The 80's was really the big break for games as companies like Apple and Microsoft began their development of superior computers allowing for more intricate games to be developed like Wasteland, a game produced by Interplay Productions and published by EA Games in 1988 (then known as Electronic Arts).
Due to the high demand for home computers in the mid 70's, seeing one in a house was common come the 80's and so more and more games were created to facilitate this new hunger for entertainment in the household. Capital idea!
The Commodore 64 (1982) was one of the first, giving access to hundreds of games at an affordable price. A year later the very first Apple Mac was released which, unlike Apple's other products at the time, was less expensive.
The reason the 80's was the big break for games wasn't just because of the progress computers had made since the 70's, no, for it was then that all the genres of today’s games spawned; RPGs, sims, racing, war and adventure (labelled then as 'interactive fiction'). However it was only at the end of the decade that the text based play-style was dropped and replaced by the recently refined mouse, allowing for the use of graphical interfaces (GUI).
Therefore it is this I see as one of the most prominent developments throughout this decade, to go from typing in commands to merely clicking. As games were becoming more detailed and intricate, so to were the microchips behind it all, naturally. As such, the development of the microchip from the 70's throughout the 80's was significant in the progress of games as this not allowed for more powerful machines, but smaller ones as well.
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