The original game, "Western Gun", was created by Tomohiro Nishikado for Taito. Taito licensed "Western Gun" to Midway for release in North America, one of the first such licenses, after the 1974 scrolling racing game "Speed Race", also designed by Nishikado, and the 1974 sports game "Basketball". The title "Western Gun", while making perfect sense for Japanese audiences in that it conveyed the setting and theme as simply as possible, sounded odd to American audiences, so it was renamed "Gun Fight" for its American localization.