1984 in video games

Events

Namco releases Gaplus, Tower of Druaga, Pac-Land, which is the first side-scrolling platformer, Grobda, which is a Xevious spin-off, Super Xevious and Dragon Buster, which is the first game to use a life bar.
Nintendo releases Balloon Fight
King's Quest (Sierra, IBM PC), the first animated adventure game, the first in the King's Quest series, and the first to use the AGI engine
The Ancient Art of War by Dave Murry and Barry Murry, the first major real-time strategy game, is released by Brøderbund.
Paperboy by David Ralston Atari, arcade game), later ported to many platforms, featured innovative bike handle steering controller
Elite by David Braben and Ian Bell is published by Acornsoft, an early and very influential wireframe 3d space trading game offering full six degrees of freedom and a then unique open ended design
The Lords of Midnight, a groundbreaking strategy adventure game by Mike Singleton is released.

New companies: Kemco, Accolade, New World Computing
Defunct companies: Astrocade Inc., FTL Games (developer and publisher)
Hasbro, Inc. acquires Milton Bradley Company
Management Sciences America acquires Edu-Ware Services
Warner Communications Inc. sells Atari, Inc.; creates an entirely new division Atari Games Corp
Sega and CSK merge to form Sega Enterprises Ltd.