The role of Jews in the video game industry is not as pronounced as in other areas, like comic books and movies, but it is still there. One name that comes to mind is Ralph Baer, who created the video game as we know it today, and another is Michael Kogan. While Baer is somewhat well-known among video game enthusiasts, significantly less people know about Kogan and his work.
Michael “Misha” Kogan was born in the in the Ukraine in 1920. His family fled the turmoil in the region and ended up in Harbin, Manchuria which at the time was time was known as Manchukuo. The area was under Japanese control at the time and Kogan met Norihiro Yasue while there. Yasue was considered one of Japan’s experts on Jews, and while initially influenced by Russian anti-Semitism, Yasue later developed close ties to many Jews and advocated on their behalf.
In 1953, Kogan would establish a company known as the Taito Trading Company, which specialized in vending machines and vodkas. Things would change in 1973 when the company, now known as Taito Corporation, went into video game development. It is no exaggeration to say that Taito is one of the most important companies in terms of video game history, and there is a good chance you have heard of at least one of their games.
The company had a few hits here and there in the early years, such as Speed Race and Western Gun, and also produced titles for the Atari 2600. However, in 1978 everything would change, not only for Taito, but for the game industry in general, when the company released the game known as Space Invaders. This title created the shoot’em up genre as we know it today and the Golden Age of Video Games helping to popularize arcades in both Japan and the West. And, it would see many great sequels that are still being made today.
Taito would go on to produce many additional arcade hits such as Darius, The Ninja Warriors, Arkanoid, Bubble Bobble, The New Zealand Story, and more. They would have success on consoles like the Famicom/NES, Sega Master System, and multiple European home computers, where they became renowned. The New Zealand Story became a massive success in the UK on the home computer scene, with the title being compared to the Mario series over there. Taito would experiment with how arcade games could stand out, which led to the creation of the aforementioned games, The Ninja Warriors and Darius. These arcade games would use three monitors placed together to create a widescreen view that simply could not be replicated elsewhere.
Kogan would be CEO of Taito throughout its early years in gaming and would oversee the meteoric rise of the gaming giant. He would die in 1984 from a heart attack while on a business trip to Los Angeles. Taito would continue to see success over the next decade and a half and would eventually be purchased by the publisher Square Enix in 2005, becoming a wholly owned subsidiary the next year.
Kogan’s family still maintained ties to Taito throughout the decades, even after his untimely death at age 64. In 2005, Kogan’s daughter Rita still had an 8.5% ownership of Taito stock for example. During these years prior to the Square Enix purchase, the company would make some incredible games while experimenting via innovation on established formulas and IPs. This would lead them to remake some titles like The Ninja Warriors for the Super Famicom/SNES. These would be reimagined versions of the arcade games and would be redesigned to work on home systems, rather than be poor ports of the arcade versions. Space Invaders continued to be expanded on with titles like Space Invaders 95: Attack of the Lunar Loonies, a self-parody of the series. They would also create new memorable titles like Night Striker, a memorable shoot’em up done in the style of Space Harrier, and the often-imitated Puzzle Bobble.
Taito would gradually be subsumed more and more into Square Enix after the acquisition, but have returned to publishing their own games in recent years. This has included new remakes of Bubble Bobble and The Ninja Warriors, and compilations of series like Darius, Space Invaders, and more. Michael Kogan may have started the company as a vending machine importer/manufacturer and vodka distillery, but also had the foresight to take the company in a direction that has left a lasting impact. Even decades after his death, his legacy remains intact as a driving force in video games, and is an example of a prominent Jewish impact on the video game industry.