For the aforementioned robotron and games of that era, you're mostly limited by your skill. You won't get a game over until you die. Look up a record breaking s

For the aforementioned robotron and games of that era, you're mostly limited by your skill. You won't get a game over until you die. Look up a record breaking score run. It'll last hours. Of course, you can't get that good until you sink a ton of credits into the game... It was mostly in the 90s when they figured out they should probably limit game length per credit, like a restaurant trying to turn over a table as many times as possible. Stuff like NBA Jam and Street Fighter II set the stage for that even before DDR.