The History Of Video Games

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.

Video games are a fast growing form of technology. This issue has to be discussed because of the two confronting sides that embark it. Because of the issue video games have to either continue growing as they are or they have to be stopped completely or a settlement between the two parties has to be

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.

Shouldn’t this generation be required to play Pac-Man, Asteroids, Galaga, Centipede Pit Fall or Frogger before they get to play Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto or Halo? The games these days have real life graphics and by some can be considered offensive and too graphic, having an (EC) early childhood to (AO) an adult only rating (Entertainment Software Rating Board). Games went from being a nice hobby to a young kid to the average gamer now being an average age of 34 years old. The popularity of game usage is detrimental to the American society, changing our nation to

Video games have been around since the 1950’s. The first computer game was called Chess and there was no “video” to be displayed. The program was not even powerful enough to play the full game. The first computer game to use video was called XOX, or Noughts and Crosses, a form of digital tic-tac-toe. Since then, video games have rapidly grown in popularity and improved the play style and graphics. Some graphics in video games that are currently being released look realistic and the gameplay is smoother. Also, video games today are no longer confined to a desktop computer. There are now gaming laptops, consoles (Ex. GameCube, Xbox, PS3), handheld video games (Ex. Gameboy, 3DS, PSP), and you can now play games on your smart phone anywhere you want. The most popular ways to play video games are on computers or on consoles. PC gaming (computer gaming) and console gaming have been at a “gaming war” for yeas on which is better to play video games on. Both PC gaming and console gaming offer entertainment and a journey into a fantasy world, however, each offers a different way of gaming for the player. Depending on which system is chosen can determine the cost of the system and the upkeep, the way it is played and the special features each have to offer.

“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 are highly designed with artistic expression in the digital world. There is a

A video game console is an interactive entertainment computer or modified computer system that produces a video display signal which can be used with a display device (a television, monitor, etc.) to display a video game. The term "video game console" is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to buy and use solely for playing video games from a personal computer, which has many other functions, or arcade machines, which are designed for businesses that buy them and then charge others to play.

One may assume that playing video games is a waste of time and “rots your brain,” but to me, video games are one of my lifestyles. My dad used to tell stories of the three-year-old me sitting on his lap playing a racing game with him. I would immerse myself in the game and giggle whenever I had won. Video games are an integral part of my childhood and is one of the components that have definitely shaped me into who I am today. Growing up playing all types of games, I always wondered about the process behind the creation of games. I remember being amazed at the moving images and flashy visual effects, wondering about

Since the Early 70’s video games have been giving a bad name. Parents state that video games rot the minds of children and are influencing them do be violent. These accusations are far from the truth. In my research I found that there are many positive effects of gaming. Some of these effects are increased skills, creativity, general knowledge, and also help those in need. Parents can also take proper precautions and look into a game before buying it to see if it meets the criteria discussed in this paper.

What is a video game? Defined by Dictionary.com, “any of various gamers played using a microcomputer with a keyboard and often joysticks to manipulate changes or respond to the actions or questions on the screen.” With this in mind, there are two major types of games: Pay-to-play and free-to-play. Pay-to-play and free-to-play has been a long standing issue as players of each aspect support and argue for it passionately. However, as human instinct dictates, people prefer free goods and so free-to-play overall is a better genre compared to pay-to-play. Financial reasons are one of the core factors in which players consider buying a game or paying nothing to receive a similar quality of the paid-to-play games. These aspects also affect the judgment of customers who have also begun moving towards free-to-play genres.

Herman et all (2002) points out that history of video games begins from 1971 year, when Nutting association released 1500 machines with Spacewar video game. At the beginning it was too difficult to control the game process and playing machines had huge dimensions. But by the time with new technologies they become more compact and easier to play. According to the information given by Herman et all (2002), the period between the years of 1978-1981 is called ‘golden age’ of video game industry. In this period the arcade games ‘Football’ and ‘Space Invaders’ were released. All previously known sale records were broken by these two games with nearly equal wages. In this time interval great breakthroughs in the field of graphics were achieved,

Play Station and video games are technologies used for entertainment across all age groups all around the world. The young children aged from 5 to 10 years old occupy the largest percentage of users. Today there is wide variety of games attributed to the advancement in technology. The report is a detailed documentation of the impact of gaming on children with references to recent scholarly articles. It also touches on other involved parties in the management of the media entertainment.