Arcade conversions

In video gaming parlance, a conversion is the production of a game on one computer or console that was originally written for another system. Over the years, video game conversion has taken form in a number of different ways, both in their style and the method in which they were converted.

The earliest video game conversions were almost exclusively home versions of popular arcade games. The first examples were conversions of Atari's Pong in the form of consoles with this one game built-in, as well as consoles that included a number of variations on the game. Atari produced their own "official" conversion of the game for home use, but a number of other imitators such as Sears' Telegames Pong IV were also on the market.

With the beginning of the video game era, Atari released their Atari 2600 console for which they licensed and produced a number of home conversions of popular arcade titles, including Pac-Man by Namco, Space Invaders and Defender. Later, other third-party developers and publishers such as Activision and Coleco produced games like Donkey Kong for the Atari 2600.

The mid-1980s and the mid-1990s saw a flurry of conversions of popular arcade games to home computers such as the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC, Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. These games were mostly developed and published by groups who were not involved with the original developers, but who had bought the rights to create reproductions of these games. Console versions of these arcade games, however, were often produced by the original developers of the arcade title.

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