1972 It begins: Pong is invented 1978 Space Invaders blips its way into arcades everywhere 1977 The Atari 2600 game system sells millions of units and brings arcade action home 1980 Pac-Man released 1982 First hit song based on a video game, Pac-Man Fever: “I got a pocket full of quarters …” 1981 First all-video game magazine: Electronic Games 1982 Video games first appear on the cover of TIME 1982 Tron, the first movie about video games, tanks at the box office 1983 E.T. becomes a video game –and flops 1983 A-list athletes star in games like Julius Erving & Larry Bird: One-On-One 1983 Journey is the first rock group to have its own arcade game