History of Video Games

"William Higinbotham, who in 1958 created a game called Tennis for Two…" (The Beginning), is the one credited for the invention of the video game. At this stage in time, this new innovation did not spark much interest with the public. "Computer and video games themselves did not become part of the

Playing videogames can be a social activity, gaming consoles have advanced overtime, it now allows us to play videogames online with our friends and meet new people. Videogames are also used by our generation to pass the time, like when a person isn’t busy one weekend so he spends that weekend playing videogames with friends who are also not busy; or if someone is in the waiting room of the doctors office, waiting for the nurse to tell him or her when the doctor is ready to see, they might play a game to pass the time. Videogames also give us things to talk about with one another. Many videogames have unique story plotlines with bizarre worlds that have their own lore; some videogames have scoring systems which creates competitivity. Some videogame even have characters that come with stats. So videogames gives us a lot to discuss about.

Although, seeing as video games are increasingly popular today, not everyone met as unfortunate of a fate. Today, many could credit this to the video game development corporation known as Atari, which arose in 1972 and continuously flourished until about 1982. In 1972, Atari came out with PONG, the first electronic arcade game, and it was an enormous accomplishment that exploded into what is now called the electronic gaming revolution. As time passed, Atari managed to triumph over its competition time and time again, but that is not to say that each of the failed corporations did not feature something that is used today. In fact, a couple of the failed organizations contributed something original to what is common today. For instance, Fairchild Camera and Instrument creating the first system that could play several different games, rather than just one. Another aforementioned group, RCA, was the first to produce and utilize keypad controllers instead of paddles or joysticks. Other consoles that came along, such as Intellivision and Vectrex, sported better graphics than the Atari’s consoles and games, but they still did not manage to gross the amount of money that Atari did because Atari was still on top of collecting all of the most entertaining and enjoyable games of their time. Keep in mind what attracted the masses to video games in the past: fun and addictive gameplay, not how good they looked. Now that the principal eras of gaming have been

Around the middle of the 20th Century man cultures started to grow beyond what they previously were thanks to different mediums (such as television and music) helping to push boundaries; with this came the birth of pop culture. Considering pop culture is a shortened version of popular culture it’s clear that many of the things in pop culture would be short lived. The short lived trends and happenings are labeled as “fads”. Strangely enough, some fads progress beyond their short lifespan and actually become a mainstay in the varying international cultures. One such example might be familiar as it is common in today’s society. This example is, indeed, video games.

So, what was the very first videogame ever created? Do you think you know? Most people guess Pong, The Atari, Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros., Pac-Man, but all of them are wrong. Can you guess the Father

Did you know that the first video game was made in 1958, 58 years ago? The first video game was a simple tennis game, created by Physicist William Higinbotham. This video game was minuscule, only five inches in diameter! Video games have come a very long way, with improved graphics, and they have become more complex.

Today we see video games as a fun way to spend your time or a complete waste of time. Video games are sold and played worldwide. Video games were first used by scientist. In 1952, British professor A.S. Douglas created OXO, also known as tic-tac-toe, as part of his doctoral dissertation, which is a long essay on a particular subject, at the University of Cambridge. The first arcade video game sold commercially was Computer Space by Nutting Associates, which was introduced in 1971. In 1972, Atari offered a new video game called Pong. An interesting thing to mention is that Atari was created by Nolan Bushnell, the man who created Computer Space. He left Nutting Associates to create Atari. Pong was the first truly successful commercial arcade video game. It was a great hit when it came out.

“During the 1940s and the 1950s, computers took up entire rooms and were so expensive that only universities and large companies could afford them” (Behring 1). Being as that, computers were too expensive to obtain to be able to create a game, “students Steve Russell and his friends” used their school’s computer to create the “dueling game between two spaceships”, called “Spacewar”. (Behring 1) They game began to be used at other universities that also had computer programs. Ralph Baer who was an engineer, considered using the television to play video games on. Baer then created the first video games for the television in 1967(Behring2). Once the first games were created more games followed. Then what would be known as the gaming industry by a “Nolan Bushnell”, who wanted to use they games for retail. The industry would grow within a short span of time in which the sales declined until evolved games would once again rise sales and future advancements.

Storytelling has always been an ancient art form, taking people back to past cultures. Some believe stories were first printed on rock, carved into clay tablets, stone, bark and other materials. With the beginnings of writing they moved on to parchment and paper and now are digitally produce. “When we experience a story, we allow ourselves to be invaded by the teller” (Gottschall XV). If the author is good at his job, we are completely taken over by the story and our mind is working hard to absorb the characters, theme, colors and scenes. Early video games did not have a story but with the new digital forms, stories are necessary to keep players involved. Storytelling in games gives the gamers the opportunity to be involved in the game, experience the characters, stimulate feelings like fear and excitement and let the player know they make situations happen and the choices they make affect the outcome as well as motivate them to continue on. Graphics have always been important to the game, but developers are now realizing that the story is equally as important if players want to stick with the game.

Video games were originated first in laboratories by scientists. “This first idea came from their imaginations in late 1940s but unfortunately it did not reach the people as they were confined only to laboratories. This situation was observed till early 1970s until arcade games became popular.Then later on a new start-up named “Atari” unleashed a new

Many people underestimate the impact of videogames. Especially at this day in age, video games are everywhere. About 80% of American households have some form of video game devices, Computer, or Console, or even an iPhone. Video games bring many people together as a community, and many other helpful reasons. Personally, I am a big gamer myself. I have thousands of hours at least in video game playing and more still coming in. Many companies have been able to make billions of net just selling video games, that’s how big the gaming community is.

At a glance, video games may seem to serve the simple purpose of mindless entertainment with no relevance beyond that. In truth, video games are actually able to explain several sociological concepts. Video games are a massively shared hobby to the point where its own culture exists. Social integration is another key aspect of gaming. Many choose to play role-playing in games in which they essentially live another life outside of the real world. Lastly, there is no denying the impacts video games have on society as a whole.

Video games have been known to play a part in the childhood of many people. Although there is much debate about what video game was really made first, Spacewar!, made by Steve Russell and first premiered for the public in 1962, is one of the many games people list as the first real video game. Later, in 1972, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney teamed up to create the Atari company, which would produce coin-operated video games such as their first big hit, Pong. Little by little, gaming technology became more complex and in 1972 the Magnavox Odyssey was released by Ralph Baer as a video game console for home use. However, at that time Atari’s video game system had become one of the most successful systems on the American market, until the market

One of the biggest factors that video games have impacted is peoples health. Video games have good and bad factors to peoples health. For example some problems that video games have impacted are obesity, aggressive behavior and cognition, sleep deprivation and many others. They have also impacted the problem of addiction. One would figure out after researching this subject that just being a male gender increases addiction of video games. Video games can also be a healthy and therapeutic. Games also change how people think and how peoples brain works. They have enhanced peoples visual skills and actually make it easier to create new sensorimotor skills. Peoples thought process have also been impacted because of video games. People that play action video games are proven to have faster decision making but as accurate as people that do not play video games. Video game players interpret the world differently than non video game players. Nolan Bushnell once stated, “Video games foster the mindset that allows creativity to grow” (Colzato). This quote is stating that video games promote creativity and help humanity grow and become more creative in our world. We need creative people in our world to build buildings, become art teachers, and many more jobs. One might be surprised to learn that after researching this subject on how dramatically video games impacted the human

Video games are just like sports, they get our heart pumping, minds racing and you get pumped up like an actual sport. Video games are just like sports with the competitiveness and the skill it makes video games, in fact, a sport. There are now stadiums packed with fans and gaming stars, cropping up in England, Poland, and Germany. Gaming also has its injuries just like