World's Greatest Cities

A strange little side quest

World's Greatest Cities belongs to a much longer story of play than a browser tab might suggest. Pac-Man went on sale in 1980, and its creator Toru Iwatani famously linked the character's shape to a pizza with a slice missing. That old idea kept changing rather than disappearing. Space Invaders, released in 1978, helped push video games into mainstream popular culture. The details change, but the appeal of learning a system and trying again is remarkably persistent.