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Fueled by the previous year's release of the colorful and appealingPac-Man, the audience forarcade video games in 1981 became much wider.Pac-Man influencedmaze games began appearing in arcades and on home systems.Pac-Man was the highest grossing video game for the second year in a row.Nintendo'sDonkey Kong defined theplatform game genre, whileKonami'sScramble establishedscrolling shooters. The lesser knownJump Bug combined the two concepts into both the first scrolling platform game and the first platform shooter. Other arcade hits released in 1981 includeDefender,Frogger, and theGalaxian sequelGalaga.

On theApple II,Ultima I andWizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord each kicked off a long running role-playing game series. Atari's VCS port ofAsteroids was a major hit with the console. The best selling home system around the globe was Nintendo'sGame & Watch for the second year in a row.

• Thearcade video game marketin the US generates $4.8 billion in revenue.^[1]
• The homevideo game market in the US generates $1 billion in sales revenue,^[2] withAtari remaining the market leader.^[3]
• The home video game market inEurope is worth $200 million.^[4]

The year's highest-grossing video game wasPac-Man with$1.2 billion inarcade game revenue, three times the box office revenue of thehighest-grossing filmStar Wars (1977) in five years.^[5]

In Japan, the following titles were the highest-grossingarcade video games of 1981, according to the annualGame Machine chart.^[6]

In the United States, the following titles were the top three highest-grossing arcade games of 1981, according to the annualCash Box andRePlay arcade charts.

The following titles were the top-grossing arcade games of each month in 1981, according to thePlay Meter andRePlay arcade charts.

The following titles were the best-selling home video games in 1981.^[29]

• January – Atari computer magazineANALOG Computing begins 9 years of publication. Most issues include at least one BASIC game and one machine language game.
• November – The British video game magazineComputer and Video Games (C&VG) starts.
• Winter – Arnie Katz and Bill Kunkel foundElectronic Games, the first magazine on video games and generally recognized as the beginning ofvideo game journalism.

• New companies:DK'Tronics,Games by Apollo,Gebelli Software,Imagic,Spectravision,Starpath,Synapse Software
• Defunct:APF Electronics

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• May 6 –David 'mamehaze' Haywood: LegendaryMAME programmer

Arcade

• February –Konami releasesScramble, the firstside-scrolling shooter with forcedscrolling and multiple distinctlevels.^[36]
• February –Williams Electronics releases influential scrolling shooterDefender.
• July 9 –Nintendo releasesDonkey Kong, which introduces the characters ofDonkey Kong andMario, and sets the template for theplatform game genre. It is also one of the first video games with an integral storyline.^[37]
• August –Konami releasesFrogger.
• September –Namco releasesGalaga, the sequel toGalaxian which becomes more popular than the original.
• October –Frogger is distributed in North America bySega-Gremlin.
• October 18 –Sega releasesTurbo, aracing game with athird-person rear-view perspective.
• October 21 –Williams Electronics releasesStargate, the sequel toDefender.
• October –Rock-Ola'sFantasy is the first game with acontinue feature.
• October –Atari, Inc. releasesTempest, one of the first games to use Atari's Color-QuadraScanvector display technology. It was also the first game to allow the player to choose their starting level (a system Atari dubbed "SkillStep").
• November – Namco releasesBosconian, a multidirectional shooter with voice.
• December –Jump Bug, the firstscrollingplatform game, developed byHoei/Coreland andAlpha Denshi, is distributed in North America byRock-Ola under license from Sega.
• Midway releases fixed-shooterGorf with multiple distinct stages.
• Taito releases abstract, twin-stick shooterSpace Dungeon.
• Data East releases the vertically-scrolling isometric maze gameTreasure Island.

Console

• Atari, Inc.'s port ofAsteroids is a major release for the Atari VCS, and is the first game for the system to usebank-switching.
• Mattel releasesUtopia forIntellivision, one of the first city construction games and possibly the firstsim game for a console.

Computer

• June –Ultima is released, beginning a successfulcomputer role-playing game series.
• September –Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord for the Apple II is the first in a computer role-playing franchise that eventually spans eight games.
• IBM andMicrosoft include the gameDONKEY.BAS with theIBM PC, arguably the firstIBM PC compatible game.
• Muse Software releases the stealth action adventureCastle Wolfenstein for the Apple II.
• TheAtari Program Exchange publishesCaverns of Mars, a vertically scrolling shooter, and wargameEastern Front (1941), both for theAtari 8-bit computers. APX also sells the source code toEastern Front.
• Epyx releases turn-based monster gameCrush, Crumble and Chomp!.
• BudgeCo'sRaster Blaster sparks interest in more realistic Apple II pinball simulations and is the precursor toPinball Construction Set.
• Infocom releasesZork II: The Wizard of Frobozz.

Arcade

• July – theNamco Warp & Warparcade system board is released.
• October – theVCO Object, the firstarcade system board dedicated topseudo-3D,sprite-scaling graphics, debuts with the release ofTurbo.

Computer

• March 5 –Timex releases theSinclair ResearchZX81 in the UK, which is significantly less expensive than other computers on the market.
• June –Texas Instruments releases theTI-99/4A, an update to 1979's TI-99/4.
• August 12 – theIBM Personal Computer is released forUSD$1,565, with 16K RAM, no disk drives, and 4-colorCGA graphics.
• Astrovision distributes the Bally Computer System after buying the rights fromBally/Midway.
• Acorn Computers Ltd releases theBBC Micro home computer.
• Commodore Business Machines releases theVIC-20 home computer.
• NEC releases thePC-8801 home computer in Japan.

Handheld

• November –Nintendo'sGame & Watch is released inSweden.
• Microvision is discontinued.

• 1981 in games

• 1981 in video gaming
• Video games by year

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