History of Video Games CS481/CS681 Fall 2007

Summary 1931 Pinball machine 1971, first commercial game introduced 2 game market crashes $10,000,000,000 industry Seven generations of hardware Whats the future?

Pinball Bally Manufacturing Williams Manufacturing Midway Games Created the production, distribution, and consumer channels used by video game industry

Japan (Pre-history) Early coin operated companies established by foreigners – Taito, (Sega + Rosen Enterprises = Sega Enterprises) – 1966 – Periscope – Imported to the US and Europe, expensive – Set the 25 cent price for coin operated machines Meanwhile, back in the US... computers rising

Electronic / Computer games (Prehistory) 1948: Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device patent for electronic game. Vacuum tubes controlled missiles firing at a target 1951: Transistors replacing vacuum tubes at university computers. Students want games. – Checkers (1951) – TTT (1952) – Nimrod played Nim (UK)

Birth Spacewar, 1962, MIT students wanted to test the capabilities of their new DEC PDP-1 Gravity, warp Widely distributed by DEC Other games were not distributed (no internet)

Commercialization 1971: Galaxy Game – Clone of Spacewar – Stanford, 10 cents in student union – Ran until 1979 Bushnell, Dabney created custom arcade hardware for Spacewar clone - failure... June 27, 1972 Bushnell/Dabney found Atari Inc.... meanwhile...

Games on Television Screens (Consoles) Ralph Baer – 1967 – chase game – Light gun -> shooting, paddles -> tennis – Prototype played multiple games – No sound, overlays – 3 dials for vertical, horizontal, and spin – Magnavox bought it, and managed to sell 100K units

Pong Al Alcorn, Ataris first game engineer 1972: Implemented Pong – Atari tried to get Ballys to manufacture it Machine malfunctioned during demo because it was too full of coins! Atari decided to forget Ballys and go into manufacturing! Many Pong clones competed

70s Creativity, new game genres 1974, Tank designed by Steve Bristow 1973, Gotcha, pursuit 1974, Gran Trak 10, Driving/Racing 1976, Night Driver, sit down cabinet 1975 Breakout, SP Pong 1976 Death Race

Golden Age of arcade games (2) 1978:Space Invaders, (Taito) high score, no name 1979, Star Fire, (Exidy), initials 1979, Atari Football, smooth scrolling scree, trackball controller Many Companies entered the business – Konami, Namco, Irem, SNK, Technos Japan. – Galaga, Defender, Scramble, Moon patrol

Maze Games: Pac-Man 1980, Namco, Originally Puck-man but changed name before releasing in the US. – Best selling arcade game up to that point – First identifiable video character – Cover of Time – 1981, MIT students enhancement kits for pac-man ended up producing Ms. Pac-Man (4 mazes) 1982, Namco, Pole Position, Racing, POV

Platform Games 1981, Donkey Kong, Nintendo 1982, Donkey Kong Junior introduced Mario 1983: Elevator Action

Tech 1972: handheld TTT 1976: game cartridges 1977: Joystick Vector graphics – 1979: Asteroids, others (but died after 1983 and raster) Laserdisc – 1983: Dragons Lair, animated sequences, interactive movie

80s 1982: EA born PCs, game source code printed in magazines Commodore , Snipes, first networked commerical text- mode game – Maze War (university research game) – Spasim (3d multiplayer space sim), precursor to Doom and Quake Handheld LCD console

Crash of 1983 Too many companies, too many bad games So many ET the Extra Terrestrial game cartridges were left over that they had to be buried in a big hole in NM! Lasted One Year!

Video game consoles (3) Nintendo, NES (Famicon), Super Mario Brothers – Gamepad – 8 direction D pad with 2 or more action buttons 1986: Dragon Quest precursor to RPG 1987: Final Fantasy, Role playing game 1986: Legend of Zelda 1988: Nintendo Power Magazine

90s (4) Rising to match Hollywood 3D graphics, sound cards, CDs, fast PCs Internet based distribution, shareware, 1992: RTS games, Dune II set the std. – Warcraft, C&C, StarCraft 1993: Myst, and adventure puzzle game Sim games: Sim city, SimEarth,...The Sims (2000) Mods, Counterstrike, Half Life mod

Internet Gaming Multi-User Dungeons 1996: Quake, FPS MMORPGS: Ultima Online, Everquest – Persistent worlds, large numbers of players Java/Flash back to simple games Decline of arcades, rise of home consoles, PCs

4, 5, 6, 7 generations Sega Genesis, Super NES Sega Saturn, Sony Playstation, Nintendo 64 – DDR Sega Dreamcast, Playstation2, Game Cube, Xbox – Sims, Halo, GTA, Halo 2, GTA San Andreas, Guitar Hero PSP, PS3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS – Spore Demo

Future Where is it heading? – Graphics – Physics – AI – Immersion, Realism,... Holodeck