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Soviet Video Games from the 70s
vigmeister writes "A group of Russian kids have uncovered and rebuilt some arcade games from the Soviet era. These games apparently offered free play when someone played well, but no list of hi-scores. Roughly 32 of them have been found and although they are based on other arcade games, I hope these games were unique enough to offer playability for the present day arcade game lovers. 'Based largely (and crudely) on early Japanese designs, the games were distributed -- in the words of one military manual -- for the purposes of "entertainment and active leisure, as well as the development of visual-estimation abilities." Production of the games ceased with the collapse of communism, and as Nintendo consoles and PCs flooded the former Soviet states, the old arcade games were either destroyed or disappeared into warehouses and basements. It was mostly out of nostalgia that four friends at Moscow State Technical University began scouring the country to rescue these old games. '"
aww heck. It's too easy.
Coins insert into you!
In Soviet Russia, Comrade Sandiego finds YOU!
In Soviet Russia, pole positions you!
If everyone's entertained, they're easier to control. Considering the times, I'd guess that had something to do with it.
I played some of those when I was staying in Moscow in... when was it... '92?
They had "sniper-2" (with the moving circular targets) and the yellow one with the atari 2600 style Pole Position clone at the hotel...
Though, they charged us 2 ruble for a game, not the 15 kopeck one of the pictures shows. I guess that's what happens when capitalism runs in or something.
They were pretty fun for a computer-geek traveling in Russia at the time...
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I love arcade machine... as well as old soviet tech. so this stuff is very interesting to me.
The note about there being no high score list on any of them I think was rather intriguing. it kind of falls in line with the whole communism ideal. Also interesting that these were (at least in some cases) distributed by the military. I wonder if they were also developed by the military.
Collector's Edition
Soviet Russia plays games with you.
No? How about tic-tac-toe?
I thought it funny that the only gun related game wasn't even violent. All you do is shoot at little round targets. Of course everyone and their vodka drinking dog had an AK-47 so I guess they just shot bottles, cans and capitalists for their shooting games.
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed H
Because under Communism, everyone is equal.
Wonder if there are any MAME Dev's around here....
Insert witty comment *here*. I'm fresh out of wit...
Probably not, as I'm betting a lot of it is dedicated circuits and stuff. I love the fact one of the pictures has those vacuum tube score readouts, while another has a mechanical one! Still, would love one or 2 in my basement.
No high score tables, huh? Well, I guess with communism you could just have a list of all the players with the same scores.
It's like all the jokes about Soviet technology being behind ours came to life in video game form. Still, I'd love to try some of the cruder video games.
I know MAME supports some game that was found in East Germany with no copyright that is a set of games. They look like early-80s CGA text mode games for DOS.
Has anyone seen ANY of these in MAME? My emigre' co-worker just blew his lid when he saw them. He hasn't seen these in twenty years.
The Moscow Times had this last month. Better pictures at Wired, though.
For those hardcores with a taste for Cyrillic, the Museum's website is www.15kop.ru
Those in the UK could see some of these games at Swindon's Museum of Computing, as this BBC article from 2004 states. Not sure if they're still there.
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I guess that's what happens when capitalism runs in or something.
:)
:)
Actually, just a first-hand price point for you: 15 kopecks at my time (about 1980) was what it took to play a round of a game OR get about half a pound brick of *good* icecream (cheaper ones started at 7). As you can imagine, it was sometimes quite a tough choice for us kids, but when we were lucky we would eat our icecream AND play couple rounds too.
Try getting icecream in the US for a quarter, and you would realize that those arcade games were actually considered quite a luxiry at the time. I do not remember if in 1992 you could get an icecream for 2 roubles either!
Of course we would have to sneak into a movie theater (where machines were installed), giving our word to the old lady that no, we are not going to stay for the movie, especially since it started 40 minutes ago and who would want to see it from the middle!
Paul B.
I hope they dump the roms as a backup measure. It seemed like there weren't many replacement parts.
Article about Alexander Zaitchik about Alexander Stakhanov and Alexander Vucman.
No wonder baby name books sell poorly over there.
You have to understand, though, that in the USSR the state controlled and owned everything. So it's only natural that all services were also owned and paid-for by the state.
If enough people wanted to dance, the state built some discos. If enough people wanted to drink, the state built bars and vodka distilleries. (Though they did try to curb alcohol consumption too.) If people wanted to go to the beach on vacation, the state built some hotels near a beach. If people wanted to see movies, the state built cinemas and TV stations, and paid some directors and actors to make movies. Etc.
The fact that you get those from some private companies, while they got them from state-owned companies, isn't necessarily some sinister conspiracy. It's just the way a state-owned economy is supposed to work: it essentially does the same things, but via companies owned by the state.
Some of them aren't even just part of some "keeping the population happy" plan. (Although even then, I see nothing fundamentally wrong with a government wanting to raise the standard of living of its citizens. You wouldn't mind it too much if your government cared about that, would you?)
They're also part of the idea that the "soviet socialist" economy, at least in Lenin's view, wasn't supposed to be _that_ different from a capitalist free-market society. They never got to the utopian part where everyone gets according to their needs, so it was still based on money, like in the west. The economy was still supposed to be match supply and demand, and it was still supposed to keep the money circulating, etc. The only difference was supposed to be that it's the state who does that matching (e.g., by building another car factory if demand for cars outstrips supply by too much), and in a carefully planned way.
Now that planning never actually worked too well, but that was at least the idea(l).
At any rate, they were still supposed to give people some stuff to spend their money on, and preferrably the same things a private company would have offered. (Or at least those things which weren't against the communist ideals.) So basically if they paid someone X rubles per month, they still had to offer the possibilities to spend that money on, and hopefully those would also be the things that people actually want. At least theoretically, anyway.
What I'm getting at is that it really made just as much sense for them to let people blow their coins on arcade games, as it made in the USA. From a simple economic point of view, if there's enough demand for X, it makes sense to take people's money by creating a supply. And it made just as much sense in the USSR as in the USA. Just because that money gets back into the state's pocket, doesn't mean that it doesn't want them back eventually.
Now, as I was saying, they weren't too good at that planning part, and the economy went increasingly off the intended track. But you don't have to assume conspiracies where it's just that, well, they just hadn't figured out a way for it to work without the money circulating like in any other market. For better or worse, they still had to play a pseudo-capitalism game.
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ROMs?
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The parent noted
So I offered a couple of possible reasons for both of the "interesting" aspects, in a way of background information for Slashdot readers who didn't learn how to disassemble AK47 in school. Sure, DOSAAF was useful for many kids, the militarism notwithstanding. But as most people outside of the former Soviet block had never heard about that organization, I figured it was worth mentioning as a possible connection to the "military style" manuals.