fights4users:

What game did the lightcycles belong to before Flynn made the Tron console game? They existed within the Encom system and later in combination with Space Paranoids were put in the Tron game.

As I don’t prescribe to the idea there was Tron the program and Tron the game from the beginning. (Yes this exists) and I mean it was partly just for a meta/self promoting opening for the cabinet but

I think Lightcycle was just its own game at first– the guy in the opening scene is playing it on an arcade machine that I think just said Lightcycles

and that’s the name he says when someone asks him “What’s this game called?”

So I’m guessing it was just an arcade machine with only Lightcycles on it. Maybe some other variations of the same game. (Would be interesting to speculate about the different variations. I think arcade machines usually have more than just one simple game like Lightcycles, so to have enough for a machine it would probably need several different riffs on it?)