What was the earliest shooting game

Way back in the Seventies we had Pac Man and in the Eighties the sillly Mario games. They were on big video machines in restaurants, clubs, 7/11s and other places. We had to use a big joy stick and shoot with clicks. We also had Pong.

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Actually, Pac Man was not introduced until May 22, 1980

Prior to computer games, the earliest coin operated pinball machines were made in the 1930's. In 1966, Sega introduced an early electro-mechanical arcade game called Periscope. It was an early submarine simulator and light gun shooter. There was also a wild-west shooting game where mechanical popup targets registered hits from a rifle mounted on the front of the game. Throughout the late 60's, several similar games were introduced that combined electronics with mechanical operation. During the 1970s, electro-mechanical arcade games were gradually replaced by electronic video games that showed the action on a built in tv screen.

Pong was released in1972, and became an early favorite. Throughout the 70's there were many less well-known video games. In 1978, Space Invaders came on the scene, and other popular games soon followed: Galaxian (1979), Pac-Man (1980), Battlezone (1980) and Donkey Kong (1981). Prior to the 1980's, video games were sparsely placed in malt shops, miniature golf stores, and some restaurants. With the creation of so many new coin-operated arcade games, the early 80's began the emergence of video game rooms and family arcade businesses where dozens of games filled an entire room. However, much like many drive-in theaters have given way to the growing presence of home video and DVD players, the popularity of arcade rooms has diminished with the sales of home game consoles, and hand-held game devices.