Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealing Pac-Man, the audience for arcade video games in 1981 became much wider.
Pac-Man influenced maze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems.
Nintendo's Donkey Kong defined the platform game genre, while Konami's Scramble established scrolling shooters.
On the Apple II, Ultima I and Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord each kicked off a long running role-playing game series.
The best selling home system around the globe was Nintendo's Game & Watch for the second year in a row.