If we take a trip back in time and say in the 70s that videogames will be fifty years later one of the industries that move the most money in the world, possibly they believe us complete psychopaths. The history of video games has gone through many ups and downs..
However, it has known how to rise and develop to the point that today we can create games that offer an experience as close to reality as possible. A reality in which we can fulfill our fantasies avoiding the dangers that it represents.
In this article we are going to teach you the most important facts about the interesting history of video games that entertain you today on the computer, PS4 or mobile. At the end you will be a cult expert of this multi-million dollar industry.
What was the first video game in history and for what console?
The first known video game was developed in 1952 and would be known as OXOwhich would be a digital version of the game “Tic-Tac-Toe”, a project that was spearheaded by Alexander Douglas, a professor at the University of Cambridge. Douglas used the principles of Turing’s research to give Turing’s game artificial intelligence, so that the user could compete against the machine.
History and evolution of video games in each decade since its birth
Although for many there is some confusion about the origin of video games, it must be recognized that based on what many games are today, this has to be linked to the beginnings of artificial intelligencewhich is used by all securities in the market.
In that sense, the first character we should mention is Alan Turing, a British mathematician and programmer who after World War II began working on a way to make a computer reason like a human. In this attempt, created what would become known as the Turing machinewho had the ability to play chess and even beat his wife in a game in 1952.
50’s-60’s; the first steps
Although Turing’s work was never commercializedand his intention was not to entertain but to make a machine think like a person, this was quoted and used for basically all the video games that were developed next. The first of them would be the aforementioned OXO in 1952, which was not mass-produced as such either.
The following years would pass slowly for an industry that until then had not even formed, and nobody seriously considered its development.
To see the next advance we would have to wait until 1958when the American engineer William Higinbotham, who worked on the Manhatham Project from which the first nuclear weapons were born, created the tennis for twoa game on a huge computer that simulated a game of tennis.
The latter would not be commercial either. Until then, what had been produced were prototypes in which the enormous potential that these programs had at the market level was barely visible. The 60s went practically blank and no one else mentioned video games again.
70’s: the birth of the genre
The 70s were completely different from before. The researchers understood that the development of video games was linked to the development of devices that could run them. Then, in 1971 the American Ralph Baerwho had been researching the work of Turing and Higinbotham for years, developed the first game console in history, the Magnavox Odyssey.
This was a very primitive system that didn’t even use memories or capacitors, so it was not capable of keeping track of the game and players had to score points manually. It had six cartridges containing a different game each, and templates to stick to the TV screen to improve the experience.
This console can be considered a commercial success, since it raised more than 10 million dollars for the time with the sale of 100,000 units. This caught the attention of the capitalists who saw how a new industry for the entertainment of the people was born.
That same year Atari was born., which is one of the most representative brands in the history of video games. This was founded by the Americans Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, who wasted no time and launched PONG, a huge arcade machine that contained an improved version of the ping pong that the Magnavox contained.
This machine worked by inserting a coin, which would officially start the video game market in the United States. The success of PONG it was total, and by 1974 Atari had grown from a warehouse to a huge Cylicon Valley company with more than 10,000 machines across the country. However, this growth could have been much greater if it were not for the large amount of competition that was born replicating the concept of PONG.
However, this decade Atari was by far the most important video game company. In 1974 they innovated with the idea of bringing a new game console to American homes that would improve the Magnavox.. This would be legendary PONG for Your Home TVwhich would be a commercial success that would sell more than 150,000 units only during Christmas of that year.
PONG for Your Home improved considerably on the Magnavox, with higher quality graphics and a much more fluid gameplay than was available until then. All this was possible thanks to an agreement between Atari and the SEARS company, which supplied them with a microprocessor for their consoles.
Atari’s success was undeniable and it was already one of the companies with the highest net worth in the United States.. Its owner, Nolan Bushnel, makes the decision to sell it to Warner Communication for $26 million in 1976. This gave Atari a huge budget, which set to work developing another super console.
In 1977 the Atari UBSS was born., a powerful console with a controller that consisted of a stick and two buttons, giving a new gaming experience. It would sell hundreds of thousands of copies the year of its release and would be replicated by Mattel with its Intellivision and by many other companies, which would make more than 50% of American homes have a game console.
In 1978 another historical event occurs because a Japanese company called Taito, would create space invadera video game for Atari and Mattel consoles that it would be a viral phenomenon with millions of copies sold around the world, since by then it was not only being talked about in the United States but also in Europe and Asia.
At this time, information technology and computing was also growing by leaps and bounds, an industry that would always be linked to video games.
80’s; the arcade age
The 80’s arrived with Space Invaders as the best-selling video game in history. However, in 1980 this would come to an end with the birth of the first icon of the gamers; pacman.
Pacman was a game different from everything that had been produced to date, when everyone only thought about space invasions and 8-bit laser shots. This instead was a maze in which there was a yellow head eating and running so that some viruses do not infect it.
By the end of that year it had become so popular that it surpassed Space Invaders as the best-selling in the world.and to this day it continues to be one of the ones that has sold the most copies in history.
Pacman would be what the whole world needed to realize the enormous potential of video games on a commercial level, and would even have its own television series. A year later in 1981 another resounding success would come to light; kingkong.
donkey kong it was a platform game in which you had to dodge the huge barrels that a bad-tempered gorilla threw at you. DK was the first video game created by the Japanese company Nintendo, which would later launch other legendary games such as Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda during this same period.
In 1982 a group of four engineers who worked for Warner at Atari created Activision, which would be one of the first companies to independently manufacture video games for Atari. That same year, this company launched Pitfall, a very successful adventure video game as well..
Nevertheless, the market began to be saturated with bad competition that manufactured low-quality games and it would cause the company to fall into a huge hole due to the mistrust it generated from the public. This would start the first black era of the industry, that would end in 1982 with Warner selling Actari, which would later disappear.
In Japan, who began to grow was Nintendo, which to date created Family Computer in 1983, a console that contained the main successes of the company. This would be so successful that it would allow the Japanese to import and arrive two years later in the United States.
Nintendo’s FC would be redesigned and later rebranded for the US market, and It would reach homes in 1985 with the name of NES or Nintendo Entertainment System. This console is one of the most legendary in history and would once again position video games as one of the main entertainment industries in the world.
The NES attracted attention mainly because it included the company’s own games, which guaranteed the public that they would be enjoying a quality product. The most representative video game on the console was Super Mario Broswhich would become as famous as Pacman at the time, and even for children he became more famous than Disney’s Mikey Mouse himself.
It is because of all this, and the fact that they saved the American video game industry, that for the whole world so much NES like Super Mario Bros are the most important console and video game in history. In addition to this, they innovated with their official license chip that allowed you to have other level titles like Pokemon, Kirby, or Predator.
The NES knew it couldn’t make Atari’s mistake and allow third parties to develop unqualified games for its console. Thus he equipped the console with a recognition chip that was also on the cartridge with the title in question. If the console did not detect the chip in the cartridge it was not started.
In this way, the perfect vaccine was found for piracy, which burst the bubble in 1983, and forever changed the business model of the industry. Nintendo with this began to monopolize the industry since it required the best developers to only produce titles for their console..
By 1986 we already had such legendary titles as The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy or Punch Man, which dominated the market for years.. In addition, other renowned producers such as Capcom, creator of the mythical arcade fighting game, were born during these years. Street Fighter either Megaman, as well as konami with his Against, or the popular SEGA.
SEGA was so successful producing titles for Nintendo that it released its own console in 1985 called Master Systemwhich although it was more powerful than the NES, could not overcome its tremendous fame in all markets…
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