giantkeeling]

I WANT TO SEE SEAVIEW!

 

[RygarR]

I WANT TO SEE SEAVIEW!

Ha! That's right. They had an episode where the boy scammed 11 Space Invaders cabs for his folks' b and b. Remember thinking at the time how rubbish that would have been. It must be on YouTube surely?

Edit: Just noticed this has already been said. Doh! RygarR2018-05-11 21:53:19

 

[Body pop]

Thanks for putting that right in my mind colind .
5 cabs ,I wonder what the hack was .
I’ve a moon base converted to space invaders 2 .i wonder was that it lol

I do need to see that episode again as well.

 

[Vamino]

I only ever seen 1 original yellow Pacman cab, all the others were Pacman bootleg cabs which usually had funny coloured ghosts......some boots even had a fire button for power up or speed up.

Space Invaders was massive, they were pretty much everywhere.

 

[ocb]

Old enough to remember when the first cabs started appearing in local cafes, chip shops, even swimming pool cafe had them!

Definitely Space Invaders, official or otherwise.

I never saw a yellow cab Pacman once, but I do seem to remember Ms Pacman.

I think the thing was, certainly round my way, in the "boom" years of the late 70s, there wasn't a huge choice was there? Certainly shop owners must have been making good money to remove tables etc to put cabs in.

By 1980, there was more choice, and some shops had gotten rid of their "arcade" part.

 

[Bods]

I was in the arcades in later 80's, apart from when on holiday but we for some reason just stuck to the Cranes, Wheel em in, pushers then

home town arcades was in them when Double dragon was new so must of been 87, still plenty early 80's stuff in them but can't remember even seeing Space Invaders or Pac-Man, may have been odd ones but possible gone by then

Seem to remember my brother playing Space Invaders more on the 2600 though