In an early prototype, the opponents were tanks and soldiers but Nishikado's supervisors rejected it. "You must not create the image of war," he was told, perhaps out of Japanese sensitivity about past imperial aggression. As it happened, Nishikado had around the same time been reading about the American hit film Star Wars. So he decided to name his game Space Monsters. In 1978, Taito released it in Japan as Supēsu Inbēdā—and in America as Space Invaders.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 677