I’d say that it will be a decent read for the average person. I hope at least it is the case. I will be writing about the history of video games. Yes, I will be putting my opinion in this essay; and, yes, I’m doing research as I write. Would you honestly believe that I know videogame history right off the bat? I’m not a historian.
Video games have been around since the 1950’s so you could say they’re pretty old. The funny thing was this “game” was made by some scientists in M.I.T. One such scientist is Alexander Douglas. He made some tech demos such as “OxO” which is basically tic tac toe. In 1958, the first real game was created. It was called “Tennis for Two” and it’s creator is an American physicist William Higginbottom. In my opinion, it only gets better from there.
In the early 1970’s Atari Inc. was created and created “Pong” the smash hit at the time that caused the gaming revolution. In 1972, the first home console the “Odyssey” was made. Yes, it was the first and, yes, it was primitive. It’s funny to think that someone like Steve Jobs and a guy named Steve wozniak made a game like “Break Out”. The game was essentially like “Pong” except you break bricks. In 1977, a new game entered the scene, “Space Invaders.” This game was the first to have a leaderboard. The next year, Atari made “Asteroids,” an updated version of Slug Russel’s “Space Wars.”
We are getting closer to the games we remember. The 1980’s have arrived and now we are getting somewhere. In 1980, “Pac Man” was made, a very popular game and I assume you all know it. That wasn’t all though because in 1980, Nintendo was desperate. So in that year, the leader of Nintendo Hiroshi Yamauchi turned to someone he had hired; Shigeru Miyamoto. In the year 1981, Miyamoto made “Donkey Kong”. The main character was called Jump Man, but I know him as Mario.
Ah, this is the end, where I share my opinion. The reason that I stopped at 1981 and why I don’t talk about all the games, plays into the fact that they were, to me, not very exciting or interesting. The second reason is because anytime after 1981 is to me still recent history. If you were hoping that I’d put “Fortnite” or “P.U.B.G.” then you are surely mistaken, as it is recent history. Researching for this essay wasn’t that hard or easy. It was like playing on a normal difficulty in a weird text base educational game.
Works Cited
- “Early video game history (1948 – 1972).” YouTube, uploaded by coldfusion, 11 July 2016, youtu.be/uuxoThzFPPw.
- “Video game invasion: the history of a global obsession.” YouTube, uploaded by player078, 13 Jan 2013, youtu.be/O4dPSOncwVQ.
