You have to admit that computer technology is rapidly evolving, and it’s safe to predict that in a few years, we’ll be fully immersed in virtual reality, unsure whether the world around us is real or simply a game. Consider the movie The Matrix. Perhaps its inventors were on to something?Most people nowadays only want 3D games with good visuals and nobody says i don t wanna play no games, but few recall how simple the early video games were, resembling crude calculating machines. Let’s take a look at historical game industry breakthroughs that powered today’s games, and how they developed, shaped, and propelled them into the future.
Interactive Game 1947
The term “Pong” is frequently used when discussing the lowly beginnings of video games. Pong was one of the first games, debuting in 1972. The game immediately acquired popularity, and a home version was released as early as 1975. There were, of course, other video games before Pong.In reality, 25 years before Ponga, in 1947, two years after WWII ended, the first interactive electronic game was produced. During WWII, rocket shows inspired Thomas T. Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann to design an electron-beam tube rocket simulation game. Analog circuits were employed to regulate the tube’s light beams and the position of target dots in the game.
A game that had a huge impact on the gaming industry. 1961
The PDP-1, the first minicomputer, was released by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1960. (Programmable Data Processor-1). A year later, a group of students from Massachusetts Institute of Technology created the game Spacewar! for the PDP-1.Two players controlled their own spaceships and maneuvered between the stars in an attempt to hit the enemy. It was widely distributed via the Internet (which was, of course, a crude system at the time) and served as the foundation for a number of other video games.
A game that is freely available. 1971
For many years, you could only try out a video game in places where it was installed (typically universities), and home versions of arcade games didn’t arrive until the 1950s and 1960s. An electronic tic-tac-toe game was commonly included.Two arcade versions of Spacewar were produced in 1971. In September of that year, the world’s first arcade game, Galaxy Game, a coin-operated video game, was installed at Stanford University in California.Two months later, in November, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, the future founders of computer game creation and publishing business Atary, released 1,500 Computer Space arcade devices for commercial sale. Pong was their second and more successful attempt at breaking into the international video game market. As the acknowledged pioneer of the American video gaming industry, Nolan was dubbed “The King of Pong.”
The first home video gaming console was released in 1972.
The home version of Ponga (also known as Home Pong) should have been at the pinnacle of popularity for a long time as the first interactive electronic game. This, however, did not occur. The Magnavox Odyssey, built by engineer Ralph Baer and introduced three years before Home Ponga, was the world’s first game console. Unfortunately, it fell short of all expectations: due to poor marketing strategies, console sales plummeted, and many people assumed the game system only operated with Magnavox televisions.With the words “Suitable for any television, black or white or color” printed on Ponga’s boxing, Nolan Bushnell’s Atary (Atary was still known as Nolan Bushnell at the time) rapidly recognized and capitalized on the competitor’s faults. The popularity of Ponga clearly displeased the Magnavox Odyssey console’s makers, which may have prompted a lawsuit against Nolan Bushnell due to the similar resemblance between Ponga and the Magnavox Odyssey tennis game. Later cases were filed against other businesses, including Coleco, Mattel, Seeburg, and Activision, with no success.In addition to all of the normal manipulators, the Magnavox game console displayed the world’s first light gun, which, much to the chagrin of the players, did not always work.