6 date of appearance of the first computer game. When did computer games appear? The beginning of distribution of games

From the time of ancient rome the people demanded "bread and circuses." Entertainment and recreation have always been one of the main components of any civilization. The very first game in the world created for fans of virtual space marked the beginning of a new era in the entertainment industry.

There are a lot of computer games today. New games are released almost daily. People who are addicted virtual games, today they do not experience the slightest difficulty in choosing a suitable toy that can brighten up leisure. Computer games today will satisfy even the most demanding connoisseur. But the market for such entertainment has not always been so abundant. After all, before computers did not have much power, games for them did not exist at all.

The beginning of the era of virtual entertainment

This happened in the immemorial year 1962. The game was called Spacewar. She could work on a computer with 9 kilobytes of RAM. Current gamers will only smile when they see such ridiculous numbers. By the way, modern computer machines are capable of overclocking up to 2 billion. Yes, and gadgets on the Android platform can easily cope with the newest toys, there are even games with augmented reality.

The very first game in the world left an indelible and vivid imprint on the entire history of computer games. By the way, similar games were created earlier, the creators of Spacewar were not pioneers in that sense. Back in 1952, A. Douglas came up with a game that is essentially an analogy to ordinary tic-tac-toe. In 1958, U. Hijinbasam created a game under the romantic name "Tennis for Two". It was all just ping-pong. But Spacewar had a slightly different purpose, because it had to be played on a computer, which fundamentally distinguished it from its predecessors.

Creating a cosmic masterpiece

The first computer game was a battle between two ships in space. She is the embodiment of the immensity of the universe, cold, ruthless and bottomless, like an abyss. The creators of the game were a group of programmers working at the Institute of Technology in Massachusetts. It took them two months to work on the game. The leaders of the group were S. Russell and M. Gretz.

Fate brought them together in a tourist club at the university. Both were attracted to science fiction, and on this basis they became friends in earnest. At first they made a simple program, which in a month turned into a game with two missiles firing at each other. The goal of the game was simple - you had to unbalance the enemy before he defeated you.

Players have equal chances of winning. Each of them has a reserve of energy embodied in two forms: passive and active. Passive energy is needed to support the force field protection function. Without active energy, it will not be possible to perform such necessary active actions as jumping, traveling through the expanses of space, conducting combat and disguise.

Each player determines the style and rhythm of the game. He can only rely on himself, he is responsible for his actions and mistakes. Victory will be achieved by the one who shows great prudence and composure. Moments of calm are sweet for the player, because in such rare moments, active energy is reborn. But at the same time they are dangerous for him.

The display showed a fragment of the starry sky, two players using the keyboard had to shoot at the enemy and maneuver in zero gravity. Fuel supplies and combat kit were limited. In order to avoid a shot, it was necessary to turn around the star located in the center of the map or decide on a super-jump. The last way to bypass enemy missiles was the hyperspace function, but this method was very dangerous and unpredictable, as the ship could explode when used.

A feature of the game was that the first version of the background of the starry sky was imperfect. Samson did not like this at all, and he decided to write a program based on real diagrams of stellar space. After the successful implementation of this innovation, at least 50 percent of the stars became visible. The game has become a real inspiration for many game creators. Some are just copies of the game, while others differ from it in such characteristics as the intensity of acceleration, different levels of gravity, the presence of shields.

Followers of the first developers

In 1971, a similar game was created, called Computer Space, but it did not receive much popularity. Spacewar after a decade has earned the title of the first commercial game. All in the same 1971, a machine with a different kind of Spacewar, the Galaxy Game, was installed in the building of the Stanford Union of Students. This game enjoyed undoubted success for six years. The creator of the machine B. Pitts managed to quickly return the 60 thousand dollars he invested in the project.

The creators of Spacewar did not receive great financial benefits from their offspring. They earned only a small amount of compensation by advising in the courts of the 70s, in cases involving the gaming industry. And, of course, they improved their skills as programmers. Everyone who somehow took part in the creation of Spacewar is still associated with computers, and their name will remain for centuries. The very first game in the world paved the way for many talented programmers and developers who continue the work begun by the Americans and delight modern gamers with novelties and surprises in the gaming computer industry.

Agree, computer technologies are marching widely into the future, and we can say with confidence that in a few years we will be able to fully immerse ourselves in virtual reality and begin to wonder if there is the world in reality or it's just a mind game. Remember the movie The Matrix. Maybe its creators were close to the truth?

Now most people prefer only 3D games with decent graphics, and few remember that the first video games looked simple and more like primitive computers. Let's remember 15 old game industry breakthroughs that were the main impetus for making games the way they are today, because it was the past that created the game, gave it shape and directed it into the future.

15. Interactive game. 1947

When talking about humble beginnings in video games, the word "pong" is usually mentioned. Pong is one of early games and was released in 1972. The game quickly gained popularity, and already in 1975 its home version appeared. Of course, there were other video games before Pong.

In fact, the first interactive electronic game was created 25 years before Ponga, in 1947, two years after the end of World War II. Rocket displays during the war inspired Thomas T. Goldsmith and Astle Ray Mann to create a cathode ray tube rocket simulation game. The game used analog circuits designed to control the light beams of the tube and to control the position of target points on the screen.

14. The game that influenced the entire gaming world. 1961

In 1960 the company Digital Equipment Corporation released its first minicomputer PDP-1 (Programmable Data Processor-1). A year later, a group of MIT students developed a game for the PDP-1 called Spacewar!

There were two players: each of them controlled his own spaceship and, maneuvering between the stars, tried to knock out the enemy. The game spread through the Internet (obviously, it was then primitive), and also served as the basis for many other video games.

13. Public play. 1971

For many years, you could only test your skills in a video game in those places where it was installed (usually at universities), and only in the 50s and 60s of the last century did home versions appear. slot machines. Usually they had an electronic game of tic-tac-toe installed in them.

Two arcade versions were released in 1971 space war!. In September of that year, the world's first arcade game Galaxy Game, a coin-operated video game, was installed at Stanford University in California.

Two months later, in November, 1,500 Computer Space arcade machines, the first brainchild of Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, the future founders of the Atary company for the production and publication of computer games, were available for commercial sale. Their second and more successful foray into the international video game market was Pong. Nolan even earned the nickname "King of Pong" as the acknowledged founder of the American video game industry.

12. The first home game console. 1972

As the very first interactive electronic game, the home version of Ponga (most commonly referred to as Home Pong) was to be at its peak for a long time. But this did not happen. Three years before Home Pong came along, the world's first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, was launched by engineer Ralph Baer. Unfortunately, the novelty did not live up to expectations: console sales suffered greatly due to ill-conceived marketing policies, and many believed that the game console only worked when connected to Magnavox TVs.

Atary (then still called Nolan Bushnell), quickly orienting itself, capitalized on the competitor's mistakes: Ponga boxes were painted over with the inscription: "Suitable for any TV, both black and white and color." Understandably, the success of Ponga did not please the developers of the Magnavox Odyssey console at all, which may have been the impetus for filing a lawsuit against Nolan Bushnell due to the close resemblance of Ponga and playing tennis on the Magnavox Odyssey. Later, lawsuits were filed against other companies: Coleco, Mattel, Seeburg, Activision, with an unsuccessful outcome for those cases.

The game console from Magnavox, in addition to all the standard manipulators, demonstrated to customers the world's first light gun, which, to the annoyance of the players, did not always work.

11. Arcade game on the microprocessor. 1975

In 1975 the company midway games released the Gun Fight arcade machine, the first video game on a microprocessor, and not on traditional TTL electronics. The machines with the game were built with 8-bit Intel 8080 CPU chips, which are considered by many to be the first truly working microprocessors. The success of automatic machines based on microprocessors was guaranteed. New technologies were designed to significantly improve video games: graphics improved by an order of magnitude, became more drawn.

10. The first portable handheld video game. 1979

The first portable game console was the Microvision, released in 1979 by Milton Bradley. The console had an LCD screen and several replaceable cartridges. One of them (Space Hunter - 1981) demonstrated the ability to move in all directions with only 4 closely spaced buttons. This arrangement of control buttons can be considered an early version of the D-Pad (cross-shaped arrow button). The D-Pad was used (and still is) in many subsequent types of game consoles, such as the GameBoy.

9. 3D games for home use

3D Monster Maze is the first 3D computer game created by Malcolm Evans in 1981 for machines based on the Sinclair ZX81 platform. The player must overcome a randomly generated maze of 16x16 cells and not fall into the clutches of a hostile monster - Tyrannosaurus Rex.

8. Online game. 1983

The progenitor of online games was a small company, SuperSet software, founded in Utah in 1981. Two years later, the first-ever online game between several people took place, it was called Snipes and was based on text characters, which, of course, cannot be compared with the flashy graphics of modern video games. The game was originally created with a demonstrative purpose: to show the society the fantastic capabilities of IBM personal computers for that time, but more importantly, it marked the beginning of the so-called era of online games.

7. 8-bit game consoles, a new generation of game systems. 1985

For computers and other hardware, "bit" is a unit of measure for processor power. That is, an 8-bit processor can only operate 8 bits of information at one time, while a 16-bit processor can access 16 bits of data, and so on. Each subsequent generation of n-bit game consoles has improved the quality of graphics and sounds, and therefore, in the modern world, games on an 8-bit console look very outdated and primitive.

The first popular 8-bit system was the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985), with sales exceeding 62 million units. Nevertheless, the popularity of the NES in the world market did not prevent the success of other companies producing and selling game consoles - Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. Also in 1985, these companies paved the way for the era of 16-bit video games.

6. The first bloody game. 1986

People like violent games, don't they? Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid; all these games are incredibly popular, because they thrive on cruelty and the desire to break the ban. chiller- the first video game "splattered with blood."

Released in 1986, it offered the player, armed with a flash gun, to shoot everyone who appeared on the screen (including a person, a zombie, a ghost). All that was required was to show ingenuity in dismembering the victims. The picture looked so unacceptable to a respectable citizen that in the UK the game became permanently banned. Although, if you think about it, Chiller looks inappropriately funny compared to modern GTA or Manhunt.

5. The first 16-bit gaming system. 1987

The TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem, also known as the "imposing" PC Engine, was released in Japan in 1978 by NEC. The console had an additional CD module or, more simply, CDs.

Thanks to the new acquisition, the TurboGrafx-16 features more memory, better sound reproduction and a lower price. Among other things, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the PC Engine received the title of the smallest game console, its dimensions are only 14 cm x 14 cm x 3.8 cm. 10 million copies have been sold.

4. The first 32-bit gaming system. 1993

The first 32-bit video game console was actually the Amiga CD32, released in September 1993, but it did not sell more than 100,000 units. The Atari Jaguar (November 1993 release) also failed, selling only 500,000 copies. Squeezing between them was Panasonic's first console, the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, which was a little more popular with buyers. But to call it the first 32-bit console is difficult: release before 1994 was limited, and the cost of $ 700 left a negative imprint on console purchases.

At the end of 1994, the development of the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, game consoles that surpassed their predecessors, ended in Japan. The PlayStation became the first console in history to sell more than 100 million copies.

3. A game console that displays "upcoming" three-dimensional graphics. 1995

In 1995, Nintendo released a home video game console with the promise of bringing "virtual reality to the virtual world." Virtual Boy is a console on a thin stand with an eyepiece resembling red and blue glasses. Such a "projector" transmitted a three-dimensional image to each eye, and you can call it a simplified or unfinished version of a modern 3D film.

True, the console was inconvenient to use and posed a considerable danger to vision, not to mention the fact that all games were displayed in red. As a result, sales of the Virtual Boy ceased the very next year. However, the first experience of 3D reality was quite successful, what do you think?

2. 64-bit and 128-bit gaming systems. 1996 - 2002

The Nintendo 64 gaming system, although designed in the era of 32-bit consoles, is actually a 64-bit system (hence the 64 in the name), it was just slightly ahead of its time. The era of 128-bit systems began in 1998 with the introduction of the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox and Sega Dreamcast consoles, released two years before the development of the PlayStation 2, which holds the title of "best-selling video game console of all time."

1. Control without controller. 2004 - present

The EyeToy was the first camcorder to use pattern and color recognition technology, allowing players to send commands using their own movements. The camera was intended for use with the PlayStation 2. The technology is certainly good, but the games with which the EyeToy was used were not very diverse, the camera did not always respond to the player's movements.

But still EyeToy made a real revolution in the world of interactive entertainment. Another innovation: Project Natal. Microsoft employees have announced an accessory for the Xbox 360 that allows you to play without a controller, control the game using gestures, various items, even voices and facial expressions. You can decide that these are all empty words and lies (what kind of company does not want to attract customers), but the video provided above will confirm all our words.

Read the second part of the top.

Overview of the controller "Nes30 Pro"

Review of the best NES-style game controller from the creator of the site

Computer games emerged as a new industry in 1972, but the first PC games originated much earlier. To date, the game world has managed to conquer the whole world, and will soon become the most profitable business, if this has not already happened. It all started when a group of like-minded engineers decided to quit their job for the sake of one dream. Their leader Nolan Bushnell, who was then 28 years old, decides to open his own business in parallel. His initial capital was at that time 500 dollars. He names the company "Atari". Nolan first hired a developer, which was Al Elcorn, and offered him $1,000 a month and part of the company. Al accepted the offer. The trial project of the company, which consisted of three people, was the game "Pong". At first, this game was an ordinary slot machine, but in just a few months it managed to conquer the United States. Without thinking twice, the partners decide to transform it into a home game, and this becomes their next success.

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The essence of the game is very simple and is not interesting today - two sticks from different sides of the screen must hit the square (ball). Four years later, Nolan decides to sell Atari for $26 million. At the same time, the development of already popular game games join Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who are gaining popularity thanks to the game Arcanoid. Since not everyone could buy a PC in those years, there was only one way out - game consoles with high power.

But in fact, Pong was not the first computer game. The first PC games appeared around 1952. Douglas, while a student at Cambridge, created the world's first game. It was programmed on the EDSAC computer. But around 1958, the first video game was created by William Hijinbasam called “Tennis for Two”. SpaceWar was created in 1962 by Steve Russell. Then it was available only to some programmers. Its essence - two small spacecraft shot down each other. It is she who is considered the first, since it was intended specifically for playing on a PC. When it was created, a mainframe computer was used. Five years later, Ralph Baer wrote the Pursuit game, the first video game that could be played on a TV. In 1971, Bushnell and Dabney create the first maze game, the Cosmos Gallery, which was based on the Spacewar. But the next game created was Pong, which was mentioned at the beginning.

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Ordinary British teenagers, who were forbidden by their parents to buy consoles, decided to create their own game for the PC. For study, parents bought computers for the boys, because at the beginning of the 80s a line of relatively cheap PCs appeared.

The Oliver twins, then 12 years old, decided to create a game that would be different from classic arcade games. An important point was the fact that no one limited the game on a PC in time, unlike slot machines, where the game lasted several minutes. So the Olivers started programming their computers at first, and in 1982 (at age 13) their first game, Road Runner, was released.

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The text of this program was printed in one of the magazines, and each of its readers could start the game on their PC. This meant one thing to the twins - they were heroes. The essence of the game is that a car moving down the screen along a winding track had to overcome obstacles highlighted in one color. For this game, the guys received their first earnings from the publishers of the magazine, even if at that time it was symbolic.

But with the second game, the twins acted differently - they took part in a children's TV show. They managed to win first place, and with it the cash reward. All this incited to the fact that a simple hobby began to grow into a matter of a lifetime. A lot of games were written right in the brothers' room. Sometimes the boys worked at night, because no one canceled school. The twin games were distributed throughout the country and sold in the largest stores.

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After leaving school, the level of pay for the work of the twins was still low. It was at this time that the boys met the Darling brothers. The Darling brothers are the same young guys who write games for a very symbolic price, but who no longer like it. As a result, the Darlings open their own business and start selling games by mail. Games were rewritten on cassettes, covers were printed, and the result was a million game cassettes sold. But in 1986, the boys founded the Code Masters company. Their first fair brought a meeting with the Oliver twins, who showed like-minded people all their written games. When the Darlings replied: "This game will bring you 10,000 pounds," the twins' joy knew no bounds. As a result, after a month of sleepless nights, the Super Robin Hood game appeared. 100,000 cassettes were sold, and the earnings amounted to 10,000 pounds. This gave the brothers a huge push to write new games. Some of them were written for Code Masters, and this union of PC gaming history is rightly called one of the most successful. The twins created about half of all Code Masters games.

East is a delicate matter

But not only British teenagers were the creators of PC games. In parallel, the gaming industry also developed in the east. Her era in Japan began with Donkey Kong, Mario and Zelda. Their father was the genius of the 80s, Shigeru Miyamoto, who works for Nintendo.

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One fine day, Miyamoto realized the power of the game - it can awaken different feelings in a person. Therefore, he put all his childhood memories into his games. Initially, Miyamoto worked for the company as an artist and did not even suspect that he would someday draw games on the PC. He's like the real one creative person couldn't stand the computer.

His whole life has changed from the offer of cooperation. Africa received an order for 2000 cars with the game "Radar Scope", but the United States was not interested in it, so they asked to replace it with another one. Since there was no replacement, and there was not a single free developer, this job went to the young Miyamoto. His idea was to create a game like a movie, where there would be a plot. This is how his first game "Donkey Kong" appeared. The plot of the game is a gorilla that escapes from the cage in order to kidnap a girl. But a man with a hammer in his hands must catch up with her, dodging from the barrels. It all ends with the gorilla falling into a hole.

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It is worth noting that Miyamoto always tried to bring his characters to life, so he tried to emphasize any details, such as developing hair when falling, etc. But the technology of that time did not allow this, and the author decided to simply give his hero a red cap. This is how the Donkey Kong game was born, which Miyamoto sent to Seattle.

The Americans, having watched the game, were delighted, but decided to try it out. The game was installed in a local bar, and a day later they saw a box overflowing with money. In the first year alone, the company generated $100,000,000 in revenue from the game.

At the same time, in 1985, the new game console "NES" (Nintendo Entertainment System) from Nintendo entered the US market. Thanks to Miyamoto, games have moved to a new level, and the first step was his masterpiece - "super Mario brothers". Jump Men was a plumber from Italy, Mario. He is subject to miracles of strength, he can jump high, but at the same time he can drown or break. He lived in a world full of sewer pipes, rock ledges, and cartoon monsters. This game, as well as its subsequent two sequels, won the love of children and adults around the world. Well, who at that time did not play Mario? In 1987, “NES is the most wanted toy in the world. Mario children in America loved and knew more than the hero Mickey Mouse.

After that, the inventor releases another masterpiece - the game "The Legend of Zelda". This game allowed you to freely roam and explore the whole world. It all starts with a field in the middle of which stands a small and defenseless child. He is unarmed. First, the player must give him a name, then understand what to do next - and this is complete freedom of action in front of the player. In a couple of years, more than 30 million consoles were sold. This propelled Nintendo to the forefront of PC gaming, and to prove its position, it decided to release a game for people of all ages - "Game Boy". This leads to the fact that in the late 80s a tandem appears between Nintendo and Tetris.

Development continues

Henk Rogers, a Dutch publisher and game developer, has been importing new games to Japan. In 1988, he met Tetris in Las Vegas. His job was to bring everything he found interesting in exhibitions to Japan. At first he played Tetris and left, but not for long. After a while, he returned to play again. The game attracted him and beckoned like a magnet. The game was invented in 1984 by Muscovite Alexei Pajitnov, who at that time lived in Seattle. Alexey was engaged in programs for voice recognition and the development of artificial intelligence, so Tetris was originally invented as a certain test for new computers. Alyosha's hobbies were puzzles and math fun. The "Tetris" was based on a puzzle from ancient Rome "Pentamino", which consists of 12 figures of different shapes, consisting of 5 squares. But in a simplified version, there are 4 squares, hence the name - Tetris (four in Greek). But the genius was that the game was on time, the filled lines disappeared, so the game could be played just endlessly. The only thing that made the process more difficult was the speed of the figures falling, which fell faster and faster during the game. The player did not have time to think quickly, began to stray and lose. After getting acquainted with the game of Henk Rogers, Robert Stein, who works as an importer, learns about Tetris software from Hungary. Stein visits Moscow and meets Alexei. They agree on a license to release the game, and Pajitnov gives Stein a Tetris. But they did not become partners. After Pajitnov and Henk met, the rights to the game go to Rogers. As a result, Tetris becomes a favorite game, and Henk Rogers releases it for the Nintendo game console. This made it possible to release more than 32 million gems of Tetris fights. Pajitnov, of course, did not earn anything on the game, because at that time he was a Soviet citizen, but he still immigrated to the United States. In 1996, the agreement between Nintendo and Pajitnov expired, which gave him the right to obtain copyright. Today Aleksey and Hank are selling Tetris on a new generation of machines.

A bit of history

The first games on the PC were simple, since 1987 the world of computer games was just beginning to develop:

• 1987- Battle Tech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception, Pirates, Defender of the Crown.
• 1988- Life&Death, Megatraveller, Mean Streets.
• 1989- Death Track, Mech Warrior, Street Rod.
• 1990- Railroad Tycoon, Sim City, King's Bounty, Covert Action, Jones in the Fast Lane, Secret of Monkey Island, Ironman's Super Offroad.
• 1991– Civilization, Elite, Floor 13, Castles, Lemmings, 4D Boxing, Warlords, Gobliiins.
• 1992- Mad TV, Dune 2, Star Control 2, L.A. Law, Shadow President, Maelstrom, Stunt Island, Alone in the Dark.
• 1993- Master of Orion, Sim City 2000, Syndicate, Merchant Prince, Dino Park, Tycoon, Rags to Riches, Unnatural Selection, Fields of Glory, El Fish, Frontier.
• 1994- Theme Park, Reunion, Master of Magic, Settlers/Serf City, Horde, UFO: Enemy Unknown Quarantine, Transport Tycoon, Pizza Tycoon, Micro Machines.
• 1995- Civilization 2, Command & Conquer, Heroes of Might&Magic, Mechwarrior 2, First Encounters, Lemmings 3D, Capitalism, Motor City.
• 1996– Creatures, Emperor of the Fading Suns, Heroes of Might&Magic 2, Master of Orion 2, Syndicate Wars.
• 1997- Carmageddon, Imperium Galactica, Grand Theft Auto, Magic the Gathering, Sid Meier's Gettysburg, Pax Imperia, X-Com 3: Apocalypse.

The most interesting ideas in the development of computer games appeared before 1993. Every year there is something new, unique and exciting. 1993 was the beginning of the cloning and duplication of previous games. Main game 1994 became "UFO", because it managed to combine all the best from previous games, and the game "Laser Squad" two years ago was taken as the basis.

Without original and original ideas, the existence of any kind of art is called into question. Today, thousands of PC games enter the market every year, but we are not spoiled with masterpieces that would delight us with their originality.

The history of the development of video games has more than 60 years. The first games were primitive, but it was they who set the vector for the development of the entire gaming industry.

The evolution of video games is directly related to the progress in the field of "gaming hardware". Moreover, in the initial stage, this concerned, first of all, game consoles, because. PCs became available to most users much later. Let's look together at how it all began and how long video games have come to become what they are now.

Origins: 1947-1970

The creation of the first video games was preceded by some developments and inventions, thanks to which the "ancestors" of modern games were born. These include a patent for using a CRT (cathode ray tube) for gaming purposes (1947), creating a chess game algorithm for a computer (1948), and then writing the first such program called "TUROCHAMP" (computers capable of running it then still was not) in 1950-1951.

Officially, the first video game is considered to be "OXO" - the famous "tic-tac-toe", which were transferred from paper to the computer screen of A.S. Douglas in 1952.

Douglas was writing his dissertation, and he used the game as visual material for the latter. "OXO" existed in a single copy.

In fact, the first video game was a simulation of launching enemy missiles, which was created in 1947 on the basis of military equipment (the game was launched on a radar monitor).

In 1958, the first tennis simulator called "Tennis for Two" was created by scientist William Higinbotham. Two people could play it: they controlled movable platforms with which they beat the ball.

In 1962, Steve Russell and a group of his students from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) created "SpaceWar" - the first independent computer game (the previous ones were a kind of "port" of existing board games).

MIT started making the first games back in the 1959-1961 period: Mouse in the Maze, HAX, and Tic-Tac-Toe were created here. However, this has not been documented in any way: scientists, apparently, were too lazy to even just take a picture of them.

The beginning of success: 1971-1977

In September 1971, the first Galaxy slot machine was created, which was an updated version of the aforementioned Spacewar. In November of the same year, the game goes through another rebirth: it receives the name "Computer Space" and becomes the first video game in the world intended for the mass user (1,500 slot machines were released, though only a third were sold).

May 24, 1972 was released the first game console"Magnavox Odyssey", designed for home use.

In the same year, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney (creators of Computer Space) founded their own company Atari and released an improved version of the game "Tennis for Two" called "Pong". With 19,000 slot machines sold, Pong became the first commercially successful game.

In 1972, the first SpaceWar esports tournament was held at Stanford University. This date can be considered the starting point of the birth of E-sports.

In 1973, John Dalesk created the first online game, Empire, a turn-based strategy game in which 8 players controlled a space empire, trying to dominate.

In 1974, Maze War was created - the first game with a first-person view, in which gamers, wandering through a pseudo-3D maze, fought each other. In the same year, Kee Games created the prototype of the legendary "tanks" - the video game "Tank". Immediately after its release, Atari absorbs Kee Games.

In 1975, the first text-based RPG Dungeon was created. In the same year, "Colossal Cave Adventure" appeared - a game that marked the beginning of the "adventure" genre.

1976 saw the release of Breakout, the world's first arkanoid, and Death Race, the first game to be banned due to the violence and gore that was used in its gameplay.

Also created was the "Video Entertainment System" (later changed its name to Channel F), the first game console with interchangeable cartridges. Prior to this, such devices were supplied with “factory” pre-installed games, the set of which could not be changed in any way.

Second generation of game consoles: 1977-1981

In 1977, the Atari 2600 went on sale, a second-generation game console that marked the transition of video games to a whole new level. For 5 years, 40 million devices were sold, which was a record figure for that time.

In 1978, the legendary game "Space Invaders" was created, which was so popular with users that slot machines with it were installed in the USA and Japan on every corner. They began to write about games in newspapers, make films - this industry was rapidly spinning the flywheel of its popularity.

1979 was marked by the introduction of Atari's Asteroids slot machine to the market. In addition, Microvision's first handheld game console was released.

In 1980, a new game genre appeared Rogue-like (named after the original Rogue game), where the player had to navigate dungeons and fight monsters.

On May 22 of the same year, slot machines with "PacMan" on board appear on sale. The game gets rave reviews and becomes a symbol of the arcade genre and video games in general, even today.

The development of handheld consoles with batteries and LCD screens continues. Nintendo releases Game & Watch, and then in the USSR they create copies of them under the name "IM electronics" (the famous "Well, you wait," for example).

3rd generation of consoles vs PC: the beginning of the confrontation 1981-1986

In 1981, sales of the first PC from IBM started, and the following year, users have the opportunity to purchase 8-bit computers Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum, which could already boast of a color image. Due to the competitive price, home PCs are starting to push second-generation game consoles out of the market.

As a result, in 1983, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), known to us as Dendy, appears on the market. Following the NES, other consoles appear, designed to compete with the desktop PC.

June 6, 1984 the world saw legendary game"Tetris", developed by the Soviet programmer Alexei Pajitnov.

1985 was an extremely rich year for masterpiece games that had a significant impact on the industry. " super mario Bros., Battle City, and Habitat, the online game that inspired the modern Sims series.

In 1986, the legendary adventure game "The Legend of Zelda" was released, which is considered one of the three best game series of all time. At the same time, an interesting genre was born - "Japanese role-playing games" (jRPG), which are fundamentally different from Western RPGs. The first jRPG is Dragon Quest.

4th generation consoles and the further evolution of computer hardware: 1987-1993

In 1987, computer graphics cards began to support the new VGA standard (256 colors), which made video games colorful and more and more similar to modern ones. At the same time, the first computer sound card "AdLib" was created, which is another qualitative step in the evolution of games.

The Maniac Mansion game was born - the first adventure where the control was used computer mouse(point-and-click interface), rather than text commands as before.

The first "Final Fantasy" was created, which became the progenitor of the series of one of the most popular jRPGs in the world.

1988 - start of sales Sega Mega Drive is a 4th generation gaming console that supports 16-bit graphics and sound, which was in line with the achievements of the latest PCs of the time.

In 1989, the popular Gameboy console was released and the first city ​​building simulator"SimCity" by the famous Sid Meier.

1991 was marked by the appearance of the legendary "Sonic the Hedgehog", which became a symbol of the Sega platform. A new genre has also appeared - "global strategies", which was pioneered by the famous Civilization.

Another significant milestone in the evolution of video games was the three-dimensional first-person shooter "Wolfenstein 3D", released in 1992. The standard of fighting games appeared " Mortal Kombat", as well as the first real-time strategy (RTS) "Dune 2" and the first horror game "Alone in the Dark".

In 1993, the Wolfenstein 3D business was continued by the cult shooter Doom, which became a trendsetter among games of a similar genre.

Fifth generation of set-top boxes and Voodoo 1: 1994-2000

In 1994, the fifth generation consoles appeared, the best of which was the Sony PlayStation. At the same time, Blizzard creates its first masterpiece "Warcraft: Orcs and Humans" - RTS, which has become one of the leaders of the genre.

1995 was also rich in novelties: the popular turn-based strategy Heroes of Might and Magic», racing series"Need for Speed”, the legendary quest “Myst” was released on the PC.

Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods was the first to use motion capture technology previously only used in movies.

1996 Voodoo I was released, the first 3D-accelerated video card, which gave a powerful impetus to the development of 3D games such as “ Duke Nukem 3D", "Command & Conquer: Red Alert", "Tomb Raider", " resident evil", "Diablo".

1997 The first truly massive and successful multiplayer online game Ultima Online is gaining popularity (the milestone of 100,000 players was reached the very next year). It was 1997 that can be considered the starting point in the popularization of network games. At the same time, the cult RPG Fallout was released.

1998 "Half-Life" is the first game in which the story was presented directly within the gameplay without video inserts and text. Starcraft and Grand Theft Auto (GTA) also saw the light of day this year.

The sixth generation of consoles: 2000-2005

year 2000. The Sony Playstation 2 game console is taking over the world.

year 2001. Microsoft releases the Xbox game console. Between Sony and Microsoft, tough competition begins in this area (victory, in the end, remains with Sony PS).

2002 The third part of the cult RPG series is coming out called " The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, setting new standards role playing: a huge open world, a well-developed character leveling system, an interesting storyline. Dota, a game that is a modification of one of the Warcraft III maps, is beginning to gain popularity.

In the future, this map took shape in a separate game, and in 2013 it received a continuation and became a popular esports discipline called Dota 2.

2003 In connection with the release of the Nokia N-Gage smartphone, “sharpened” for games, phones are beginning to look like gaming platforms, although the quality of such content is much inferior to computer video games.

2004 At this time, "Far Cry" was created - the ancestor of the legendary series of first-person shooters in the open world with great graphics and some unique gameplay features, as well as the most massive MMORPG "World of Warcraft".

Seventh generation of consoles: 2005-2013

2005 year. The Xbox 360 game console was released. The programmers created "PhysX" - a module (it did not directly gain popularity) and software that allows you to increase the performance of video cards in games, which significantly increased the quality and realism of the latter.

Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy saw the light of day, a masterpiece game that is an interactive movie with multiple endings and scenarios.

At this time, sales of games in digital form (Steam service) begin to gain popularity. Developers began to pay great attention to cross-platform games: exclusive projects continue to be released, but in much smaller volumes.

2006 The Sony Playstation 3 went on sale, and a little later, the Nintendo Wii. Included with the latest console was the revolutionary Wii Remote controller, which made game process mobile.

Thinking about how the gaming industry was born, many people immediately think of Pong. Although the acclaimed arcade machine took the industry to a whole new level, its creation was preceded by more than twenty years of experimentation. And the earliest of them is the project of the American inventor Thomas Goldsmith, developed almost seventy years ago.

1948 Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device

In 1948, physicists Thomas Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann were granted the world's first patent for the invention of an electronic interactive game. The patent describes a game in which the player sits or stands in front of a CRT monitor built into a cabinet.

Goldsmith and Mann, who worked with radar during World War II, decided to make something like a rocket simulator. With the help of special handles, the player had to adjust the trajectory of the projectiles in order to hit the targets.

Scientists did not pin any hopes on the resulting game. It was just a small demonstration of the capabilities of DuMont Laboratories, in which Goldsmith was listed as a director. The patent was never used, and things did not go beyond a manually created copy.

1948 - Turbochamp

The legendary English mathematician Alan Turing developed a chess program in 1948 with his colleague David Champernow. Having finished in 1950 and calling it Turbochamp, Turing tried to implement the project on the Ferranti Mark 1, but the attempts were in vain - the computer did not have enough power. Then Alan decided to play an experimental game against his friend, the scientist Alik Glennie, in which he, acting according to the created algorithm, acted as his own program. Turing took half an hour for each move, and after 29 moves he lost to Glennie. However, experimentation has shown that Turbochamp is capable of playing like a human. Later, in a similar experiment, Alan managed to win against his wife Chempernovna. And the first full-fledged chess game will be written by Alex Bernstein in 1957 and run on an IBM 704 computer.

In 2012, the famous chess player Garry Kasparov played a game against Turbochamp and defeated it in 16 moves.

You can watch the same game against Glennie.

1950 Bertie the Brain

The first game with at least some visual component was Bertie the Brain. Joseph Cates developed the game of Tic-Tac-Toe for the Canadian National Exhibition. To do this, he needed a four-meter-tall computer that invited visitors to the exhibition to fight a classic game with artificial intelligence.

Cates built Bertie the Brain, among other things, in order to prove his invention - his version of the vacuum tube, which he called the Additron tube.

Bertie the Brain turned out to be quite difficult, and Cates had to manually adjust the difficulty for each visitor. The player pressed one of the nine buttons, and the result was displayed on the screen hanging in front of the players in the form of "X" or "O".

Immediately after the exhibition, the game was forgotten. Due to rapid technological progress, the same thing happened with the lamps he invented.

Cates once said: "If the solid-state revolution had come ten years later, my invention would have made me a billionaire."

1951 - Nimrod

It all started with the fact that the British electrical equipment company Ferranti promised the Deputy Prime Minister of England, Herbert Morrison, to contribute to the 1951 Festival of Britain exhibition. John Bennett, an Australian employee of the company, was contracted for this business. John had an idea to build a full-fledged computer for playing Nim. Bennett wanted to demonstrate the computing power of a computer, and the math "Nim" was an excellent example.

The booklet accompanying the computer read: “It may seem that we are wasting time creating a machine for games, but this is not true. Game theory is extremely complex, and a machine capable of playing a complex game can be programmed to solve useful problems.”

However, with the exception of a few, the audience was not interested in Nimrod's mathematical abilities, but in the game factor.

After demonstrating the Nimrod at a couple more shows, Ferranti forgot about the computer and moved on to other projects.

1952 - Noughts and Crosses

Noughts and Crosses is considered the first computer game with a graphical interface. In 1952, British scientist Alexander Douglas submitted it as an appendix to his Ph.D. thesis on human-computer interaction.

Just at that time, the University of Cambridge completed the creation of an electronic computer EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), the world's first computer built on the principles of von Neumann (joint storage of commands and data in computer memory). Douglas took the opportunity to program a simple game of tic-tac-toe.

Noughts and Crosses (a game of Tic-Tac-Toe) was displayed on a 35x16 pixel display, and the game itself was one of the first applications of artificial intelligence.

Douglas's project was well received, earning him a doctorate and launching a successful scientific career. Interestingly, the scientist has not written a single game in his entire life.

1958 Tennis for Two

Tennis for Two was the first multiplayer game. Physicist William Higinbotham developed it specifically for an open day at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he worked.

In Tennis for Two, two players control a dot of light that flies across the oscilloscope screen. By turning the controller knob, you can change the angle of the ball and launch it by pressing the red button.

In addition to being the first sports game, Tennis for Two was the first to use two controllers for two players, thus taking another step towards interactivity.

Despite its popularity, Higinbotham did not get a patent for the game, and the Tennis for Two components went to other projects.

In May 2011, the game was recreated specifically for the MEGA (Museum of Electronic Games & Art) project.

1961 Spacewar!

After the Massachusetts Institute of Technology purchased a copy of the PDP-1 computer, Steve Russell, Martin Gretz, and Wayne Whittanham were tasked with developing the program for it. As a result, their attempts to utilize the capabilities of the computer in one program turned into Spacewar!

Inspired by Japanese sci-fi movies, the game is a duel between two spaceships. Over time, elements such as asteroids or hyperspace were added, allowing players to teleport at random while avoiding enemy torpedoes.

spacewar! decided to distribute for free, and the game was pre-installed on all subsequent copies of PDP-1 computers. Also, the creators provided the source code to everyone, and for free.

Although Spacewar! and did not originate the gaming industry, it had a significant impact on developers, and, in the end, became the prototype for the world's first arcade machine Computer Space.

You can evaluate Spacewar! for yourself, for example.

1967 - Inventions by Ralph Baer

American inventor Ralph Baer can be called the true father of the gaming industry. It was he who moved from short-term experiments, such as those described above, to the point, suggesting that televisions be used for games. It is interesting that this idea came to Baer back in 1955, and he waited eleven years for the right moment and conditions for its implementation.

As Baer recalled, "At the time, forty million television sets in the United States were literally begging their creators to use them for something other than watching the news."

In 1966, with engineer Bob Tremblay, Baer designed a device that allowed players to move and resize a white dot across the screen. Baer compiled these features into Chase and pitched it to Sanders. The company gave Baer $2,500 in funding on the condition that he come up with more interesting things for the gameplay.

With two more engineers on the team, Baer developed several prototypes over the course of a year, which were eventually combined into the world's first video game console called The Brown Box.

The console also included a joystick and one of the world's first light guns a la NES Zipper. But, despite the interest in the prefix of such giants as Motorola and General Electronics, the companies were in no hurry to take the risk of releasing such an innovative project. Only four years later, Baer managed to conclude a contract with Magnavox and release a "brown box" already under the name Odyssey.

The Odyssey ran on batteries, had no sound, and the white dot and line graphics required a lot of imagination from the players. And yet, the prefix in the shortest possible time gained immense popularity - more than 100,000 units were sold in a year.

1971 - Computer Space

After fellow engineers Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney played Spacewar! on a huge PDP-1, they became obsessed with porting the game to a smaller device. After some experimentation with programmer Larry Brian, and even the creation of Syzygy for the occasion, Bushnell and Dabney came to the conclusion that instead of making a direct PDP-1 port of the game, they should re-create Spacewar! with the help of other technologies, which, by the way, were already being promoted by Ralph Baer.

After the development was completed, Syzygy signed a contract with Nutting Associates to produce two types of slot machines called Computer Space: for one and two players, respectively. The gameplay of Computer Space was slightly different from Spacewar!. Gone is the attraction to the center of the screen, and added the need to dodge attacks from third-party ships moving back and forth across the screen.

Unfortunately for the developers, the game turned out to be too difficult for ordinary visitors to bars, where slot machines were most often found. Bushnell and Dabney began to develop new ideas and soon gave the world the famous Pong already on behalf of their new company Atari.

Since Computer Space, every step in the industry has been much wider than the last:

• 1975 - Atari's Pong becomes the most popular Christmas present.
• 1976 - Coleco releases its first Telstar console.
• 1977 - Atari released its first Video Computer System, which used cartridges.
• 1978 - Midway introduces the sensational Space Invaders.

In the 1970s alone, the industry made a giant leap in development and only continued to gain momentum in the future.