Space Invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade video game, developed and released by Taito in Japan and licensed to Midway Manufacturing for overseas distribution. Commonly considered to be one of the most influential video games of all time, Space Invaders was the first fixed shooter and set the template for the genre. The goal is to defeat wave after wave of descending aliens with a horizontally moving laser cannon to earn as many points as possible.
Arcade flyer
Cocktail table arcade cabinet
Space Invaders arcade cabinet
In Japan, Epoch Co. released a Space Invaders clone in 1980 that could be played at home: the Epoch TV Vader.
Shoot 'em ups are a sub-genre of action games. There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up; some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character movement, while others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives.
Japanese players at a shoot 'em up arcade in Akihabara, Tokyo (2017)