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 What’s 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, Atari’s first game engineer
●
1972: Implemented Pong
–
Atari tried to get Bally’s to manufacture it
●
Machine malfunctioned during demo because it
was too full of coins! Atari decided to forget Bally’s 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) 1983: Dragon’s Lair, animated sequences, interactive movie
●
Laserdisc
–
80s
●
1982: EA born
●
● ●
PCs, game source code printed in magazines
Commodore 64
1983, Snipes, first networked commerical textmode 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
90’s (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