About Asteroids, Atari's biggest arcade hit

After the breakout success of Space Invaders in 1978, Atari was no longer the hot game maker. Sure, their games were popular, but they needed something that that could be the next “big thing”.

Space Invaders in 1978 and Star Wars in 1977 demonstrated that a sci-fi theme was probably the way to go. In April 1979, Asteroids was conceived and co-designed by…