''Football'' (also known as ''Atari Football'') is a 1978 American football video game developed and released by Atari, Inc. for arcades. Players are represented by X's and O's. While predated by

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

's ''World Cup'', ''Football'' is credited with popularizing the

trackball A trackball is a pointing device consisting of a ball held by a socket containing sensors to detect a rotation of the ball about two axes—like an upside-down ball mouse (computing), mouse with an exposed protruding ball. Users roll the ball t ...

controller and is also the first non-

racing In sports, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific g ...

vertically scrolling video game. It was distributed in Japan by

Namco was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company founded in 1955. It operated video arcades and amusement parks globally, and produced video games, films, toys, and arcade cabinets. Namco was one of the most influential c ...

in 1979. ''Football'' was the second highest-earning arcade video game of 1979 in the United States. That year Atari released a more challenging four-player version of the arcade game programmed by Dave Theurer, who later created '' Missile Command'' and '' Tempest''.

Gameplay

Development

The game was designed by Steve Bristow and programmed by Michael Albaugh, with the hardware engineered by Dave Stubben. The game's use of a trackball was inspired by an earlier Japanese association football (soccer) game that had used trackball controls. When the team saw the game, they brought a cabinet to their lab and imitated the trackball controls. An earlier association football game that used trackball controls was

's ''

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

'', released seven months earlier in March 1978, but in 2001 Steven L. Kent reported that Stubben attributed the earlier trackball soccer game to

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, Toy, toys, arcade cabinets, and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, Vending machine, vending machines, and Juk ...

. In a later 2017 interview, Albaugh said he was uncertain which company it was from, but remembers it was from a Japanese company. Atari's ''Football'' was released in October 1978.

Reception

''Football'' was the second highest-earning 1979 in the United States, below only ''

Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up video game developed and published by Taito for Arcade video game, arcades. It was released in Japan in April 1978, with the game being released by Midway Manufacturing overseas. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed s ...

'' (1978).

Legacy

Although not the first

game, predated by

's ''World Cup'' in March 1978, ''Atari Football'' is credited with popularizing the trackball.

References

External links