The Development of Video Games

Although the hardware from the 1970s is incredibly inferior to what we have today, the consoles we use today are still put together in a similar fashion. When the Atari 2600 was released, it had no hard drive to save programs to, barely any RAM, and the game cartridges only had about two to four kilobytes of memory (McCall para. 4). To put that in perspective, a trillion kilobytes is equal to exactly one gigabyte. That is virtually nothing. Back in the ‘70s, the graphics were not good because thats all the computing power that was available back then. Simple games with pixellated graphics took up all the space in the hardware. Gaming controllers had to be simple because the games lacked the

The very first ‘Video Game’ was invented by Edward U. Condon in 1940, At first it was a simple game called ‘Nim’. In nim players try to avoid picking up the last match. Thousands of people played it, although the computer won at least 90% of the games. Around ten years later in 1950, a new computer program was created by Claude Shannon for the game of chess. In autumn of 1972 the first gaming console was released by ‘Magnavox’ and they called it the Odyssey. Three years later, the next big gaming console arrived when Sears sold the first ‘Atari Pong.’ This was the beginning of a long partnership between Atari and Sears. This relationship lasted multiple years, and Sears sold several successful games. Multiple years later in 1985, Nintendo released the Nintendo Entertainment System. This new gaming console dominated the Gaming Industry and grew Nintendo’s Company. Nintendo created several gaming console legends, such as the Game Boy, Nintendo 64, Game Boy Advanced, Nintendo Gamecube, Gameboy Advanced SD, and Nintendo DS, all of which made a huge impact on everybody’s childhood from 1985 to 2005. In the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century Playstation and Xbox also started releasing consoles. They are still to this day making successful Gaming Consoles, and individual games, as well as Xbox and Playstation.

Some problems are solved over a cup of coffee and some go on for decades without any sign of resolution. The reason may be that a solution can not be found or possibly that too many solutions are established. The ongoing argument of whether video games are good or bad for society is a clear example. Opponents believe they are a bad contribution to society while proponents believe they are a necessary and supportive addition to society.

When you think of your all-time favorite video games, it's a tough battle. With so much that goes into the spectrum of gaming, how do you compare a high definition first person shooter, to a classing 8-bit scroller? It's Mario vs Mortal Kombat X or Galaga vs GTA V. However, these sorts of video games are not a mere comparison, but history. Honoring the past, taking us to these fantastic new developments, most game fans salute the industry for how it has grown, but none of it would of started without the classics. Here is a homage to the five best retro games!Pac-Man was originally launched in Japan, by Namco in the 1980s, but with many other games more popularized it was gravely ignored, however in North America, it took a way bigger audience to fall in love with this yellow

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

“Be a Gamer, Save the World,” written by Jane McGonigal, is an article found in the Norton Reader 14th Edition. Video game critics are often quick to dismiss playing video games as brain numbing and a waste of time. McGonigal challenges critics of video games by discussing the benefits of playing video games. She makes a valid point by stating that video games make players more optimistic and help create better social bonds. These emotions can encourage people to desire working for the betterment of the world. McGonigal believes we can solve some of the world’s most difficult issues with the use of video games. The author makes a valid point, especially considering the advancements in technology and the

was one of the best critically acclaimed and biggest blockbuster movies in 1982, so naturally Atari obtain the license to create a game based on the movie. They ask Atari designer Howard Scott Warshaw to create the game within six weeks before the Christmas season the result was he program which would be known as “’the worst video game ever’” (Stanton, 89). So the E.T for Atari 2600 did not sell well, but thousands of unsold cartridges and were thrown in landfills within New Mexico and Atari lost millions in profit. But it didn’t stop there with these two games other companies kept popping out poorly made games to get easy money, which made 60 dollars games to 5 dollars in the bargain bin which create a chain reaction that over saturated the market with poor quality entertainment and loss of trust with the

World 's first commercially sold coin-op video game was called “Computer space”. It was created in 1971 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Unfortunately it wasn 't successful due low marketing, the complicity of game play and difficulty of controls. But creators of “Computer space” didn 't

When video games were first being introduced to the general public, they weren’t all that exciting. Most gaming took place in arcades and most arcades didn’t have many game cabinets due to their being very few games to begin with. However, all of this changed when the Atari 2600 was released. At the time, Atari was known for their home computers and their hit arcade game “Pong”. Though the Atari 2600 might not have been the first video game system, it was definitely the most successful at that time and a great success for Atari’s first attempt at a home video game console. Thanks to the success of the 2600, video games began to take off and arcades started popping up all over the world with hits like “Pac-Man” and “Donkey Kong”. These would be the

So, I’m going to change things a bit. Instead of just talking about dates and numbers, which can be boring; I’m going to give this a little casual twist. So, in order to start the history let’s get a few facts out of the way. Let’s talk about gamers, mainly because I’ll be using the term a lot; gamers are people who spent a lot of time playing videogames. The Average gamer playing video games has spent twelve years playing them. Adult gamers have an average of fourteen years of playing videogames, guys have an average of sixteen years, and girls have an average twelve years. Speaking of girls did you know that 47% of gamers are girls? I would have never guessed that, but it’s a fact. So, as of 2013 49% of all people who live in The United States owns a console. All of them that own a console have at least two of them. Me, I own eleven… I think I may have a problem. Anyway, now that some of the facts are out of the way let’s start, THE HISTORY OF VIDEOGAMES! Now before I start I want to talk about all the most important events in the history of videogames, as I call them eras. Each era is very important because they shaped the videogames we know and love today.

When the NES came out Nintendo started a licensing company for third party games to produce their games in Nintendo factories. After the NES was created Nintendo redesigned the Famicom (the game cartridge) to look like a VHS tape to help grip the system grip it better. Also, the rarest game in NES history is the boxed version of Stadium Events, “but only a handful of boxed, complete copies have ever been seen in the wild, and they can fetch anywhere from $35,000-45,000 at auction” (www.usgamer.net). The best selling game in NES history was Super Mario Bros as it sold a total of 40 million copies (www.usgamer.net). Before the NES came along, Donkey Kong was the king of gaming. The reason for this is because arcades were the only way to play at the time. Luckily, NES games were playable in the arcades. Games like Ninja Gaiden and Super Mario Bros were stretched into the arcades by a system called Play-Choice10. In conclusion, the NES was part of a revolution in

Anderson begins by telling his audience that with the creation of the popular and first Nintendo GameBoy game Tetris, a new tradition begins that he calls “stupid games”. Continuing his critical analyst he pointed out how technology has evolved a lot since Tetris was created and with so did video games leaving our world of today surrounded by what he calls “stupid games”. He talks about how Game-studies scholars have noticed a trend, that video games are often made during a time where they would be socially needed. Examples given by Anderson were, “Monopoly, for

Gaming has been around since the 1960’s and was nothing like the high definition games that we currently sitting in the living room, it was simply a game where a player controls a paddle and hits a ball back and forth similar to the more famous game the world knows as Pong. In 1970’s the very first arcade video games were being developed and by 1978 to 1982 also known as the golden age of arcade video games these coin hungry machines were easily found in a plethora of

Video games have quickly become the new major source of entertainment for the youth and the upcoming adults of the world. The youth seem to be giving more of their free time to video games. However, they have always seemed to have a bad reputation with many people of all generations. People are starting to believe more and more that video games are nothing but trouble. They feel as if video games are a waste of time and the youth could be using the time they spend on video games on more productive tasks or activities. What if they were actually a good thing for the younger generations to be involved with? Many would doubt that is possible because they feel as if video games cause the youth to become lazy and less intelligent. There has

All that is required is just skillfully managing the keyboard. Computer life is so exciting, that sometimes people are not concerned so much on events that occur in reality, as on what is happening in the virtual world. Where, by passing different levels and achieving any success, player feels how great and powerful he is. With each passing day, the video game industry progresses, giving us the better opportunity to fully enjoy the scene. The purpose of this essay is to prove that video games bring more harm than benefits to children. Firstly in this essay, negative effects will be considered, after that it will review benefits of video games, and finally give recommendations to parents, how not to allow games to negatively influence their children.