1982 in video gaming

Events

* December 27 - Starcade, a video game television game show, debuts on TBS in the United States.

Notable releases

*October 13 - Mystique releases the "Custer's Revenge" adult video game for the Atari 2600 home console.
* Activision releases "Barnstorming" and "Megamania" by Steve Cartwright for the Atari 2600.
* Bally/Midway releases the "Tron" arcade game before the movie
* Gottlieb releases the "Q-Bert" arcade game.
* Atari releases "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial", possibly the biggest flop in video game history and one of two major video game releases (along with the Atari 2600 version of "Pac-Man") that helped spark the video game crash of 1983.
* Mattel releases "Utopia" by Don Daglow for Intellivision; "Utopia" was the first sim game.
* Namco releases "Dig Dug", "Pole Position", "Super Pac-Man", "Pac-Man Plus" and "Xevious".
* SEGA releases the "Zaxxon" arcade game.
* Starpath releases Dragonstomper by Stephen Landrum (the first and only RPG for the Atari 2600) and Escape From The Mindmaster also for the Atari 2600.
* Warner Communications' Atari releases the "Quantum" arcade game.
* Williams Electronics releases the arcade games "Joust" (designed by Barry Oursler, art by Constantino Mitchell) and "" (designed by Eugene Jarvis).
* Parker Brothers releases "" (Atari 2600 and Intellivision), the first "Star Wars" video game.
* Edu-Ware releases "Prisoner 2" for the Apple II, Atari, and IBM PC.
* Sir-tech Software, Inc. releases "", the second scenario in the "Wizardry" series

Hardware

* Atari releases the Atari 5200 home console.
* Astrocade Inc. (formerly Astrovision) releases the Astrocade console.
* Coleco Industries releases the Gemini home console, an Atari 2600 clone.
* Commodore Business Machines releases the Commodore 64 home computer.
* Emerson releases the Arcadia 2001 home console.
* Entrex releases the Adventure Vision home console.
* General Consumer Electronics releases the Vectrex home console.
* Sinclair Research releases the ZX Spectrum home computer, which would become the most popular gaming computer of its generation in the UK.
* Coleco releases the ColecoVision home console.

Business

* New companies: Electronic Arts Inc., Lucasfilm Games, MicroProse Software, Inc., Enix Corporation.
* Ultimate Play The Game (later to be known as Rare) is founded.