Spacewar! inspired two of the earliest arcade games: Galaxy Game and Computer Space, both released in 1971. Created by MIT students in 1962, the game involved two rocket ships firing at each other while also flying through space so as to avoid falling into the gravity well of a nearby star. One of the earliest games ever invented on the computer, Spacewar!, might be said to have originated the shooter genre. Many games which were initially popular as arcade shooters have also been ported to PCs. Many such games exist, both in arcade-game format and on personal computers. An arcade shooter, or “shoot ‘em up,” is an action video game in which the player controls an avatar of some kind, often a plane or spaceship, and shoots large numbers of enemies while at the same time avoiding being shot by them.
