I agree with '80 - '83.
'79 is a bit of a stretch. Although if you consider some of the games that came out in '79: Asterioids, Lunar Lander, Rip Off, Galaxian, Star Fire, Tailgunner, I think you could make a case that the Golden Age of Arcade Games (or GAAG) might have begun mid-year, although it really wasn't in full swing until '80. However, games that were released in '80 were being developed in '79, so there was certainly enough upswing in arcade business to merit the sort of development effort that was going on.
I was already going to a pretty large arcade as early as '79, since I distinctly remember when Asteroids first showed up. But '80 is when it hit big everywhere, and arcades began popping up all over the place. That's when it went mainstream.
The crash happened in '83 (not '82). (Click
here , then on '83, and scroll down to the "Fiscal Financials" section. Compare that with '82.) So that could be considered the end of it, even though the year started out well, since everybody was still swimming in money, and unveiling tons of new stuff at CES in January '83.
I'd like to include '84 just because of Marble Madness, Paperboy and the Nintendo VS. system. But arcades were firmly in the dumper by that point. Also, July of '84 is when Atari was destroyed by Jack Tramiel. So if there was any of the GAAG left in '84, it was gone by Summer.