History of video games

                       The history of video games goes as far back as the early 1950s, when academic computer scientists began designing simple games and simulations as part of their research. Video gaming did not reach mainstream popularity until the 1970s and 1980s, when video arcade games and gaming consoles using joysticks, buttons, and other controllers, along with graphics on computer screens and home computer games were introduced to the general public. Since the 1980s, video gaming has become a popular form of entertainment and a part of modern popular culture in most parts of the world.

Describe some of the major milestones in the history of computer games that everybody should know.describe some of the major milestones in the history of computer games that everybody should know.

1950 – 1959

                  The first computer game that was ever created was probably the game OXO by Alexander Douglas in 1952. It was a version of tic-tac-toe that he wrote for his thesis on human computer interaction. But most people consider the real first interactive computer game to be Tennis for Two, developed in 1958 by nuclear physicist William Higginbotham for visitors of the Brookhaven National Laboratory. His game was meant to instruct players about the effects of gravity. Of course these early developers never realized the potential of games, partly because of the huge amount of equipment that was required.

First tennis for two and equipment required for it

1960 – 1969

                       Another early game was Spacewar! developed in 1961 by MIT student Steve Russell on a PDP1 computer1. A number of other games were created on this machine by students, including Lunar Landing.

A PDP1 and the game Spacewar!

In the second half of the decade a number of people and companies started to seriously consider the commercial exploitation of computer games. In 1966 Sega releases the arcade game Periscope which, although not really a computer game, did show the possibilities of arcade game machines. And Ralph Baer started researching interactive television, which led to the Odyssey game console, released in 1972.

1970 – 1979

                       This is often referred to as the golden age for video arcade games. The first commercial exploitation of computer games came through the arcade machines. These machines were allowed to cost a considerable amount of money, making it commercially feasible to exploit computer games. The first arcade computer game Computer Space appeared in 1971 but was not a commercial success. The creators though did not give up, founded Atari, and in 1972 produced the Pong game which was a huge commercial success. (One of the interesting stories is that when they put their first machine in a bar, within two weeks it was reported to have broken down. But the actual problem was that due to the huge number of quarters that were thrown in, the pay-slot system had stopped working.)

The Pong arcade machine by Atari.

Soon Atari was followed by many other companies and new interesting games were created. Breakout appeared in 1976, and also Space Wars that for the first time used vector graphics. In 1978 color was introduced and Space Invaders was produced by Midway, in 1979 Asteroids appeared (with 50.000 machines sold worldwide the biggest success), and in 1980 the highly popular game Pac-Man was created. (It was originally named Puck-Man but the distributor was afraid people might scratch away part of the letter P. Another interesting story is that the game led to a coin shortage in Japan.) A noteworthy game was Death Race that appeared in 1976. In this game you had to control a car and your goal was to run down as many “gremlins” as you could. Even though the graphics was pixilated with the gremlins looking like stick men, the game caused a lot of controversy which led to its end2.

The game Death Race, causing controversy.

Also home consoles were starting to appear that could be connected to the TV set. The first was the Odyssey in 1972 of which about 100.000 units were sold. It could only move some dots on the screen and used plastic overlays for the TV to add colored playfields3.

In 1976 the Channel F system appeared that for the first time used cartridges for the games, making it possible to play different games on the same system, which was a very important innovation. The big step though came in 1977 when Atari introduced the VCS system (also named the Atari 2600). Initially it did not sell very well, because the device was expensive and the games were not very good, but the turning point came in 1980 when Atari started to bundle the game Space Invaders with the device. It shows that in the end it is not the hardware that counts but the games. In total over 1000 different game cartridges were produced for the VCS. Over 30 million devices were sold and hundreds of millions of games4.

These early devices were extremely limited in their hardware. For example, the Atari VCS initially had only 1 Kilobyte of memory for both the program (written in Assembly language) and the data. Programming interesting game play on them was a very challenging task. The limits on memory for example meant that playing fields often were symmetric. This saved data to store it.

1980 – 1989

                 The number of games increased rapidly. Many famous games were produced in this decade, like Zork (1980), Donkey Kong (1981), Pole Position (1982), Pitfall (1982), Mario Bros. (1983), Dragon’s Lair (1983), King’Quest (1984), Elite (1984), The Legend of Zelda (1986), Metroid (1986), Mega Man (1987), Final Fantasy (1987), Metal Gear (1987), Popoulos (1989) and Prince of Persia (1989).

Because of the success of companies like Atari, others soon followed. For example, Mattel introduced the IntelliVision in 1980 and in 1982 the ColecoVision appeared. Many companies appeared creating games for the various consoles, often of poor quality. And Atari, who was the market leader at that point, made some huge mistakes with games like E.T. that cost them millions of dollars and lost them the trust of their customers. (Atari bought the rights for E.T. from Spielberg for a reputed twenty-odd million dollars. To have the game ready for Christmas they had only six weeks to produce it. They managed but produced a game that is often cited as the worst game of all time.) As a result, consumers became confused and disappointed and the game console marker crashed in 1984. Many companies in the U.S. went bankrupt or stepped out of the game business. As a result, the focal point of game production shifted to Japan.

Another reason for the crash was the introduction of new game computers. Cheap personal computers appeared that were particularly suited for games because of their memory, graphics and sound capabilities. Probably the most famous are Radio Shack’s TRS-80, the VIC-20, the ZX80 and the Commodore 64. Atari also entered this market, in particular with their very popular Atari ST that was introduced in 1985. Games for these computers were easier to copy, because of floppy disks or cassette tapes. This also made it possible to save game progress, which allowed for more complex games. Before, the player always had to start the game from the beginning. So the game had to be completed in a single play session. The computers made it possible to store the status of the game and, as a result, the player could stop and continue playing at a later stage, allowing for games that took many hours to finish.

The Nintendo Entertainment System and the bundled game Super Mario Bros.

The crash of the console market made it possible for other companies to enter this market. Nintendo introduced their Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1985 and the Sega Master System followed a year later. The NES came bundled with Super Mario Bros. and was an immediate success. Even though the Sega Master System was technological much more advanced than the NES, the NES was the most popular because of the high quality and uniqueness of its games (enforced by Nintendo through very strict publishing deals). It again showed that it is the games that matter, not the hardware. These devices had new gamepads with the directional-pad (or D-pad) rather than joysticks or turning knobs, that changed the way in which games could be played.

The Game Boy and the original game Tetris.

At the end of this decade an important new development happened. Nintendo introduced the Game Boy in 1989 as the first handheld gaming system. It came bundled with the game Tetris that made it very popular. Tetris was designed by the Russian scientist Alexei Pajitnov and is considered the most addictive game ever. (Even though there is some clear design error in it; when the player has trouble playing the game Tetris becomes harder because the blocks pile up, while it would be more logical to help the player and make the game easier.) The Game Boy was soon followed by the Sega Game Gear and the Atari Lynx. The latter has a color display, but neither was very successful, partly because of the short battery life. For a long time Nintendo was the prime producer of handhelds.

Source: pdp-1.computerhistory.org | videogamecritic.net | en.wikipedia.org