Top 10 Most Iconic 80s Video Games

It is estimated that currently there are more than 3 billion video game players worldwide.

Experts at BestCasinoSites.net were curious to discover which are considered to be the most iconic video games from the 1980s. 

This was achieved by compiling a specialised seed list of popular 80s video games and gathering the amount of average global monthly search volumes each had accumulated.

Along with the study’s results, BestCasinoSites.net expert, Aiden Howe, also provided some useful tips to use when playing one of the top three games.

Here are the most iconic 1980s video games, ranked…   

Ranking	Video Game	Release Year	Average Global Monthly Search Volumes
1	Tetris	1984	2,935,080
2	Pac-Man	1980	2,552,400
3	Super Mario Bros	1985	593,300
4	Donkey Kong	1981	355,600
5	The Legend of Zelda	1986	174,600
6	SimCity	1989	157,040
7	Super Mario Bros 3	1988	92,620
8	Contra	1987	45,000
9	Prince of Persia	1989	27,000
10	Maniac Mansion	1987	17,110
11	Gauntlet	1985	16,100
12	Mega Man 2	1989	7,810
13	Elite	1984	3,800
14	Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar	1985	1,140

First place for the most popular 80s video game goes to Tetris with 2,935,080 average monthly search volumes. The puzzle video game was released in June 1984. Versions of the game have since been made available on various gaming platforms, including Nintendo, Game Boy and PlayStation 4.

Tip: Understanding the rotation system of the pieces is an important step that can help you become a faster and better player. Looking at the piece that comes next so that you can plan your next move is also a very useful tactic. Last but not least, positioning the pieces as much as possible horizontally to create a flat top can provide you with enough space for more block positioning options.

With a total of 2,552,400 global monthly search volumes, Pac-Man places second. Released in May 1980, the maze video game was intended for arcades. In the seven years following its release, 293,822 arcade units were installed.

Tip: One of the best things to do when starting a game is clearing the lowest row of the maze first before the ghosts manage to gang up on you. Learning the different patterns (Pac-Man Cherry Pattern, Pac-Man Mid-Fruit Pattern and Pac-Man Apple Pattern) and when to use them can significantly improve your game. Finally, don’t forget to keep a close eye on all ghosts so you can successfully plan your moves.

And in third place is the adventure video game Super Marios Bros, having generated 593,300 global average monthly search volumes. The game was developed by Nintendo and was released in September 1985. An interesting fact is that an original never-opened copy of the game sold for $2 million in 2021.

Tip: The first step is learning the controls and what each control button does. In order to defeat an enemy that’s in your way, remember to jump on it to make it disappear. And try to always look for a shortcut – if you reach a pipe, for instance, you can press down and enter it, which would usually take you to an underground shortcut, where you’ll also find coins to collect.

And the least popular video game from the 1980s is…

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, with a total of only 1,140 monthly average search volumes (2,933,940 less than Tetris in first place), places last in the study.

Methodology

1. BestCasinoSites.net sought to find out the most popular video games from the 1980s.
2. A comprehensive seed list of popular 80s video games was compiled utilising multiple websites, including: The Guardian, 80s Kids, Listverse, Screen Rant and HeadStuff.
3. Only games that appeared more than once across the different articles were taken into consideration.
4. A refined list of 14 video games from the 80s was created.
5. Following this, each video game was manually inputted into Ahrefs utilising the search variation videogamename and the average global monthly search volumes generated was recorded. Search variations, such as: tetris game, pacman video game and prince of persia (1989 video game) were used in order to obtain accurate results.
6. All games were then ranked based on the amount of average monthly global search volumes they had generated, so that the most popular 80s video game could be determined.
7. All data was collected on 20 June 2022 and is subject to change.