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Video Game History (Final post)

Writer’s note:
This is going to be my final post on this blog. I have decided to abandon this account as there are a lot of other things in my life that I have to keep track of. I can’t keep track of a schedule to write posts anymore. I felt so happy to see people commenting about how much they liked my posts and I am always grateful to even have 1 reader. But I have to put it to rest now

This new layout of WordPress is a bit hard for me to write in and sorry if it’s hard to read, I don’t know how to use WordPress anymore


As I have promised previously that I will be posting my essay which I wrote for my Applied Research class, which as you can guess was about video games. Enjoy this 5-page long mess of an essay

Game On!

Video games, what are they? They are an entertainment system displayed on a video screen corresponding to the consoles you input. Most people would have known about that, but does anyone really know when and where it came from? As time has gone on, we keep getting more and more games and consoles from different creators and companies that have created. The newest one, is usually better and has a greater improvement than the last. Video games have advanced over the years as it gets more popular and with more technological advancements and with a great impact on the world.

The first created video game is unknown, as many sources say otherwise. The first recorded computer video game was known as Nim. In 1940, a man who goes by Edward Uhler Condon had built a video game for the New York World Fair2. The concept of the game, Nim, reached all the way back to 1901 from the Chinese game 捡石子(picking stones), but it is uncertain as it may be recorded all the way back to the 16th century in Europe, which had a different name. The video game version was a puzzle game where there are four odd-numbered rows of matchsticks. The goal is to leave the last match to the opponent. Thousands of people have tried Condon’s game machine, in which 90% of the time, the computer will win14.  In the newly created computer version, the computer is always designed to win15. It is laid out in a way that makes it impossible for you to get the right amount of sticks to change the result.

About 10 years later, another game was created, called tic-tac-toe. In 1952, British professor A.S. Douglas created a game named OXO, which is now known as the game tic-tac-toe, or noughts and crosses. It was originally created for his doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge1. The first game of tic-tac-toe was discovered to be on the roofing tiles dating all the way back to 1300BC4. It has become a popular game to play all over the world and it soon became one of the first video games created.

Soon after came the first video arcade game in the world, the Computer Space produced by Nuttin Associates in 19712, designed by Nolan Bushnell. There was a big learning curve when the new arcade machine was introduced to a new invention. The arcade game had a joystick that controlled the direction of where the space could’ve gone and a button to add thrust. The highest score that you can get on the game is only 15 since there are no RAM, ROM, or processors. Games were much simpler back then, with limited technology9. 

One year later, the game that many of us had presumed to be the first video game was created. Bushnell had created a company by the name of Atari and hired Allan Alcorn, who had computer science experience but no prior experience in making video games. The creation of Pong was only a warm-up practice. Video games gained a lot of popularity after Pong was made. The success of Pong along with many other video games in the future.

In 1972, Magnavox created a video game system that you can play at home, or a console called the Odyssey13. It was very limited with graphics and “…required that custom plastic overlays be taped over the television screen.” (Tyson) Compared to the consoles we have now, there are a lot of things different from the console. It didn’t have a microprocessor, which means you can’t transfer the data from the console to another device, decode instructions, or load save files/not be able to process programs saved in memory.

First-generation consoles, such as the arcade games of Pong, Computer Space, and the Odyssey had trouble getting popularity and couldn’t get enough profit because of it2. Pong has been losing popularity as many people preferred the older 70s arcade games. But with more video games that were pushed out with new genres such as shooting, fighting, and racing, it was able to push past popularity. “It took a while, but by the end of the decade restaurants in the US started installing video game consoles at an ever-increasing pace so that they could monetize on the new market.” (Ioana) This was the new beginning for video games.

But in the 1980s, the popularity wasn’t getting any better than before. It was now the second generation of gaming, where developers are all coming out with new games, trying to be better than the last2. “That’s because by 1983 there were so many consoles on the market with even poorer and unimaginative games that the entire market crashed (what’s now known as the 83’ North American video game market crash).” (Ioana). Developers were running out of new ideas for video games with limited consoles. Companies took to using PC hardware at the time and built their game systems around it.

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES, also known as the Famicon in Japan) was created in 1985, 4 years after Nintendo created their first arcade game, Donkey Kong, introducing the plumber called Jumpman. The NES was new again, with a new concept and console. It consisted of a pad controller, making it easier to play than pc games since there is simplicity with the number of buttons on the console. The second year of the release had double the profit of the first year2. When the NES was released, the game was as smooth as the graphics in the arcade games. It wasn’t the best but it was a major leap and improvement to console games.

One main thing that has majorly changed video games is the graphics of the games. From the days of pixelated 8-bit games like Pac-Man and Pong to wonky first-person view of Doom, to block texture of older games, and finally getting smooth and hyper-realistic graphics in the most recent games. It often brings a stunning visual to the games. The older games tend to have less space to be able to store all the high graphics, resorting to trying to make everything small enough. Making frames that are able to be copied so it is able to fit into a 40-kilobyte floppy disk. As we are able to make better consoles with more function and storage (and finally a microprocessor), the games can load and process things better.

The first mobile game came out in 1993, as a pre-installed version of Tetris on the Hagenuk MT-20006. It was played on the small monotone screen and with the number pad to move and rotate the pieces. Three years later, Nokia created Snake for the Nokia 6110, which has been on 400 million devices world-wide5. They had also created the first-ever multiplayer game, which is a Snake game that you can play with friends using the infrared port. Like many other games made for mobile, the first game created for smartphones was a hit. Angry Birds has been a popular game ever since with 250 million downloads and an estimated time of 200 trillion minutes worth of gameplay every hour.

Devices like consoles and gaming PCs have been improving a lot in the past 48 years, from having better graphics and more hardware to save the games. It has gotten to a point where people were able to enter and look into the games themselves with virtual and augmented reality12. Along with virtual reality, you are able to use gesture control with the controllers to grab and point. It was extremely useful for the people who use sign language in VR chat, a virtual reality chat room. You are now able to use voice controls to control the actions on screen, similar to the game Chicken Scream. Not only can you play these games, but you are also able to immediately share them with the world through live-streaming, being able to capture the screen and sharing it across the internet.

Many had assumed that video games would have a negative impact on people, but research shows that it can actually help many3. Video games help with hand-eye coordination, improve reading skills along with character development, typically with role-playing games, and multiple schools have started to use games to make learning fun and exciting for students. Many have learned English from playing video games and it has helped influence their career choices in going into the computer science field11. Children’s hospitals let kids who are battling a serious sickness and going through treatment play on consoles to get them distracted from the pain.

But there is a common bad side to playing video games. About 8.5% of Americans from the age of 8-18 are addicted to playing video games5. Their game time increases and they can get aggressive when they aren’t by their games. It can often lead to neglecting their homework and stealing money from their parents to fulfill their needs for more games. But videos can’t be the only cause; we can be addicted to anything else just as extreme as video games. Just like a regular diet, you should have video games balanced in your life along with your time, so it wouldn’t be overwhelming and take over your life. 

Video games have found themselves to be part of our lives and just regular games, in general, have been our main source of entertainment since the beginning of time. From the confusing beginning of the origin of video games to games that weren’t even meant to be made as games and to the rise of its popularity in time. Different consoles were made, the next usually better than the last. It has helped us as a society in a positive and a negative way.

Work cited

  1. History.com Editors. “Video Game History.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 1 Sept. 2017, https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/history-of-video-games
  2. Ioana, Alex. “The Incomplete History of Video Game Sales.” Medium, The Peruser, 15 May 2018, medium.com/the-peruser/a-brief-history-of-video-game-sales-49edbf831dc
  3. “Just How Popular Are Video Games.” Singapore Travel Guide, Streetdirectory, n.d.,www.streetdirectory.com/travel_guide/35240/gaming/just_how_popular_are_video_games.html
  4. Kent, Steven (2001). “And Then There Was Pong”. Ultimate History of Video Games. Three Rivers Press. pp. 38–39. ISBN 0-7615-3643-4
  5. McElroy, Griffin. “8.5 Percent of U.S. Youth Addicted to Video Games, Study Finds.” Engadget, Verizon Media, 20 Apr. 2009, www.engadget.com/2009-04-20-8-5-percent-of-u-s-youth-addicted-to-video-games-study-finds.html
  6. Microsoft Devices Team, and Microsoft Devices Team. “10 Things You Didn’t Know about Mobile Gaming.” Microsoft Devices Blog, Microsoft, 1 Oct. 2015, blogs.windows.com/devices/2013/01/16/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-mobile-gaming-2/
  7. Parker, Marla. “She Does Math!: Real-life Problems from Women on the Job.” Mathematical Association of America. p. 153. 1995
  8. Sam Becker. “Defining Moments in Video Game History: A Timeline.” Stash Learn, Stash, 19 Oct. 2018, learn.stashinvest.com/defining-moments-in-video-game-history-a-timeline
  9. Smith, Mat. “The World’s First Video Game Arcade Machine Is a Glittery Fiberglass Wonder.” Engadget, Verizon Media, 19 July 2019, www.engadget.com/2014/07/09/worlds-first-arcade-videogame/
  10. Staff, WIRED. “Console Portraits: A 40-Year Pictorial History of Gaming.” Wired, Conde Nast, 9 Aug. 2018, www.wired.com/2007/06/gallery-game-history/
  11. Steinberg, Scott. “The Importance of Video Game History.” CNN, Cable News Network, 25 Aug. 2010, www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/08/18/video.game.history/index.html
  12. “Top Advancements in Gaming Technology.” ITR, N.p., 5 Mar. 2019, www.itr.co.uk/2019/01/21/top-advancements-in-gaming-technology/
  13. Tyson, Jeff. “How Video Game Systems Work.” HowStuffWorks, HowStuffWorks, 16 Oct. 2000, electronics.howstuffworks.com/video-game2.htm
  14. “Video Game History Timeline.” Video Game History Timeline | The Strong, The Strong, 24 Mar. 2016, www.museumofplay.org/about/icheg/video-game-history/timeline
  15. Waeber, Sarcone &. “Most Wanted Puzzle Solutions.” Most Wanted Solutions: Nim Game Strategy, Archimedes’ Lab, www.archimedes-lab.org/How_to_Solve/Win_at_Nim.html

It was nice to be writing blog posts about the thing I enjoyed most. I hope I will see you all again soon, in the future.

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