Europe's biggest games convention marks 30 years since Space Invaders this week with a homage to the alien shoot-em-up as well as 500 exhibitors showing how far the industry has come since then.

Space Invaders first hit gaming arcades in 1978, setting players the challenge of shooting a swarm of hostile extraterrestials descending at an ever increasing pace - before they destroyed you.

The hugely popular game, released a year after the Star Wars movie, was "revolutionary," according to organisers of the Leipzig GC Games Convention in Germany starting on Wednesday, and changed the nature of video games for ever.