Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by former Disney animator Don Bluth. Most other games of the era represented the character as a sprite, which consisted of a series of bitmaps displayed in succession. However, due to hardware limitations of the era, artists were greatly restricted in the detail they could achieve using that technique; the resolution, framerate and number of frames were severely constrained. Dragon's Lair overcame those limitations by tapping into the vast storage potential of the laserdisc, but imposed other limitations on the actual gameplay.
The game's enormous contrast with other arcade games of the time created a sensation when it appeared, and was played so heavily that many machines often broke due to the strain of overuse. It was also arguably the most successful game on this medium and is aggressively sought after by collectors.
Source: Wikipedia, "Dragon's Lair", available under the CC-BY-SA License.