1980 in video gaming

Events

Notable releases

* Mattel releases the Intellivision video game console.
* Namco releases Navalone, Kaitei Takara Sagashi, SOS, Pac-Man, which is their biggest selling game of all time, King and Balloon, which is the first game to feature synthesized voices, Tank Battalion and Rally-X, which is the first game to feature a bonus round.
* "Rogue" is written by Michael Toy, Glenn Wichman, and Ken Arnold, spawning the category of roguelike games.
* Nintendo releases the "Radar Scope" arcade game and the Game & Watch handheld LCD game by Gunpei Yokoi.
* Sinclair Research releases the ZX80 home computer, the first 'domestic' computer to play games in the UK.
* Stern Electronics (a subsidiary of Universal Research Laboratories) releases the "Berzerk" arcade game.
* Warner Communications' Atari releases the "Missile Command" arcade game, and the "Battlezone" arcade game (it was later enhanced for the US Army for military training) – albeit relying on specialized vector graphics hardware.
* Williams Electronics releases the "Defender" arcade game.
* Warner Communications' Atari releases the "Centipede" (by Ed Logg & Dona Bailey) and "Warlords" arcade games and also the "Tempest" color vector arcade game.
* Edu-Ware releases "The Prisoner", loosely based upon the 1960s TV series of the same name. Programmed by David Mullich, it became a classic of the Apple II platform.
* Infocom releases Zork I, the first Zork game and the first Infocom game.

Business

* New companies: Mindscape, Inc., Sierra On-Line.
* Mattel creates the original five-programmer Intellivision game design team, nicknamed the Blue Sky Rangers by a magazine writer when the company keeps their names secret in a TV Guide interview.