Where Did Videogames Come From?

Would it not be awesome if we could do the things one can only dream of doing? Imagine a world where you can be a running back in the NFL, a powerful sorcerer, and Batman, all in the same day. This world does exist and its the world of video games. Video games allow us to escape reality and the stress that comes with it. It is a world of infinite possibilities with something for everyone. You can slay huge aliens with your friends in a virtual reality, harvest the crops from you very own virtual farm, or even run your own country! In the world of video games, you can do whatever your heart desires! But video games have not always been this way and have not always been around. It has taken a

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.

"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

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

The first console was called the Brown Box and was mad by a TV maker, Ralph Baer. The Brown Box was made in 1967. Nolan Bushaell bounded Atari in 1972. Atari then had its first big hit with the infamous Pong. In 1980 Mattel releases the Intelivision which is the first challenge against Atari’s rule. Nintendo wasn’t always the video game we know, it was originally a Japanese playing card company. In 1985 Nintendo releases the Nintendo releases the Nintendo Entertainment System, Wow what a creative name that is. Then in 1989 they released their second smash hit with the Gameboy, to compete with other companies such as Atari, Who released their Atari 2600. It included the newly released Tetris which would grow to become a massive hit to top off the huge sales of the Gameboy. In 1991 the super Nes is released. Then the original PlayStation is released in 1995 becoming extremely popular. To combat this popularity Nintendo released the Nintendo 64 in 1996. It includes favorites such as Mario 64, Zelda, and Metroid. The PS2 is released in 2000 marking the beginning of a new era of game consoles. It is the first console to include 128 bit graphics. A problem with original game consoles such as the Atari 2600 is they had little memory. With such little memory Graphics could only be up to 160 by 228 pixels. The normal today is 1925 by 1080 pixels. Some of the earliest adventure games used text instead of images to create the world you’re in. The first of these “text” games was

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

Alot of people like video game, but don’t really think much about who came up with this and how did it get so popular well here are the answers to those questions. In 1972 Atari develops the very 1st video game Pong a table tennis like game.The game came in a console of its own you could not play anything on it but pong.Today pong seems like a pile of junk, but back in 1972 It was like the invention of the light bulb.Atari was the biggest company for 3 whole years until the competition came to rise.

Video games have been around since 1958, when physicist William Higinbotham created Tennis for Two to entertain guests for the Brookhaven national Laboratory. MIT arguably created the first real and widely known video game in the late 1960s, Spacewar!. Many people think that the first commercially available game is Pong!, this on the other hand, is not true. The first commercially available video game was called Computer Space. It was an arcade game much like Spacewar!, the only difference being that Computer Space used more processing power and new technology, and that it was the first arcade game as well, not available to personal computers or home televisions. The Magnavox Odyssey was the first home console that was available for the general public. It featured a controller much like the one that pong would eventually make, except that its two dials controlled vertical and horizontal, rather than just vertical. The Magnavox Odyssey as a console was eventually a huge failure, leaving tens of thousands unsold. Games continued to be produced for households, with the most noticeable violent game releasing on August 18, 1995. The game was called Mortal Kombat, the game depicted two

“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.

Let's start with Atari. Atari’s Pong was popular in its time. Other popular games were breakout and asteroids. Breakout was based off of Pong but instead of two paddles and a ball it is a paddle a ball and a bunch of breakable blocks. In Asteroids, you are a triangle (spaceship) shooting and avoiding incoming asteroids. There was a lawsuit over a colored copy, but it was legal. the judge said they didn’t patent spaceships or asteroids and it is in color so it is a different game.later people started just started throwing games on the system thinking people would buy them. One absolute fail was ET the game. Video games almost died out people as wanted to play as actual characters not rectangles, triangles, and weird alien things that half of

One of the first video games, Spacewar was made to show the power of the oscilloscope which is a electronic device used to measure signal voltages. Space War was a success. In 1972, Atari was invented and the gaming industry was great until the crash. Companies were putting out terrible games and people stopped buying until the NES which was made in 1985 and gaming returned.

The first games console was created in 1967 by a German engineer called Ralph Baer and his co-workers helped create the first videos game with him that would work on a standard television set. They ended up making 12 games for this console and added in a light gun. Then in 1972 after all of Baer’s team work they decided to create a new console called the Odyssey commercial video gaming console, they added cartridges into the console so you can play up to 12 games featuring dots and lines on a screen, it didn’t do so well as TV dealers didn’t see any potential in this device, this made the company think about what they can do to get their console out there to a wide audience. There was a false rumour that surfaced stating that the console only worked on TV’s that their company made which destroyed their popularity. Later after Nolan Bushnell founds Atari in 1972 the company has its first big hit when the arcade game pong was released, they started selling home versions of pong under a new label (sears tele games label). They had a new unique feature because it had a single chip that was able to produce a live score and when the paddle meets the ball a sound played. They introduced at home video games to the masses. Atari started to realise that a single games system popularity will drop if it can only produce one game at a time, so they started the idea of putting a cartridge in it so the user can play 12 games more than they were able to. They sold the company to Warner communications but they still backed up their project that they were working on, the console was renamed the Atari 2600 VCS. This console was an enormous hit with games like space invaders, breakout, missile command and

In 1961, Steve Russell developed the first game played on a computer called "Spacewar". The game was a hit with people but only a very few would really have the chance to enjoy it. The reason was because back then a computer was the size of a car and very expensive this system cost about $120,000. Only about fifty of these computer were ever sold.

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,