As successful gaming concepts go, few are as basic or as brazen as Arkanoid. Taito simply took Atari’s Breakout from 1976 and updated the graphics and the gameplay for the Eighties, adding various enhancements including that staple of the era, the power-up. As you smashed away at the wall, certain bricks would drop capsules that upgraded your bat, turning it into a block-blasting laser gun for instance, or altering the ball in some helpful manner. A backstory was added too, where it was revealed that the walls were the defences of a dimension-warping entity named Doh who you’d face on the 33rd and final round.
The embellishments were well executed, but at its heart Arkanoid was still ball versus wall, just like the ten-year-old Breakout. Yet it would defy expectation and become one of Taito’s most profitable coin-ops. In Japan, where it debuted in July 1986 as a cocktail cab, it was the highest-grossing table during the second half of 1986 and all of 1987. In the US, where it was distributed by Romstar predominately in kit form, it was named as 1987’s ‘most played conversion kit’ at an industry event. In Europe it was reportedly the third most-popular coin-op of 1987. This was the kind of global hit that Taito hadn’t truly seen since the days of Space Invaders.
The success of surprised everyone, chief amongst them being the game’s co-creator Hiroshi Tsujino. Speaking to the Japanese magazine , Tsujino revealed that the idea for actually came from a client who suggested to Taito’s management that an updated block-breaking game would resonate with in particular had a great influence on me,” he revealed.
