A History of Gaming: How Games Have Evolved Over the Years
The Beginning
The earliest known games appeared as chess and checkers as early as 2,500 years ago. Chukchi people in the north of Russia reportedly played such a game, although the rules of the game aren’t known. The game of Canasta also appeared around that time in Cuba. The board was square, with four rows and eight columns. These games are extremely complex and most likely more of a challenge to the play than Chess. Games that are considered to be among the most complicated were published in the early 16th century. These games include Senet, which had hundreds of dice, and Teng war, an English game similar to Mahjong. In the 17th century, the development of the first primitive video games like Blue Shark and Waterfall came in the form of “table games”. These were usually played in pubs.
World War II
In the early part of the 20th century, most games were for amusement. The main reason why games were developed was that they helped improve the educational and physical skills of people. Dora the Explorer “Why did dinosaurs live before humans?” asked the kids. “Well, when your great, great, great grandmother died, there were dinosaurs roaming the Earth. They didn’t have electricity. But, did you know, you can still eat all the candy you want? It’s still a dinosaur!” The answers to the kids’ questions were Dora the Explorer and a block of wood. Credit: Random House Children’s Books the Entertainment Industry By the 20th century, games were developed and people started playing them. But what was the difference between the games of the past and the games of today?
The 1950s
The first electronic computer game was created in 1951 by Polish-born MIT graduate Donald Knuth. He named his machine “Arbor team” after a bug in a game he created. It was designed to detect the existence of and locate individual flying orbs in a maze. One year later, the IBM computer, The IBM 701, was also programmed with a maze-solving game. In the 1960s the main role of consoles in gaming is the introduction of Atari, released in 1976. It was so successful that it became the biggest video game franchise in history. The beginning of computer gaming was in 1971 when Gary Numen released “The Precipice” on the Atari 2600. The goal of the game was to rescue people, boats, soldiers, and planes. He developed “Obstacle course”, a game with simple graphics, a simple concept, and simple controls.
The 1960s
During the 1960s, before computers came in, computers and programming in schools, while learning, were different kinds of games, but they were popular. Games were popular and valuable for younger kids like space-themed games and hidden object games. In the 1960s the games for older kids were side-scrollers like Pong, on one side, and flying games like the 3D, on the other side. The 1970s in the 1970s, games were so huge and important, there were magazines dedicated to games like Electronic Games and Computer Games magazine. In the 1970s video games went in the high definition TV and computer screens, while still having LCD screens. In the 1970s there was almost no internet, there was no Google or even Facebook. But then, in the 1980s, the video game developed.
The 1970s
The 1970s is considered to be the golden age of games and computer graphics. Games were originally created on primitive computers and are now available in the form of mobile devices. Here is a list of interesting facts about the 70s: The 1972 first video game released was Spacewar! The 1975 first video game to be distributed via The Atari VCS was Combat. The 1980s in the 1980s, the popularity of video games increased drastically. People started to pay attention to graphics, as well as the number of buttons they have on a keyboard. Here is a list of interesting facts about the 1980s: 1982 is the year that the game Pacman was invented. The 1982 first Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released. 1983 is the year that the Atari 2600 was released.
The 1980s
Computer gaming became very big and popular in the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s. Its technology became even more advanced. In the 1980s, there were computer games, or 3D games, with some of the biggest being Super Mario Bros, Pinball, The Oregon Trail, Star Wars, SimCity, Donkey Kong, The Simpsons, Sonic The Hedgehog, and many more. Then, in the 1990s, developers introduced games like Doom, The Sims, Grand Theft Auto, Half-Life, Medal of Honor, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and Fallout 3. It was the first time when real-time 3D graphics became available in video games. In the year 2000, the launch of the PlayStation 2 and Xbox by Sony and Microsoft made consoles a very popular and trendy option for gaming.
The 1990s
The late 1990s were the golden age of video games. Sony, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft, and others all became rich and famous due to gaming. But things started changing with the release of “Grand Theft Auto” for PlayStation 2. Most people were not aware of GTA when the first version came out in 1997, but now GTA is a worldwide phenomenon. Many games came out in this time and the competitions were more active. Many people started playing online games and this created the gaming-chat room of /r/games. But there was one thing that was starting to become problematic: violence. GTA led to a large number of gaming deaths. From 2005 to 2006 there were eight deaths per year in the United States related to violent games.
The 2000s
You can see the first arcade game from Japan in the year 1960. It is the first electronic game where you can play. Arcade games were really popular in Japan. The first programmable computer game appeared in 1969. It was called Defender, the first computer game in the world that was programmable. It was created by Steve Russell who was working at AT&T Bell Labs. In the 1970s the first video game appeared in 1977. Atari company launched the first game console which is the Atari 2600. It was a hit and quickly became the best-selling game console of all time. There are other sources that mention it as the bestselling game console as well. In 1983, Atari released their first home computer called Atari 400 and 600.
The 2010s
After the world war, there was a big invention in 1969. The game called Space Invaders, which was the first game that introduced the idea of Pong. Before that, there was only a pen-and-paper game. After this, we have seen many different kinds of games with the difference in their qualities and function. Nowadays, there are more popular games. The world is filled with gaming platforms such as Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo 3DS, and so on. Gaming can be played by a kid as young as eight years old. With this technology, the gamer can play different types of games and many people choose to play games in multiplayer. This is an interesting and amazing thing for me. So, after decades, people have found out some interesting facts about gaming.
Conclusion
If you want to read about how many humans play games every day or whatever type of game you play, you can check this article.
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