History of Games - 1840s to 1970s

It may seem a little odd journeying so far back in time to explain the history of gaming, but games didn't simply pop out of thin air. First the technology had to exist before the implication of using it for amusement, and also the concept of gaming had to originate from somewhere else - quite often arcade games.

Difference Engine No. 2

We were given a lecture covering the evolution of computers dating back to the 1800s, and it all seemed to start with a machine called the 'Difference Engine' designed by Charles Babbage. I was surprised to find I'd never heard of it before, considering it was designed by an intelligent man whose ideas were beyond his time. The Difference Engine was designed to calculate polynomial functions, and its second design (1849) could calculate numbers with thirty-one digits. It also functioned as a printer, producing hardcopy printouts of the result as well as impressions onto soft material in order for a printing plate to be made. Impressive.

Colossus at Bletchley Park

Although it is widely believed that the first computer was of American make, it was in fact the British who built the first modern computer during the Second World War in order to break the Enigma and Lorenz codes used by the Germans. 'Colossus' was a digital computer that could process digital data and also carry out calculations unrelated to code breaking. However, because of its secret creation and its purposes, Colossus was destroyed after the War, and its existence was only found out years later.

Before the 1960s, most computers were the size of a room and were solely used for business purposes. Until people began thinking, why not make them smaller and personal? Why don't we make them fun?

The first games were created a century after Babbage's design. In 1947 the earliest electronic game was made - the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device, inspired by World War II radar displays. However, due to its expense, it was never released to the public market.

Instead, many people consider Tennis for Two to be the first game. Invented by physicist William Higinbotham in 1958, it was a simple interactive game that mimicked table tennis and was displayed on an oscilloscope.

Russell's Spacewar

Then in 1962, MIT student Steve Russell created a two man combat game called Spacewar. Although successful, he held no copyright on it nor did he make any money from sales - the game was designed and developed simply to show that it could. However, once again, since computing equipment was so expensive at the time, making games for the general public didn't have much practical application.

A decade later, Atari, founded by Nolan Bushnell, released Pong. Though this caused a little fiasco when Magnavox released Odessey and got into a dispute with Atari over Pong infringing on the copyrights held by Ralph Baer. Nevertheless, Pong became very successful and Atari distributed games all over the US. Bushnell is quite an important figure in the history of game ideas. Other games her previously created included Tic Tac Toe, Fox and Geese, and Computer Space. Later in 1974, Atari designed the first racing game called Trak 10 and then later the first maze game Gotcha. If Bushnell had patented these ideas, games such as Pac-Man simply couldn't have been made, and the gaming industry we know would be very different.

Pong console

In 1975 Atari released Home Pong; a digital home console allowing Pong to be a consumer product as well as an arcade game. Although they sold well initially, it was then realised that people grew bored of consoles shortly after buying them - it needs to be refreshed in order to hold people's attention. It needs to read and process information like a computer instead of being hardwired with a single game. And so Atari designed the Video Computer System which was released in 1977.

Unfortunately there was a crash in the video game market in 1978 - products were sold at reduced rates and sales were low - something new was needed. Luckily this was about the time Space Invaders was released in Japan, and turned out to be so popular that it was introduced to the American market - Atari released the game for the VCS and sales were soaring.

This brings us up to 1980, the year Namco released probably the most popular and well-known game of all time - Pac-Man.

References:

Kent, S L. 2001. The Ultimate History of Video Games. Prima Publishing.

http://www.cs4fn.org/history/colossus.php

Image References:
atomictoasters.com, history-computer.com, hardcoregaming101.net, gamester81.com