A look back at Bally Midway in 1982

[tthurman]

This is just a snip of what you can find here.

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Over the next few weeks, I'm going to share several posts relating to Bally Midway, one of the cornerstone manufacturers of the Golden Age of arcade videogaming.

Established in 1958, Midway Mfg. Co. began life by manufacturing and selling amusement equipment, before being purchased outright by its competitor Bally. The company created some of the best known mechanical and electro-mechanical amusement machines throughout the early to mid 70s.

Midways close relationship with Japanese manufacturers like Taito during this time is well documented. This culminated in the huge success of Space Invaders, with Midway being the exclusive manufacturer of the game that took the USA by storm in 1978. This in turn would kick-start a series of massive hits for the company during the early 80s.

 

[tthurman]

The factory footage detail is crazy, don't get bored and give up on it!

 

[Draco1962]

I know that there were plenty of "rabbit holes" (or more like gopher holes because there were so many) when we were working together on the company logo sourcing project a few years ago with various company mergers, aquisitions, and splits, but this one stood out to me. Especially later with the acquisition of Bally/Midway by Williams in 1988. Of course, we owe Williams for giving us Defender and Robotron 2084 among others.