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![Consoles-computerspielemuseum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Consoles-computerspielemuseum.jpg)
The history of video games began in the 1950s and 1960s as
computer scientists
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (including ...
began designing simple games and
simulations
A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or process, whereas the s ...
on
minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ' ...
s and
mainframes. ''
Spacewar!
''Spacewar!'' is a Space combat game, space combat video game developed in 1962 by Steve Russell (computer scientist), Steve Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Robert Alan Saunders, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. ...
'' was developed by
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
student hobbyists in 1962 as one of the first such
games on a video display. The first consumer video game hardware was released in the early 1970s. The first
home video game console
A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...
is the
Magnavox Odyssey, and the first
arcade video game
An arcade video game takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. Most arcade video games are coin-operated, housed in an arc ...
s are ''
Computer Space
''Computer Space'' is a space combat simulation, space combat arcade game developed in 1971. Created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering, it was the first arcade video game as well as the first commercially avail ...
'' and ''
Pong
''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Al ...
''. After its home console conversions, numerous companies sprang up to capture ''Pong''s success in both the arcade and the home by cloning the game, causing a series of boom and bust cycles due to oversaturation and lack of innovation.
By the mid-1970s, low-cost programmable
microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
s replaced the discrete
transistor–transistor logic Transistor–transistor logic (TTL) is a logic family built from bipolar junction transistors. Its name signifies that transistors perform both the logic function (the first "transistor") and the amplifying function (the second "transistor"), as o ...
circuitry of the early hardware, and the first
ROM cartridge
A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, elect ...
-based home consoles arrived, including the
Atari Video Computer System
The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...
(VCS). Coupled with rapid growth in the
golden age of arcade video games
The golden age of arcade video games was the period of rapid growth, technological development and cultural influence of arcade video games, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The period began with the release of ''Space Invaders'' in 1978, ...
, including ''
Space Invaders
is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter an ...
'' and ''
Pac-Man
originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...
'', the home console market also flourished. The
1983 video game crash in the United States was characterized by a flood of too many games, often of poor or cloned qualities, and the sector saw competition from inexpensive
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or te ...
s and new types of games being developed for them. The crash prompted Japan's video game industry to take leadership of the market, which had only suffered minor impacts from the crash.
Nintendo
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...
released its
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...
in the United States in 1985, helping to rebound the failing video games sector. The latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s included video games driven by improvements and standardization in personal computers and the
console war
In the video game industry, a console war describes the competition between two or more video game console manufacturers in trying to achieve better consumer sales through more advanced console technology, an improved selection of video games, and ...
competition between Nintendo and Sega as they fought for market share in the United States. The first major
handheld video game consoles appeared in the 1990s, led by Nintendo's
Game Boy
The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same t ...
platform.
In the early 1990s, advancements in microprocessor technology brought two major technology shifts, including the introduction of optical media via
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both com ...
s and real-time
3D polygonal graphic rendering. Both aspects were readily incorporated into personal computers and creating a market for
graphics card
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer mo ...
s, including
Sony
, commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
's fledgling
PlayStation
is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a di ...
console line, pushing Sega out of the console hardware market while diminishing Nintendo's role. By the late 1990s, the
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...
also gained widespread consumer use, and video games began incorporating online elements.
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
entered the console hardware market in the early 2000s with its
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the ...
line, fearing that Sony's PlayStation positioned as a game console and entertainment device, would displace personal computers. While Sony and Microsoft continued to develop the hardware of comparable top-end console features, Nintendo opted to focus on innovative gameplay. Nintendo developed the
Wii
The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...
with motion-sensing controls, which helped to draw in non-traditional players and helped to resecure Nintendo's position in the industry; Nintendo followed this same model in the release of the
Nintendo Switch
The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...
.
From the 2000s and into the 2010s, the industry has seen a shift of demographics as
mobile gaming
A mobile game, or smartphone game, is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to h ...
on
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whi ...
s and
tablet
Tablet may refer to:
Medicine
* Tablet (pharmacy), a mixture of pharmacological substances pressed into a small cake or bar, colloquially called a "pill"
Computing
* Tablet computer, a mobile computer that is primarily operated by touching the ...
s displaced handheld consoles, and
casual gaming
A casual game is a video game targeted at a mass market audience, as opposed to a hardcore game, which is targeted at hobbyist gamers. Casual games may exhibit any type of gameplay and genre. They generally involve simpler rules, shorter sessio ...
became an increasing larger sector of the market, as well as a growth in the number of players from China and other areas not traditionally tied to the industry. To take advantage of these shifts, traditional revenue models were supplanted with ongoing revenue stream models such as
free-to-play
Free-to-play (F2P or FtP) video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content without paying or do not require paying to continue playing. Free-to-play is distinct from traditional commercial software, which ...
,
freemium
Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical ...
, and subscription-based games. As
triple-A video game production became more costly and risk-averse, opportunities for more experimental and innovative
independent game development grew over the 2000s and 2010s, aided by the popularity of mobile and casual gaming and the ease of
digital distribution
Digital distribution, also referred to as content delivery, online distribution, or electronic software distribution, among others, is the delivery or distribution of digital media content such as audio, video, e-books, video games, and other s ...
. Hardware and software technology continued to drive improvement in video games, with support for
high-definition video
High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines ...
at high framerates and for
virtual and
augmented reality
Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...
-based games.
Early history (1948–1970)
![Spacewar!-PDP-1-20070512](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Spacewar%21-PDP-1-20070512.jpg)
As early as 1950, computer scientists were using electronic machines to construct relatively simple game systems, such as ''
Bertie the Brain
''Bertie the Brain'' was an early computer game, and one of the first games developed in the early history of video games. It was built in Toronto by Josef Kates for the 1950 Canadian National Exhibition. The four meter (13 foot) tall computer al ...
'' in 1950 to play
tic tac toe
Tic-tac-toe (American English), noughts and crosses (Commonwealth English), or Xs and Os (Canadian or Irish English) is a paper-and-pencil game for two players who take turns marking the spaces in a three-by-three grid with ''X'' or ''O''. ...
, or
Nimrod
Nimrod (; ; arc, ܢܡܪܘܕ; ar, نُمْرُود, Numrūd) is a biblical figure mentioned in the Book of Genesis and Books of Chronicles. The son of Cush and therefore a great-grandson of Noah, Nimrod was described as a king in the land of ...
in 1951 for playing
Nim. These systems used either electronic light displays and mainly as demonstration systems at large exhibitions to showcase the power of computers at the time.
Another early demonstration was ''
Tennis for Two'', a game created by
William Higinbotham at
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at the site of Camp Upton, a former U.S. Army base and Japanese internment c ...
in 1958 for three-day exhibition, using an
analog computer
An analog computer or analogue computer is a type of computer that uses the continuous variation aspect of physical phenomena such as electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic quantities (''analog signals'') to model the problem being solved. In ...
and an
oscilloscope
An oscilloscope (informally a scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying electrical voltages as a two-dimensional plot of one or more signals as a function of time. The main purposes are to display repetiti ...
for a display.
''
Spacewar!
''Spacewar!'' is a Space combat game, space combat video game developed in 1962 by Steve Russell (computer scientist), Steve Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Robert Alan Saunders, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. ...
'' is considered one of the first recognized video games that enjoyed wider distribution behind a single exhibition system. Developed in 1961 for the
PDP-1
The PDP-1 (''Programmed Data Processor-1'') is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at Massachusett ...
mainframe computer at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...
(MIT), it allowed two players to simulate a space combat fight on the PDP-1's relatively simplistic monitor. The game's
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...
was shared with other institutions with a PDP-1 across the country as the MIT students themselves moved about, allowing the game to gain popularity.
1970s
Mainframe computer games
![ADVENT -- Will Crowther's original version (vector)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/ADVENT_--_Will_Crowther%27s_original_version_%28vector%29.svg)
In the 1960s, a number of computer games were created for mainframe and
minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ' ...
systems, but these failed to achieve wide distribution due to the continuing scarcity of computer resources, a lack of sufficiently trained programmers interested in crafting entertainment products, and the difficulty in transferring programs between computers in different geographic areas. By the end of the 1970s, however, the situation had changed drastically. The
BASIC
BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
and
C high-level
programming language
A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language.
The description of a programming ...
s were widely adopted during the decade, which were more accessible than earlier more technical languages such as
FORTRAN and
COBOL
COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily u ...
, opening up computer game creation to a larger base of users. With the advent of
time-sharing
In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1
Its emergence ...
, which allowed the resources of a single mainframe to be parceled out among multiple users connected to the machine by terminals, computer access was no longer limited to a handful of individuals at an institution, creating more opportunities for students to create their own games. Furthermore, the widespread adoption of the
PDP-10
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, espec ...
, released by
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president un ...
(DEC) in 1966, and the portable
UNIX
Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
, developed at
Bell Labs
Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984),
then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996)
and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007),
is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...
in 1971 and released generally in 1973, created common programming environments across the country that reduced the difficulty of sharing programs between institutions. Finally, the founding of the first magazines dedicated to computing like ''
Creative Computing
''Creative Computing'' was one of the earliest magazines covering the microcomputer revolution. Published from October 1974 until December 1985, the magazine covered the spectrum of hobbyist/home/personal computing in a more accessible format t ...
'' (1974), the publication of the earliest program compilation books like ''101 BASIC Computer Games'' (1973), and the spread of wide-area networks such as the
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
allowed programs to be shared more easily across great distances. As a result, many of the mainframe games created by college students in the 1970s influenced subsequent developments in the video game industry in ways that, ''Spacewar!'' aside, the games of the 1960s did not.
In the arcade and on home consoles, fast-paced action and
real-time
Real-time or real time describes various operations in computing or other processes that must guarantee response times within a specified time (deadline), usually a relatively short time. A real-time process is generally one that happens in defined ...
gameplay were the norm in genres like
racing
In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...
and
target shooting
Shooting sports is a group of competitive and recreational sporting activities involving proficiency tests of accuracy, precision and speed in shooting — the art of using ranged weapons, mainly small arms ( firearms and airguns, in forms suc ...
. On the mainframe, however, such games were generally not possible due both to the lack of adequate displays (many computer terminals continued to rely on
teletype
A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Init ...
s rather than monitors well into the 1970s and even most CRT terminals could only render character-based graphics) and insufficient processing power and memory to update game elements in real time. While 1970s mainframes were more powerful than arcade and console hardware of the period, the need to parcel out computing resources to dozens of simultaneous users via time-sharing significantly hampered their abilities. Thus, programmers of mainframe games focused on strategy and puzzle-solving mechanics over pure action. Notable games of the period include the tactical combat game ''
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...
'' (1971) by
Mike Mayfield, the
hide-and-seek
Hide-and-seek (sometimes known as hide-and-go-seek) is a popular children's game in which at least two players (usually at least three) conceal themselves in a set environment, to be found by one or more seekers. The game is played by one chos ...
game ''
Hunt the Wumpus'' (1972) by
Gregory Yob, and the strategic war game ''
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'' (1977) by
Walter Bright
Walter G. Bright is an American computer programmer who created the D programming language, the Zortech C++ compiler, and the ''Empire'' computer game.
Early life and education
Bright is the son of the United States Air Force pilot Charles D. ...
. Perhaps the most significant game of the period was ''
Colossal Cave Adventure
''Colossal Cave Adventure'' (also known as ''Adventure'' or ''ADVENT'') is a text-based adventure game, released in 1976 by developer Will Crowther for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. It was expanded upon in 1977 by Don Woods. In the game, the ...
'' (or simply ''Adventure''), created in 1976 by
Will Crowther by combining his passion for caving with concepts from the newly released tabletop role-playing game (RPG) ''
Dungeons and Dragons
''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TS ...
'' (D&D). Expanded by
Don Woods Donald Woods (1933–2001) was a South African journalist and activist.
Donald or Don Woods may also refer to:
* Donald Woods (actor) (1906–1998), Canadian-born American film and television actor
* Donald Devereux Woods (1912–1964), British ...
in 1977 with an emphasis on the high fantasy of
J.R.R. Tolkien, ''Adventure'' established a new genre based around exploration and inventory-based puzzle solving that made the transition to personal computers in the late 1970s.
While most games were created on hardware of limited graphic ability, one computer able to host more impressive games was the
PLATO system
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institut ...
developed at the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Uni ...
. Intended as an educational computer, the system connected hundreds of users all over the United States via remote terminals that featured high-quality
plasma display
A plasma display panel (PDP) is a type of flat panel display that uses small cells containing plasma: ionized gas that responds to electric fields. Plasma televisions were the first large (over 32 inches diagonal) flat panel displays to be rele ...
s and allowed users to interact with each other in real time. This allowed the system to host an impressive array of graphical and/or multiplayer games, including some of the earliest known computer RPGs, which were primarily derived, like ''Adventure'', from ''D&D'', but unlike that game placed a greater emphasis on combat and character progression than puzzle solving. Starting with top-down dungeon crawls like ''The Dungeon'' (1975) and ''The Game of Dungeons'' (1975), more commonly referred to today by their filenames, ''
pedit5
''pedit5'', alternately called ''The Dungeon'', is a 1975 dungeon crawl role-playing video game developed for the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's PLATO computer network by Rusty Rutherford. In it, the player controls a character explor ...
'' and ''
dnd'', PLATO RPGs soon transitioned to a first-person perspective with games like ''
Moria
Moria may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Moria (Middle-earth), fictional location in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien
* '' Moria: The Dwarven City'', a 1984 fantasy role-playing game supplement
* ''Moria'' (1978 video game), a dungeon-crawler g ...
'' (1975), ''Oubliette'' (1977), and ''
Avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appear ...
'' (1979), which often allowed multiple players to join forces to battle monsters and complete quests together. Like ''Adventure'', these games ultimately inspired some of the earliest personal computer games.
The first arcade video games and home consoles
![Magnavox-Odyssey-Console-Set](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Magnavox-Odyssey-Console-Set.jpg)
The modern video game industry grew out of the concurrent development of the first
arcade video game
An arcade video game takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. Most arcade video games are coin-operated, housed in an arc ...
and the first
home video game console
A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...
in the early 1970s in the United States.
The arcade video game industry grew out of the pre-existing
arcade game
An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade vi ...
industry, which was previously dominated by
electro-mechanical games (EM games). Following the arrival of
Sega
is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...
's EM game ''
Periscope
A periscope is an instrument for observation over, around or through an object, obstacle or condition that prevents direct line-of-sight observation from an observer's current position.
In its simplest form, it consists of an outer case with ...
'' (1966), the arcade industry was experiencing a "technological renaissance" driven by "audio-visual" EM novelty games, establishing the arcades as a healthy environment for the introduction of commercial video games in the early 1970s.
In the late 1960s, a college student
Nolan Bushnell
Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consu ...
had a part-time job at an arcade where he became familiar with EM games, watching customers play and helping to maintain the machinery while learning how it worked and developing his understanding of how the game business operates.
In 1966, while working at
Sanders Associates
Sanders Associates was a defense contractor in Nashua, New Hampshire, United States, from 1951 until it was sold in 1986. It is now part of BAE Systems Electronics & Integrated Solutions, a subsidiary of BAE Systems. It concentrated on developin ...
,
Ralph Baer came up with an idea for an entertainment device that could be hooked up to a television monitor. Presenting this to his superiors at Sanders and getting their approval, he, along with William Harrison and William Rusch, refined Baer's concept into the "Brown Box" prototype of a
home video game console
A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...
that could play a simple table tennis game. The three patented the technology, and Sanders, not in the commercialization business, sold licenses to the patents to
Magnavox
Magnavox (Latin for "great voice", stylized as MAGNAVOX) is an American electronics company that since 1974 has been a subsidiary of the Dutch electronics corporation Philips.
The predecessor to Magnavox was founded in 1911 by Edwin Pridham and ...
to commercialize. With Baer's help, Magnavox developed the
Magnavox Odyssey, the first commercial home console, in 1972.
![Pong](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Pong.png)
Concurrently, Nolan Bushnell and
Ted Dabney
Samuel Frederick "Ted" Dabney Jr. (May 2, 1937 – May 26, 2018) was an American electrical engineer, and the co-founder, alongside Nolan Bushnell, of Atari, Inc. He is recognized as developing the basics of video circuitry principles that ...
had the idea of making a coin-operated system to run ''Spacewar!'' By 1971, the two had developed ''
Computer Space
''Computer Space'' is a space combat simulation, space combat arcade game developed in 1971. Created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering, it was the first arcade video game as well as the first commercially avail ...
'' with
Nutting Associates
Nutting Associates was an arcade game manufacturer based in Mountain View, California, incorporated in February 1967 by William Gilbert Nutting. In 1977 the company was purchased by William "Si" Redd and eventually absorbed into the company Sirc ...
, the first arcade video game. Bushnell and Dabney struck out on their own and formed
Atari
Atari () is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French publisher Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, Ca ...
. Bushnell, inspired by the
table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...
game on the Odyssey, hired
Allan Alcorn
Allan Alcorn (born January 1, 1948) is an American pioneering engineer and computer scientist best known for creating '' Pong'', one of the first video games.
Atari and ''Pong''
Alcorn grew up in San Francisco, California, and attended th ...
to develop an arcade version of the game, this time using discrete
transistor–transistor logic Transistor–transistor logic (TTL) is a logic family built from bipolar junction transistors. Its name signifies that transistors perform both the logic function (the first "transistor") and the amplifying function (the second "transistor"), as o ...
(TTL) electronic circuitry. Atari's ''
Pong
''Pong'' is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released in 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Al ...
'' was released in late 1972 and is considered the first successful arcade video game. It ignited the growth of the arcade game industry in the United States from both established coin-operated game manufacturers like
Williams, Chicago Coin, and the
Midway subsidiary of
Bally Manufacturing
Bally Manufacturing, later renamed Bally Entertainment, was an American company that began as a pinball and slot machine manufacturer, and later expanded into casinos, video games, health clubs, and theme parks. It was acquired by Hilton Hotel ...
, and new startups such as Ramtek and
Allied Leisure. Many of these were ''Pong'' clones using ball-and-paddle controls, and led to saturation of the market in 1974, forcing arcade game makers to try to innovate new games in 1975. Many of the newer companies created in the wake of ''Pong'' failed to innovate on their own and shut down, and by the end of 1975, the arcade market had fallen by about 50% based on new game sale revenues.
Further, Magnavox took Atari and several other of these arcade game makers to court over violations of Baer's patents. Bushnell settled the suit for Atari, gaining perpetual rights for the patents for Atari as part of the settlement. Others failed to settle, and Magnavox won around in damages from these patent infringement suits before the patents expired in 1990.
Arcade video games caught on quickly in Japan due to partnerships between American and Japanese corporations that kept the Japan companies abreast of technology developments within the United States. The
Nakamura Amusement Machine Manufacturing Company (Namco) partnered with Atari to import ''Pong'' into Japan in late 1973. Within the year,
Taito
is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. I ...
and
Sega
is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...
released ''Pong'' clones in Japan by mid-1973. Japanese companies began developing novel games and exporting or licensing them through partners in 1974.
Among these included Taito's ''
Gun Fight'' (originally ''Western Gun'' in its Japanese release), which was licensed to Midway. Midway's version, released in 1975, was the first arcade video game to use a
microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor where the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit, or a small number of integrated circuits. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circ ...
rather than discrete TLL components. This innovation drastically reduced the complexity and time to design of arcade games and the number of physical components required to achieve more advanced gameplay.
The dedicated console market
![APF_TV_Fun_(with_paddle_model)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/APF_TV_Fun_%28with_paddle_model%29.jpg)
The Magnavox Odyssey never caught on with the public, due largely to the limited functionality of its primitive discrete electronic component technology.
By mid-1975
large-scale integration
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny ...
(LSI) microchips had become inexpensive enough to be incorporated into a consumer product.
In 1975, Magnavox reduced the part count of the Odyssey using a three-chip set created by Texas Instruments and released two new systems that only played ball-and-paddle games, the
Magnavox Odyssey 100 and
Magnavox Odyssey 200. Atari, meanwhile, entered the consumer market that same year with the single-chip Home ''Pong'' system. The next year, General Instrument released a "Pong-on-a-chip" LSI and made it available at a low price to any interested company. Toy company
Coleco
Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game consol ...
Industries used this chip to create the million-selling
Telstar console model series (1976–77).
These initial home video game consoles were popular, leading to a large influx of companies releasing ''Pong'' and other
video game clone
A video game clone is either a video game or a video game console very similar to, or heavily inspired by, a previous popular game or console. Clones are typically made to take financial advantage of the popularity of the cloned game or system, bu ...
s to satisfy consumer demand. While there were only seven companies that were releasing home consoles in 1975, there were at least 82 by 1977, with more than 160 different models that year alone that were easily documented. A large number of these consoles were created in East Asia, and it is estimated that over 500 ''Pong''-type home console models were made during this period.
As with the prior paddle-and-ball saturation in the arcade game field by 1975 due to consumer weariness, dedicated console sales dropped sharply in 1978, disrupted by the introduction of programmable systems and
Handheld electronic games.
Just as dedicated consoles were waning in popularity in the West, they briefly surged in popularity in Japan. These ''TV geemu'' were often based on licensed designs from the American companies, manufactured by television manufacturers such as
Toshiba
, commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...
and
Sharp
Sharp or SHARP may refer to:
Acronyms
* SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme
* Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 199 ...
. Notably,
Nintendo
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing cards ...
entered the video game market during this period alongside its current traditional and electronic toy product lines, producing the series of
Color TV-Game
The is the first video game system ever made by Nintendo. The system was released as a series of five dedicated home video game consoles between 1977 and 1980 in Japan only. Nintendo sold three million units of the first four models: one mil ...
consoles in partnership with
Mitsubishi
The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries.
Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group historically descended from the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company which existed from 1870 ...
.
Growth of video game arcades and the golden age
![Space Invaders - Midway's](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Space_Invaders_-_Midway%27s.JPG)
After the ball-and-paddle market saturation in 1975, game developers began looking for new ideas for games, buoyed by the ability to use programmable microprocessors rather than analog components. Taito designer
Tomohiro Nishikado
is a Japanese video game developer and engineer. He is the creator of the arcade shoot 'em up game '' Space Invaders'', released to the public in 1978 by the Taito of Japan, often credited as the first shoot 'em up and for beginning the gold ...
, who had developed ''Gun Fight'' previously, was inspired by Atari's ''
Breakout'' to create a shooting-based game, ''
Space Invaders
is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter an ...
'', first released in Japan in 1978.
''Space Invaders'' introduced or popularized several important concepts in arcade video games, including play regulated by
lives
Lives may refer to:
* The plural form of a '' life''
* Lives, Iran, a village in Khuzestan Province, Iran
* The number of lives in a video game
* '' Parallel Lives'', aka ''Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans'', a series of biographies of famous ...
instead of a timer or set score, gaining
extra lives
In video games, a life is a play-turn that a player character has, defined as the period between start and end of play. Lives refer to a finite number of tries before the game ends with a game over. It is sometimes called a chance, a try, res ...
through accumulating points, and the tracking of the
high score
In games, score refers to an abstract quantity associated with a player or team. Score is usually measured in the abstract unit of points (except in game shows, where scores often are instead measured in units of currency), and events in th ...
achieved on the machine. It was also the first game to confront the player with waves of targets that shot back at the player and the first to include background music during game play, albeit a simple four-note loop.
''Space Invaders'' was an immediate success in Japan, with some arcades created solely for ''Space Invaders'' machines.
While not quite as popular in the United States, ''Space Invaders'' became a hit as Midway, serving as the North American manufacturer, moved over 60,000 cabinets in 1979.
![US Marine playing Defender](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/US_Marine_playing_Defender.jpg)
''Space Invaders'' led off what is considered to be the golden age of arcade games which lasted from 1978 to 1982. Several influential and best-selling arcade games were released during this period from Atari, Namco, Taito, Williams, and Nintendo, including ''
Asteroids
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...
'' (1979), ''
Galaxian
is a 1979 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Namco. The player assumes control of the Galaxip starfighter in its mission to protect Earth from waves of aliens. Gameplay involves destroying each formation of aliens, wh ...
'' (1979), ''
Defender'' (1980), ''
Missile Command
''Missile Command'' is a 1980 shoot 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. and licensed to Sega for Japanese and European releases. It was designed by Dave Theurer, who also designed Atari's vector graphics game '' Temp ...
'' (1980), ''
Tempest
Tempest is a synonym for a storm.
'' The Tempest'' is a play by William Shakespeare.
Tempest or The Tempest may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''The Tempest'' (1908 film), a British silent film
* ''The Tempest'' (1911 film), a ...
'' (1981), and ''
Galaga
is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Namco. In North America, it was released by Midway Manufacturing. It is the sequel to '' Galaxian'' (1979), Namco's first major video game hit in arcades. Controlling a star ...
'' (1981). ''
Pac-Man
originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...
'', released in 1980, became a
popular culture
Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...
icon, and a new wave of games appeared that focused on identifiable characters and alternate mechanics such as navigating a maze or traversing a series of platforms. Aside from ''Pac-Man'' and its sequel, ''
Ms. Pac-Man
is a 1982 maze arcade game developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway. It is the first sequel to ''Pac-Man'' (1980) and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's wif ...
'' (1982), the most popular games in this vein during the golden age were ''
Donkey Kong
is a video game franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and owned by Nintendo. It follows the adventures of a gorilla named Donkey Kong (character), Donkey Kong and his clan of other Ape, apes and monkeys. The franchise primarily consists of plat ...
'' (1981) and ''
Q*bert
''Q*bert'' (also known as ''Qbert'') is an arcade video game developed and published for the North American market by Gottlieb in 1982. It is a Video game graphics, 2D action game with Puzzle video game, puzzle elements that uses Isometric video ...
'' (1982).
Games like ''Pac-Man'', ''Donkey Kong'' and ''Q*bert'' also introduced the concept of narratives and characters to video games, which led companies to adopt these later as mascots for marketing purposes.
According to trade publication ''Vending Times'', revenues generated by coin-operated video games on location in the United States jumped from $308 million in 1978 to $968 million in 1979 to $2.8 billion in 1980. As ''Pac Man'' ignited an even larger video game craze and attracted more female players to arcades, revenues jumped again to $4.9 billion in 1981. According to trade publication ''Play Meter'', by July 1982, total coin-op collections peaked at $8.9 billion, of which $7.7 billion came from video games.
Dedicated
video game arcade
An amusement arcade (often referred to as a video arcade, amusements or simply arcade) is a venue where people play arcade games, including arcade video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, merchandisers (such as cl ...
s grew during the golden age, with the number of arcades (locations with at least ten arcade games) more than doubling between July 1981 and July 1983 from over 10,000 to just over 25,000.
These figures made arcade games the most popular entertainment medium in the country, far surpassing both pop music (at $4 billion in sales per year) and Hollywood films ($3 billion).
Introduction of cartridge-based home consoles
![Intellivision](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Intellivision.jpg)
Development costs of dedicated game hardware for arcade and home consoles based on discrete component circuitry and
application-specific integrated circuit
An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-effici ...
s (ASICs) with only limited consumer lifespans drove engineers to find alternatives. Microprocessors had dropped far enough in price by 1975 to make these a viable option for developing programmable consoles that could load in game software from a form of swappable media.
The
Fairchild Channel F
The Fairchild Channel F, short for "Channel Fun", is a video game console, the first to be based on a microprocessor and to use ROM cartridges instead of having games built-in. It was released by Fairchild Camera and Instrument in November 1976 a ...
by
Fairchild Camera and Instrument
Fairchild Camera and Instrument Corporation was a company founded by Sherman Fairchild. It was based on the East Coast of the United States, and provided research and development for flash photography equipment. The technology was primarily used ...
was released in 1976. It is the first home console to use programmable
ROM cartridge
A ROM cartridge, usually referred to in context simply as a cartridge, cart, or card, is a replaceable part designed to be connected to a consumer electronics device such as a home computer, video game console or, to a lesser extent, elect ...
s - allowing players to swap games - as well as being the first home console to use a microprocessor which read instructions from the ROM cartridge. Atari and Magnavox followed suit in 1977 and 1978 respectively with the release of the
Atari Video Computer System
The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...
(VCS, later known as the Atari 2600) and the
Magnavox Odyssey 2
The Magnavox Odyssey 2 (stylized as Magnavox Odyssey²), also known as Philips Odyssey 2, is a second generation home video game console that was released in 1978. It was sold in Europe as the Philips Videopac G7000, in Brazil and Peru as the P ...
, both systems also introducing the use of cartridges. As to complete the Atari VCS quickly, Bushnell sold Atari to
Warner Communications
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
, providing the necessary cash infusion to complete the system's design by the end of 1977.
The initial market for these new consoles were initially modest as consumers were still wary after the saturation of dedicated home consoles. However, there was still newfound interest in video games, and new players were drawn to the market, such as
Mattel Electronics
The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. The name is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Development began in 1977, the same year as the launch of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. In 1984, ...
with the
Intellivision
The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. The name is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Development began in 1977, the same year as the launch of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. In 198 ...
.
In contrast to the dedicated home ''Pong'' consoles, programmable cartridge-based consoles had a higher barrier of entry with the costs of
research & development and large-scale production, and fewer manufacturers entered the market during this period.
This new line of consoles had its breakthrough moment when Atari obtained a license from Taito to create the Atari VCS version of the arcade hit ''Space Invaders'', which was released in 1980. ''Space Invaders'' quadrupled sales of the Atari VCS, making it the first "
killer app
In marketing terminology, a killer application (commonly shortened to killer app) is any computer program or software that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, a video game ...
" in the video game industry, and the first video game to sell over one million copies and eventually sold over 2.5 million by 1981. Atari's consumer sales almost doubled from $119 million to nearly $204 million in 1980 and then exploded to over $841 million in 1981, while sales across the entire video game industry in the United States rose from $185.7 million in 1979 to just over $1 billion in 1981. Through a combination of conversions of its own arcade games like ''Missile Command'' and ''Asteroids'' and licensed conversions like ''Defender'', Atari took a commanding lead in the industry, with an estimated 65% market share of the worldwide industry by dollar volume by 1981. Mattel settled into second place with roughly 15%-20% of the market, while Magnavox ran a distant third, and Fairchild exited the market entirely in 1979.
Another critical development during this period was the emergence of third-party developers. Atari management did not appreciate the special talent required to design and program a game and treated them like typical software engineers of the period, who were not generally credited for their work or given royalties; this led to
Warren Robinett secretly programming his name in one of the earliest
Easter eggs into his game ''
Adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme ...
''.
Atari's policies drove four of the company's programmers, David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead, to resign and form their own company
Activision
Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...
in 1979, using their knowledge of developing for the Atari VCS to make and publish their own games. Atari sued to stop Activision's activities, but the companies settled out of court, with Activision agreeing to pay a portion of their game sales as a license fee to Atari.
Another group of Atari and Mattel developers left and formed
Imagic
Imagic ( ) was an American video game developer and publisher that created games initially for the Atari 2600. Founded in 1981 by corporate alumni of Atari, Inc. and Mattel, its best-selling titles were ''Atlantis'', ''Cosmic Ark'', and ''Demo ...
in 1981, following Activision's model.
Atari's dominance of the market was challenged by Coleco's
ColecoVision
ColecoVision is a second-generation home video-game console developed by Coleco and launched in North America in August 1982. It was released a year later in Europe by CBS Electronics as the CBS ColecoVision.
The console offered a closer exp ...
in 1982. As ''Space Invaders'' had done for the Atari VCS, Coleco developed a licensed version of Nintendo's arcade hit ''Donkey Kong'' as a bundled game with the system. While the Colecovision only had 17% of the hardware market in 1982 compared to the Atari VCS' share of 58%, it outsold Atari's newer console, the
Atari 5200
The Atari 5200 SuperSystem or simply Atari 5200 is a home video game console introduced in 1982 by Atari, Inc. as a higher-end complement for the popular Atari Video Computer System. The VCS was renamed to the Atari 2600 at the time of the 520 ...
.
A few games from this period have been considered milestones in the history of video games, and some of the earliest in popular genres. Robinett's ''Adventure'' was inspired from the text adventure ''Colossal Cave Adventure'', and is considered the first graphic adventure game and the first
action-adventure game, and first console
fantasy game
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and dra ...
. Activision's ''Pitfall!'', beside being one of the more successful third-party games, also established the foundation of side-scrolling
platform game
A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...
s. ''
Utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book '' Utopia'', describing a fictional island societ ...
'' for the Intellivision is the first
city-building game
A city-building game, or town-building game, is a genre of simulation video game where players act as the overall planner and leader of a city or town, looking down on it from above, and being responsible for its growth and management strategy. ...
and considered one of the first
real-time strategy game
Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to pla ...
s.
Early hobbyist computer games
![Trinity77](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Trinity77.jpg)
The fruit of retail development in early video games appeared mainly in video arcades and home consoles, but at the same time, there was a growing market in
home computers. Such home computers were initially a hobbyist activity, with
minicomputer
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ' ...
s such as the
Altair 8800 and the
IMSAI 8080
The IMSAI 8080 was an early microcomputer released in late 1975, based on the Intel 8080 and later 8085 and S-100 bus. It was a clone of its main competitor, the earlier MITS Altair 8800. The IMSAI is largely regarded as the first "clone" mi ...
released in the early 1970s. Groups like the
Homebrew Computer Club
The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist group in Menlo Park, California, which met from March 1975 to December 1986. The club had an influential role in the development of the microcomputer revolution and the rise of that asp ...
in Menlo Park, California envisioned how to create new hardware and software from these minicomputer systems that could eventually reach the home market. Affordable home computers began appearing in the late 1970s with the arrival of the "1977 Trinity": the
Commodore PET
The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, ...
, the
Apple II, and the
TRS-80
The TRS-80 Micro Computer System (TRS-80, later renamed the Model I to distinguish it from successors) is a desktop microcomputer launched in 1977 and sold by Tandy Corporation through their Radio Shack stores. The name is an abbreviation of '' ...
. Most shipped with a variety of pre-made games as well as the
BASIC programming language, allowing their owners to program simple games.
Hobby
A hobby is considered to be a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing oth ...
ist groups for the new computers soon formed and
PC game software followed. Soon many of these games—at first clones of mainframe classics such as ''Star Trek'', and then later ports or clones of popular arcade games such as ''
Space Invaders
is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter an ...
'', ''
Frogger
is a 1981 arcade action game developed by Konami and manufactured by Sega. In North America, it was released by Sega/Gremlin. The object of the game is to direct a series of frogs to their homes by crossing a busy road and a hazardous rive ...
'',
''
Pac-Man
originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...
'' (see
''Pac-Man'' clones)
and ''
Donkey Kong
is a video game franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto and owned by Nintendo. It follows the adventures of a gorilla named Donkey Kong (character), Donkey Kong and his clan of other Ape, apes and monkeys. The franchise primarily consists of plat ...
''—were being distributed through a variety of channels, such as printing the game's
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...
in books (such as David Ahl's ''
BASIC Computer Games
''BASIC Computer Games'' is a compilation of type-in computer games in the BASIC programming language collected by David H. Ahl. Some of the games were written or modified by Ahl as well. Among its better-known games are '' Hamurabi'' and '' Sup ...
''), magazines (''
Electronic Games
An electronic game is a game that uses electronics to create an interactive system with which a player can play. Video games are the most common form today, and for this reason the two terms are often used interchangeably. There are other common ...
'' and ''
Creative Computing''), and newsletters, which allowed users to
type in the code for themselves.
![Mystery House - Apple II render emulation - 2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/Mystery_House_-_Apple_II_render_emulation_-_2.png)
While hobbyist programming in the United States was seen as a pastime while more players flocked to video game consoles, such "bedroom coders" in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and other parts of Europe looked for ways to profit from their work.
Programmers distributed their works through the physical mailing and selling of floppy disks, cassette tapes, and
ROM
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* ...
cartridges. Soon a small
cottage industry was formed, with amateur programmers selling disks in plastic bags put on the shelves of local shops or sent through the mail.
Mainframe and minicomputer games were still developed by students and others during this period using more powerful languages afforded on these systems. A team of
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
students,
Tim Anderson,
Marc Blank
Marc Blank is an American game developer and software engineer. He is best known as part of the team that created one of the first commercially successful text adventure computer games, ''Zork''.
Career
Blank first encountered Don Woods and Will ...
,
Bruce Daniels
Bruce Daniels is an American hydroclimatologist, business executive and computer programmer. He is known in Silicon Valley as one of the pioneers of the personal computer and user-friendly interfaces.
Daniels earned his Ph.D. from the Universi ...
, and
Dave Lebling
Peter David Lebling (born October 30, 1949) is an interactive fiction game designer ( implementor) and programmer who has worked at various companies, including Infocom and Avid.
Life and career
He was born in Washington, D.C., grew up in Mary ...
, were inspired by ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' to create the text adventure game ''
Zork
''Zork'' is a text-based adventure game first released in 1977 by developers Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling for the PDP-10 mainframe computer. The original developers and others, as the company Infocom, expanded a ...
'' across 1977 and 1979, and later formed
Infocom to republish it commercially in 1980.
The first graphical adventure games from
Sierra On-Line
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genr ...
such as ''
Mystery House
''Mystery House'' is an adventure game released by On-Line Systems in 1980. It was designed, written and illustrated by Roberta Williams, and programmed by Ken Williams for the Apple II. ''Mystery House'' is the first graphical adventure ga ...
'', using simple graphics alongside text, also emerged around the same time. ''
Rogue'', the namesake of the
roguelike
Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing computer games traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player charac ...
genre, was developed in 1980 by
Glenn Wichman and Michael Toy who wanted a way to randomize the gameplay of ''Colossal Cave Adventure''.
First handheld LED/VFD/LCD games
Handheld electronic games, using all computerized components but typically using
LED or
VFD
VFD may refer to:
* Factory Workers' Union of Germany, (german: Verband der Fabrikarbeiter Deutschlands, link=no), a former trade union in Germany
* Vacuum fluorescent display, a display device on consumer electronics equipment
* Variable-freque ...
lights for display, first emerged in the early 1970s.
LCD displays became inexpensive for consumer products by the mid-1970s and replaced LED and VFD in such games, due to their lower power usage and smaller size. Most of these games were limited to a single game due to the simplicity of the display. Companies like
Mattel Electronics
The Intellivision is a home video game console released by Mattel Electronics in 1979. The name is a portmanteau of "intelligent television". Development began in 1977, the same year as the launch of its main competitor, the Atari 2600. In 1984, ...
,
Coleco
Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game consol ...
,
Entex Industries
Entex Industries, Inc. was an American toy and electronic game manufacturer based in Compton, California. The company was active during the 1970s and 1980s.
Background
The company was formed in 1970 by ''G.A. (Tony) Clowes'', ''Nicholas Carlozz ...
,
Bandai
is a Japanese multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California and Richmond ...
, and
Tomy
is a Japanese entertainment company that makes children's toys and merchandise. It was created from a merger on March 1st 2006 of two companies: Tomy (founded in 1924 as Tomiyama, changing the name to Tomy in 1963) and long-time rival Ta ...
made numerous electronics games over the 1970s and early 1980s.
Coupled with inexpensive microprocessors, handheld electronic games paved the way for the earliest handheld video game systems by the late 1970s. In 1979,
Milton Bradley Company
Milton Bradley Company or simply Milton Bradley (MB) was an American board game manufacturer established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, formerly the ...
released the first handheld system using interchangeable cartridges,
Microvision
The Microvision (aka Milton Bradley Microvision or MB Microvision) is the first handheld game console that used interchangeable cartridges and in that sense is reprogrammable. It was released by the Milton Bradley Company in November 1979 for a ...
, which used a built-in
LCD matrix screen. While the handheld received modest success in the first year of production, the lack of games, screen size and video game crash of 1983 brought about the system's quick demise.
In 1980, Nintendo released the first of its
Game & Watch
The Game & Watch brand ( ''Gēmu & Uotchi''; called ''Tricotronic'' in West Germany and Austria, abbreviated as ''G&W'') is a series of handheld electronic games developed, manufactured, released, and marketed by Nintendo from 1980 to 1991. C ...
line,
handheld electronic game
Handheld electronic games are very small, portable devices for playing interactive electronic games, often miniaturized versions of video games. The controls, display and speakers are all part of a single unit. Rather than a general-purpose ...
s using LCD screens.
Game & Watch spurred dozens of other game and toy companies to make their own portable games, many of which were copies of Game & Watch games or adaptations of popular arcade games.
Tiger Electronics
Tiger Electronics Ltd. (also known as Tiger and Tiger Toys) was an independent American toy manufacturer best known for its handheld LCD games, the Furby, the Talkboy, Giga Pets, the 2-XL robot, and audio games such as ''Brain Warp'' and th ...
borrowed this concept of videogaming with cheap, affordable handhelds and still produces games in this model to the present day.
1980s
The video games industry experienced its first major growing pains in the early 1980s; the lure of the market brought many companies with little experience to try to capitalize on video games, and contributors towards the industry's crash in 1983, decimating the North American market. In the wake of the crash, Japanese companies became the leaders in the industry, and as the industry began to recover, the first major
publishing houses appeared, maturing the industry to prevent a similar crash in the future.
Video game crash of 1983
![Atari E](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Atari_E.T._Dig-_Alamogordo%2C_New_Mexico_%2814036097792%29.jpg)
Activision's success as a third-party developer for the Atari VCS and other home consoles inspired other third-party development firms to emerge in the early 1980s; by 1983, at least 100 different companies claimed to be developing software for the Atari VCS.
This had been projected to led to a glut in sales, with only 10% of games producing 75% of sales for 1983 based on 1982 estimates.
Further, there were questions on the quality of these games. While some of these firms hired experts in game design and programming to build quality games, most were staffed by novice programmers backed by venture capitalists without experience in the area. As a result, the Atari VCS market became watered down with large quantities of poor quality games. These games did not sell well, and retailers discounted their prices to try to get rid of their inventory. This further impacted sales of high-quality games, since consumers would be drawn to purchase bargain-bin priced games over quality games marked at a regular price.
At the end of 1983, several factors, including a market flooded with poor-quality games and loss of publishing control, the lack of consumer confidence in market leader Atari due to the poor performance of several high-profile games, and home computers emerging as a new and more advanced platform for games at nearly the same cost as video game consoles, caused the North American video game industry to experience a severe downturn.
The 1983 crash bankrupted several North American companies that produced consoles and games from late 1983 to early 1984. The U.S. market in 1983 dropped to by 1985, while the global video game market estimated at in 1982 fell to by 1985.
Warner Communications sold off Atari to
Jack Tramiel
Jack Tramiel ( ; born Idek Trzmiel; December 13, 1928 – April 8, 2012) was an American businessman and Holocaust survivor, best known for founding Commodore International. The Commodore PET, VIC-20 and Commodore 64 are some home comput ...
in 1984, while Magnavox and Coleco exited the industry.
The crash had some minor effects on Japan companies with American partners impacted by the crash, but as most of the Japanese companies involved in video games at this point has long histories, they were able to weather the short-term effects. The crash set the stage for Japan to emerge as the leader in the video game industry for the next several years, particularly with Nintendo's introduction of the rebranded Famicom, the
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redesigned version, was released in America ...
, back into the U.S. and other Western regions in 1985, maintaining strict publishing control to avoid the same factors that led to the 1983 crash.
The rise of computer games
Second wave of home computers
![Cpc464](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Cpc464.computer.750pix.jpg)
Following the success of the
Apple II and
Commodore PET
The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, ...
in the late 1970s, a series of cheaper and incompatible home computers emerged in the early 1980s. This second batch included the
VIC-20
The VIC-20 (known as the VC-20 in Germany and the VIC-1001 in Japan) is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the ...
and
Commodore 64; Sinclair
ZX80
The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer launched on 29 January 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. (later to be better known as Sinclair Research). It is notable for being one of the first computers available in the United Kingdom for less than a ...
,
ZX81
The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cos ...
and
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer.
Referred to during development as the ''ZX81 Colou ...
;
NEC PC-8000
The is a line of personal computers developed for the Japan, Japanese market by NEC. The PC-8001 model was also sold in the United States and Canada as the PC-8001A.
Original models of the NEC PC-8001B (or sometimes the NEC PC-8000) were also sol ...
,
PC-6001
The NEC PC-6000 series is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced in November 1981 by NEC Home Electronics. There are several models in this series, such as the PC-6001, the PC-6001 MK2 and the PC-6001 MK2 SR. There is also an American versio ...
,
PC-88
The , commonly shortened to PC-88, are a brand of Zilog Z80-based 8-bit home computers released by Nippon Electric Company (NEC) in 1981 and primarily sold in Japan.
The PC-8800 series sold extremely well and became one of the three major Japane ...
and
PC-98
The , commonly shortened to PC-98 or , is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. The platform established NEC's dominance in the Japanese personal computer market, and, by 1999, more th ...
;
Sharp X1
The , sometimes called the Sharp X1 or CZ-800C, is a series of home computers released by Sharp Corporation from 1982 to 1988. It is based on a Zilog Z80 CPU.
The RGB display monitor for the X1 had a television tuner, and a computer screen co ...
and
X68000
The is a home computer created by Sharp Corporation. It was first released in 1987 and sold only in Japan.
The initial model has a 10 MHz Motorola 68000 CPU, 1 MB of RAM, and lacks a hard drive. The final model was released in 1993 wi ...
;
Fujitsu FM Towns
The is a Japanese personal computer, built by Fujitsu from February 1989 to the summer of 1997. It started as a proprietary PC variant intended for multimedia applications and Personal computer game, PC games, but later became more compatible w ...
, and
Atari 8-bit family,
BBC Micro
The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphas ...
,
Acorn Electron
The Acorn Electron (nicknamed the Elk inside Acorn and beyond) was a lower-cost alternative to the BBC Micro educational/ home computer, also developed by Acorn Computers Ltd, to provide many of the features of that more expensive machine at a ...
,
Amstrad CPC
The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Si ...
, and
MSX series. Many of these systems found favor in regional markets.
These new systems helped catalyze both the home computer and game markets, by raising awareness of computing and gaming through their competing advertising campaigns. This was most notable in the United Kingdom where the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
encouraged computer education and backed the development of the BBC Micro with Acorn. Between the BBC Micro, the ZX Spectrum, and the Commodore 64, a new wave of "bedroom coders" emerged in the United Kingdom and started selling their own software for these platforms, alongside those developed by small professional teams.
Small publishing and distribution companies such as
Acornsoft and
Mastertronic
Mastertronic was originally a publisher and distributor of low-cost computer game software founded in 1983. Their first games were distributed in mid-1984. At its peak the label was one of the largest software publishers in the UK, achieved by ...
were established to help these individuals and teams to create and sell copies of their games.
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', ...
started out as such a distributor in France in the mid-1980s before they branched out into video game development and publishing. In Japan, systems like the MSX and the NEC PC line were popular, and several development houses emerged developing arcade clones and new games for these platforms. These companies included
HAL Laboratory
formerly shortened as HALKEN (derived from its native name), is a Japanese video game developer founded on 21 February 1980. While independent, it has been closely tied with Nintendo throughout its history, and is often referred to as a seco ...
,
Square
In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90- degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...
, and
Enix
was a Japanese video game publisher that produced video games, anime and manga. Enix is known for publishing the ''Dragon Quest'' series of role-playing video games.
The company was founded by Yasuhiro Fukushima on September 22, 1975, as . Th ...
, which all later became some of the first third-party developers for the Nintendo Famicom after its release in 1983.
Games from this period include the first ''
Ultima'' by
Richard Garriott
Richard Allen Garriott de Cayeux (''né'' Garriott; born July 4, 1961) is an American video game developer, entrepreneur and private astronaut. Although both his parents were American, he maintains dual British and American citizenship by birth. ...
and the first ''
Wizardry
''Wizardry'' is a series of role-playing video games, developed by Sir-Tech, that were highly influential in the evolution of modern role-playing video games. The original ''Wizardry'' was a significant influence on early console role-playing ...
'' from
Sir-Tech
Sir-Tech Software, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher based in the United States and Canada.
History
In fall 1979, Sirotech Software was founded by Norman Sirotek, Robert Sirotek and Robert Woodhead. Sirotech Software published ''Info ...
, both fundamental role-playing games on the personal computer. The space trading and combat simulation game ''
Elite'' by
David Braben
David John Braben (born 2 January 1964) is a British video game developer and designer, founder and CEO of Frontier Developments, co-creator of the '' Elite'' series of space trading video games, first published in 1984. He is also a co-found ...
and
Ian Bell
Ian Ronald Bell (born 11 April 1982) is an English former cricketer who played international cricket in all formats for the England cricket team and county cricket for Warwickshire County Cricket Club. A right-handed higher/middle order batsm ...
introduced a number of new graphics and gameplay features, and is considered one of the first
open world and
sandbox game
A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or alternatively with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may ...
s. Early installments in a number of long-running franchises such as ''
Castlevania'', ''
Metal Gear
is a series of techno-thriller stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, ''Metal Gear'', was released in 1987 for MSX home computers. The player often takes control of a special forces operativ ...
'', ''
Bubble Bobble
is a 1986 platform arcade game developed and published by Taito. It was distributed in the United States by Romstar, and in Europe by Electrocoin. Players control Bub and Bob, two dragons that set out to save their girlfriends from a world know ...
'', ''
Gradius
is a series of shooter video games, introduced in 1985, developed and published by Konami for a variety of portable, console and arcade platforms. In many games in the series, the player controls a ship known as the Vic Viper.
Games
*''Scra ...
'', as well as ports of console games and
visual novel
A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...
s appeared on Japanese platforms like the PC88, X68000, and MSX.
![Amiga-Computer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Amiga-Computer.jpg)
Games dominated home computers' software libraries. A 1984 compendium of reviews of Atari 8-bit software used 198 pages for games compared to 167 for all others.
By that year the computer game market took over from the console market following the crash of that year; computers offered equal ability and, since their simple design allowed games to take complete command of the hardware after power-on, they were nearly as simple to start playing with as consoles.
Later in the 1980s the next wave of personal computers emerged, with the
Commodore Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...
and
Atari ST in 1985 and the
Atari ST. Both computers had more advanced graphics and sound capabilities than the prior generation of computers, and made for key platforms for video game development, particularly in the United Kingdom. The bedroom coders had since formed development teams and started producing games for these systems professionally. These included
Bullfrog Productions
Bullfrog Productions Limited was a British video game developer based in Guildford, England. Founded in 1987 by Peter Molyneux and Les Edgar, the company gained recognition in 1989 for their third release, '' Populous'', and is also well know ...
, founded by
Peter Molyneux
Peter Douglas Molyneux (; born 5 May 1959) is an English video game designer and programmer. He created the god games '' Populous'', ''Dungeon Keeper'', and ''Black & White'', as well as ''Theme Park'', the ''Fable'' series, '' Curiosity: Wh ...
, with the release of ''
Populous'' (the first such
god game
A god game is an artificial life game that casts the player in the position of controlling the game on a large scale, as an entity with divine and supernatural powers, as a great leader, or with no specified character (as in ''Spore''), and pla ...
),
DMA Design
Rockstar North Limited (formerly DMA Design Limited) is a British video game development company and a studio of Rockstar Games based in Edinburgh. The company was founded as DMA Design in Dundee in 1987 by David Jones, soon hiring former cla ...
with ''
Lemmings
A lemming is a small rodent, usually found in or near the Arctic in tundra biomes. Lemmings form the subfamily Arvicolinae (also known as Microtinae) together with voles and muskrats, which form part of the superfamily Muroidea, which also include ...
'',
Psygnosis
Psygnosis Limited (known as SCE Studio Liverpool or simply Studio Liverpool from 1999) was a British video game developer and publisher headquartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. Founded in 1984 by Ian Hetherington, Jonathan Ell ...
with ''
Shadow of the Beast'', and
Team17
Team17 Group plc is a British video game developer and publisher based in Wakefield, England. The venture was created in December 1990 through the merger of British publisher 17-Bit Software and Swedish developer Team 7. At the time, the two co ...
with ''
Worms Worms may refer to:
*Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs
Places
*Worms, Germany
Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...
''.
The IBM PC compatible
While the second wave of home computer systems flourished in the early 1980s, they remained as closed hardware systems from each other; while programs written in BASIC or other simple languages could be easily copied over, more advanced programs would require porting to meet the hardware requirements of the target system. Separately,
IBM released the first of its
IBM Personal Computer
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
s (IBM PC) in 1981, shipping with the
MS-DOS
MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
operating system. The IBM PC was designed with an
open architecture
Open architecture is a type of computer architecture or software architecture intended to make adding, upgrading, and swapping components with other computers easy. For example, the IBM PC, Amiga 500 and Apple IIe have an open architecture supp ...
to allow new components to be added to it, but IBM intended to maintain control on manufacturing with the proprietary
BIOS developed for the system.
As IBM struggled to meet demand for its PC, other computer manufacturers such as
Compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation (sometimes abbreviated to CQ prior to a 2007 rebranding) was an American information technology company founded in 1982 that developed, sold, and supported computers and related products and services. Compaq produced ...
worked to
reverse engineer
Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how a previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accompli ...
the BIOS and created
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM Personal Computer, IBM PC, IBM Personal Computer XT, XT, and IBM Personal Computer/AT, AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such ...
computers by 1983.
By 1987, IBM PC compatible computers dominated the home and business computer market.
From a video games standpoint, the IBM PC compatible invigorated further game development. A software developer could write to meet the IBM PC compatible specification and not worry about which make or model was being used. While the initial IBM PC supported only monochromatic text games, game developers nevertheless ported mainframe and other simple text games to the PC, such as Infocom with ''Zork''. IBM introduced video display controllers such as the
Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) (1981), the
Enhanced Graphics Adapter
The Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) is an IBM PC graphics adapter and de facto computer display standard from 1984 that superseded the CGA standard introduced with the original IBM PC, and was itself superseded by the VGA standard in 1987. In ...
(EGA) (1984) and the
Video Graphics Array
Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can n ...
(VGA) (1987) that expanded the computer's ability to display color graphics, though even with the VGA, these still lagged behind those of the Amiga. The first dedicated
sound card
A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio ...
s for IBM PC compatibles were released starting in 1987, which provided digital sound conversion input and output far exceeding the computer's internal speakers, and with
Creative Labs
Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered with overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin, and Silicon Valley (where in the US it is known as Creative Labs). The principal activities of the compa ...
'
Sound Blaster
Sound Blaster is a family of sound cards designed by Singaporean technology company Creative Technology (known in the US as Creative Labs). Sound Blaster sound cards were the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system pl ...
in 1989, the ability to plug in a game controller or similar device.
In 2008
Sid Meier
Sidney K. Meier ( ; born February 24, 1954) is a Canadian-American programmer, game designer, designer, and video game producer, producer of several strategy video games and simulation video games, including the ''Civilization (series), Civiliz ...
listed the IBM PC as one of the three most important innovations in the history of video games.
The advancement in graphic and sound capabilities of the IBM PC compatible led to several influential games from this period. Numerous games that were already made for the earlier home computers were later ported to IBM PC compatible system to take advantage of the larger consumer base, including the ''Wizardry'' and ''Ultima'' series, with future installments released for the IBM PC.
Sierra On-Line
Sierra Entertainment, Inc. (formerly On-Line Systems and Sierra On-Line, Inc.) was an American video game developer and publisher founded in 1979 by Ken and Roberta Williams. The company is known for pioneering the graphic adventure game genr ...
's first graphical adventure games launched with the ''
King's Quest
''King's Quest'' is a graphic adventure game series, released between 1980 and 2016 and created by the American software company Sierra Entertainment. It is widely considered a classic series from the golden era of adventure games. Following th ...
'' series. The first ''
SimCity
''SimCity'' is an open-ended city-building video game series originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, ''SimCity'', was published by Maxis in 1989 and were followed by several sequels and many other spin-off "''Sim ...
'' game by
Maxis
Maxis is an American video game developer and a division of Electronic Arts (EA). The studio was founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun, and acquired by EA in 1997. Maxis is best known for its simulation games, including '' The Sims ...
was released in 1989.
The Apple
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
also arrived at this time. In contrast to the IBM PC, Apple maintained a more closed system on the Macintosh, creating a system based around a
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inst ...
(GUI)-driven operating system. As a result, it did not have the same market share as the IBM PC compatible, but still had a respectable software library including video games, typically ports from other systems.
The first major
video game publisher
A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer.
They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ( ...
s arose during the 1980s, primarily supporting personal computer games on both IBM PC compatible games and the popular earlier systems along with some console games. Among the major publishers formed at this time included
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...
,
and
Broderbund
Broderbund Software, Inc. (stylized as Brøderbund) was an American maker of video games, educational software, and productivity tools. Broderbund is best known for the 8-bit video game hits ''Choplifter'', ''Lode Runner'', ''Karateka'', and '' ...
, while Sierra On-Line expanded its own publishing capabilities for other developers. Activision, still recovering from financial impacts of 1983 video game crash, expanded out to include other software properties for the office, rebranding itself as Mediagenic until 1990.
Early online games
Dial-up bulletin board systems were popular in the 1980s, and sometimes used for online gaming. The earliest such systems were in the late 1970s and early 1980s and had a crude plain-text interface. Later systems made use of terminal-control codes (the so-called
ANSI art
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI ) is a private non-profit organization that oversees the development of voluntary consensus standards for products, services, processes, systems, and personnel in the United States. The organi ...
, which included the use of IBM-PC-specific characters not part of an
American National Standards Institute (ANSI) standard) to get a
pseudo-graphical interface. Some BBSs offered access to various games which were playable through such an interface, ranging from text adventures to gambling games like
blackjack (generally played for "points" rather than real money). On some multiuser BBSs (where more than one person could be online at once), there were games allowing users to interact with one another.
SuperSet Software
Drew Major (born June 17, 1956) is a computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as one of the principal engineers of the Novell NetWare operating system from early in Novell's history. He currently resides in Orem, Utah wi ...
created ''
Snipes
Snipes may refer to:
* Snipe, a wading bird
* Snipes (surname)
* ''Snipes'' (film), a 2001 film
* ''Snipes'' (video game), a 1983 text-mode networked computer game
* Snipes Mountain AVA
Snipes Mountain AVA is an American Viticultural Area l ...
'', a text-mode networked computer game in 1983 to test a new
IBM Personal Computer
The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...
–based computer network and demonstrate its abilities. ''Snipes'' is officially credited as being the original inspiration for
NetWare. It is believed to be the first network game ever written for a commercial personal computer and is recognized alongside 1974 game ''
Maze War
''Maze'', also known as ''Maze War'', is a 3D multiplayer first-person shooter maze game originally developed in 1973 and expanded in 1974. The first version was developed by high school students Steve Colley, Greg Thompson, and Howard Palmer fo ...
'' (a networked multiplayer maze game for several research machines) and ''
Spasim
''Spasim'' is a 32-player 3D networked space flight simulation game and first-person space shooter developed by Jim Bowery for the PLATO computer network and released in March 1974. The game features four teams of eight players, each controll ...
'' (a 3D multiplayer space simulation for time shared
mainframes) as the precursor to multiplayer games such as 1987's ''
MIDI Maze
''MIDI Maze'' is a networked first-person shooter maze game for the Atari ST developed by Xanth Software F/X and released in 1987 by Hybrid Arts. The game takes place in a maze of untextured walls. The world animates smoothly as the player turns ...
'', and ''
Doom
Doom is another name for damnation.
Doom may also refer to:
People
* Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed
* Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist
* Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher
* ...
'' in 1993. In 1995 iDoom (later
Kali.net) was created for games that only allowed local network play to connect over the internet. Other services such as
Kahn
Kahn is a surname of German origin. ''Kahn'' means "small boat", in German. It is also a Germanized form of the Jewish surname Cohen, another variant of which is '' Cahn''. ,
TEN,
Mplayer
MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for DOS using ...
, and
Heat.net
SegaSoft, originally headquartered in Redwood City, California and later San Francisco, was a joint venture by Sega and CSK (Sega's majority stockholder at the time), created in 1995 to develop and publish games for the PC and Sega Saturn, prim ...
soon followed after. These services ultimately became obsolete when game producers began including their own online software such as
Battle.net,
WON and later
Steam.
The first user interfaces were plain-text—similar to BBSs— but they operated on large mainframe computers, permitting larger numbers of users to be online at once. By the end of the decade, inline services had fully graphical environments using software specific to each personal computer platform. Popular text-based services included
CompuServe,
The Source
''The Source'' is an American hip hop and entertainment website, and a magazine that publishes annually or . It is the world's longest-running rap periodical, being founded as a newsletter in 1988 by Jonathan Shecter. David Mays was the ma ...
, and
GEnie
Jinn ( ar, , ') – also romanized as djinn or anglicized as genies (with the broader meaning of spirit or demon, depending on sources)
– are invisible creatures in early pre-Islamic Arabian religious systems and later in Islamic myt ...
, while platform-specific graphical services included
PlayNET
PlayNet (or PlayNET) was an American online service for Commodore 64 personal computers that operated from 1984 to 1987. It was operated by the PlayNet, Inc of Troy, New York.
History
PlayNet was founded in 1983 by two former GE Global Research ...
and
Quantum Link
Quantum Link (or Q-Link) was an American and Canadian online service for the Commodore 64 and 128 personal computers that operated starting November 5, 1985. It was operated by Quantum Computer Services of Vienna, Virginia, which later became ...
for the
Commodore 64,
AppleLink
AppleLink was the name of both Apple Computer's online service for its dealers, third-party developers, and users, and the client software used to access it. Prior to the commercialization of the Internet, AppleLink was a popular service for Mac ...
for the
Apple II and
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
, and
PC Link for the
IBM PC—all of which were run by the company which eventually became
America Online—and a competing service,
Prodigy
Prodigy, Prodigies or The Prodigy may refer to:
* Child prodigy, a child who produces meaningful output to the level of an adult expert performer
** Chess prodigy, a child who can beat experienced adult players at chess
Arts, entertainment, and ...
. Interactive games were a feature of these services, though until 1987 they used text-based displays, not graphics.
Meanwhile, schools and other institutions gained access to
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the technical fou ...
, the precursor of the modern
internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
, in the mid-1980s. While the ARPANET connections were intended for research purposes, students explored ways to use this connectivity for video games. ''
Multi-User Dungeon
A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...
'' (''MUD'') originally was developed by Roy Trubshaw and
Richard Bartle
Richard Allan Bartle FBCS FRSA (born 10 January 1960) is a British writer, professor and game researcher in the massively multiplayer online game industry. He co-created ''MUD1'' (the first MUD) in 1978, and is the author of the 2003 book ''De ...
at the
University of Essex
The University of Essex is a public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, Essex is one of the original plate glass universities. Essex's shield consists of the ancient arms attributed to the Kingdom of Es ...
in 1978 as a multiplayer game but limited to the school's mainframe system, but was adapted to use ARPANET when the school gained access to it in 1981, making it the first internet-connected game, and the first such
MUD and an early title of
massively multiplayer online game
A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG or more commonly MMO) is an online video game with a large number of players, often hundreds or thousands, on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are ...
s.
The home console recovery
8-bit consoles
While the 1983 video game crash devastated the United States market, the Japan video game sector remained unscathed. That year, Nintendo introduced the
Famicom
The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redes ...
(short for Family Computer), while newcomer
Sega
is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...
used its arcade game background to design the
SG-1000
The is a home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was Sega's first entry into the home video game hardware business. Developed in response to a downturn in arcades starting in 1982, the SG-1000 was created on the advice of Hayao Nak ...
. The Famicom quickly became a commercial success in Japan, with 2.5 million consoles sold by the start of 1985. Nintendo wanted to introduce the system into the weak United States market but recognized the market was still struggling from the 1983 crash and video games still had a negative perception there. Working with its
Nintendo of America
is a Japanese multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It develops video games and video game consoles.
Nintendo was founded in 1889 as by craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade playing card ...
division, Nintendo rebranded the Famicom as the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), giving it the appearance of a
video cassette recorder
A videocassette recorder (VCR) or video recorder is an electromechanical device that records analog audio and analog video from broadcast television or other source on a removable, magnetic tape videocassette, and can play back the recordin ...
rather than a toy-like device, and launched the system in the United States in 1985 with accessories like
R.O.B.
R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) is a toy robot accessory for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was launched in July 1985 as the in Japan, and October 1985 as R.O.B. in North America. Its short lifespan yielded only two games in the ...
(Robotic Operating Buddy) to make the system appear more sophisticated than prior home consoles. The NES revitalized the U.S. video game market, and by 1989, the U.S. market has resurged to . Over 35 million NES systems were sold in the U.S. through its lifetime, with nearly 62 million units sold globally.
Besides revitalizing the U.S. market, the Famicom/NES console had a number of other long-standing impacts on the video game industry. Nintendo used the
razor and blades model
The razor and blades business model is a business model in which one item is sold at a low price (or given away for free) in order to increase sales of a complementary good, such as consumable supplies. It is different from loss leader marketin ...
to sell the console at near manufacturing cost while profiting from sales of games.
Because games sales were critical to Nintendo, it initially controlled all game production, but at requests from companies like Namco and
Hudson Soft, Nintendo allowed for third-party developers to create games for the consoles, but strictly controlled the manufacturing process, limited these companies to five games year, and required a 30% licensing fee per game sale, a figure that has been used throughout console development to the present. Nintendo's control on Famicom games led to a bootleg market of unauthorized games from Asian countries. When the NES launched, Nintendo took the lessons it learned from its own bootleg problems with the Famicom, and from the oversaturation of the U.S. market that led to the 1983 crash, and created the
10NES lockout system for NES games that required a special chip to be present in cartridges to be usable on NES systems. The 10NES helped to curb, though did not eliminate, the bootleg market for NES games. Nintendo of America also created the "Nintendo Seal of Approval" to mark games officially licensed by Nintendo and dissuade consumers from purchasing unlicensed third-party games, a symptom of the 1983 crash.
Within the United States, Nintendo of America set up a special telephone help line to provide players with help with more difficult games and launched ''
Nintendo Power
''Nintendo Power'' was a video game news and strategy magazine from Nintendo of America, first published in July/August 1988 as Nintendo's official print magazine for North America. The magazine's publication was initially done monthly by Ninten ...
'' magazine to provide tips and tricks as well as news on upcoming Nintendo games.
Sega's SG-1000 did not fare as well against the Famicom in Japan, but the company continued to refine it, releasing
Sega Mark III
The is an 8-bit
third-generation home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was originally a remodeled export version of the Sega Mark III, the third iteration of the SG-1000 series of consoles, which was released in Japan in 1985 and ...
(also known as the Master System) in 1985. Whereas Nintendo had more success in Japan and the United States, Sega's Mark III sold well in Europe, Oceania, and Brazil.
Numerous fundamental video game franchises got their start during the Famicom/NES and Mark III/Master System period, mostly out of Japanese development companies. While
Mario
is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the title character of the ''Mario'' franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Mario has appeared in over 200 video games since his cre ...
had already appeared in ''Donkey Kong'' and the Game & Watch and arcade game ''
Mario Bros.
is a 1983 arcade game developed and published for arcades by Nintendo. It was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo's chief engineer. Italian twin brother plumbers Mario and Luigi exterminate creatures emerging from the ...
'', ''
Super Mario Bros.
is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The successor to the 1983 arcade game '' Mario Bros.'' and the first game in the ''Super Mario'' series, it was first released in 1985 for ...
'', debuting in 1985, established Mario as Nintendo's
mascot
A mascot is any human, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fi ...
as well as the first of the ''
Super Mario'' franchise.
Sega also introduced its first mascot characters, the Opa-Opa ship from ''
Fantasy Zone
is a 1986 arcade game by Sega, and the first game in the ''Fantasy Zone'' series. It was later ported to a wide variety of consoles, including the Master System. The player controls a sentient spaceship named Opa-Opa who fights an enemy inva ...
'' in 1986 and later replaced by
Alex Kidd
is a platform video game series developed by Sega, and starring the titular Alex Kidd.
Games
The franchise includes seven titles.
* ''Alex Kidd in Miracle World'' - 1986, Master System
* '' Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars'' - 1986, Arcade, 1988 ...
via ''
Alex Kidd in Miracle World
is a platform game for the Master System. It was released in Japan on November 1, 1986, followed by the United States in December 1986, with Europe in September 1987, plus South Korea in October 1988, and Brazil in 1989. It was later built into ...
'' in 1986, though neither gained the popular recognition that Mario had obtained. Other key Nintendo franchises were born out from the games ''
The Legend of Zelda
''The Legend of Zelda'' is an action-adventure game franchise created by the Japanese game designers Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. It is primarily developed and published by Nintendo, although some portable installments and re-rele ...
'' and ''
Metroid'', both released in 1986. The formulative center of turn-based
computer role-playing game
A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...
s were launched with ''
Dragon Quest'' (1986) from
Chunsoft and
Enix
was a Japanese video game publisher that produced video games, anime and manga. Enix is known for publishing the ''Dragon Quest'' series of role-playing video games.
The company was founded by Yasuhiro Fukushima on September 22, 1975, as . Th ...
, ''
Final Fantasy
is a Japanese video game, Japanese science fantasy anthology media franchise created by Hironobu Sakaguchi and developed and owned by Square Enix (formerly Square (video game company), Square). The franchise centers on a series of fantasy and ...
'' (1987) from
Square
In Euclidean geometry, a square is a regular quadrilateral, which means that it has four equal sides and four equal angles (90- degree angles, π/2 radian angles, or right angles). It can also be defined as a rectangle with two equal-length a ...
, and ''
Phantasy Star
is a series of console role-playing video games and other supplementary media created by Sega. The series debuted in 1987 on the Master System with ''Phantasy Star'', and continues into the present with ''Phantasy Star Online 2'' and other ext ...
'' (1987) from Sega.
Capcom's ''
Mega Man'' (1987), and
Konami
, is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machines, slot machines, and arcade cabinets. Konami has casino ...
's ''
Castlevania'' (1986) and ''
Metal Gear
is a series of techno-thriller stealth games created by Hideo Kojima. Developed and published by Konami, the first game, ''Metal Gear'', was released in 1987 for MSX home computers. The player often takes control of a special forces operativ ...
'' (1987) also have ongoing franchises, with ''Metal Gear'' also considered to be the first mainstream
stealth game
A stealth game is a type of video game in which the player primarily uses ''stealth'' to avoid or overcome opponents. Games in the genre typically allow the player to remain undetected by hiding, sneaking, or using disguises. Some games allow th ...
.
With Nintendo's dominance, Japan became the epicenter of the video game market, as many of the former American manufacturers had exited the market by the end of the 1980s.
At the same time, software developers from the home computer side recognized the strength of the consoles, and companies like
Epyx
Epyx, Inc. was a video game developer and publisher active in the late 1970s and 1980s. The company was founded as Automated Simulations by Jim Connelley and Jon Freeman, originally using Epyx as a brand name for action-oriented games before ren ...
,
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...
, and
LucasArts
Lucasfilm Games (known as LucasArts between 1990 and 2021) is an American video game licensor that is part of Lucasfilm. It was founded in May 1982 by George Lucas as a video game development group alongside his film company; as part of a large ...
began devoting their attention to developing console games By 1989 the market for cartridge-based console games was more than $2 billion, while that for disk-based computer games was less than $300 million.
16-bit consoles
![TurboGrafx16-Console-Set](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/TurboGrafx16-Console-Set.jpg)
NEC released its PC Engine in 1987 in Japan, rebranded as the
TurboGrafx-16
The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, thoug ...
in North America. While the CPU was still an 8-bit system, the TurboGrafx-16 used a 16-bit graphics adapter, and NEC chose to heavily rely on marketing the system as a "16 bit" system to differentiate from the 8-bit NES. This ploy led to the use of processor bit size as a key factor in marketing video game consoles over the next decade, a period known as the "bit wars".
Sega released its next console, the
Mega Drive
The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan a ...
in Japan in 1988, and rebranded as the Sega Genesis for its North American launch in 1989. Sega wanted to challenge the NES's dominance in the United States with the Genesis, and the initial campaign focused on the 16-bit power of the Genesis over the NES as well as a new line of sports games developed for the console. Failing to make a significant dent in NES' dominance, Sega hired
Tom Kalinske
Thomas Kalinske (born July 17, 1944) is an American businessman, best known as having worked for Mattel from 1972 to 1987, where he was credited with reviving the Barbie and Hot Wheels brands, launching Masters of the Universe, then being promoted ...
to president of Sega of America to run a new campaign. Among Kalinske's changes was a significant price reduction in the console, and the bundling of Sega's newest game ''
Sonic the Hedgehog'', featuring Sega's newest mascot
of the same name, with the console. Kalinske's changes gave Genesis the edge over the NES by 1991 and led off the start of a
console war
In the video game industry, a console war describes the competition between two or more video game console manufacturers in trying to achieve better consumer sales through more advanced console technology, an improved selection of video games, and ...
between Sega and Nintendo. Nintendo's 16-bit console, the
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) struggled on its initial launch in the United States due to the strength of the Genesis. This console war between Sega and Nintendo lasted until 1994 when
Sony Computer Entertainment
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal co ...
disrupted both companies with the release of the
PlayStation
is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a di ...
.
Among other aspects of the console war between Sega and Nintendo, this period brought a revolution in
sports video game
A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport (s ...
s. While these games had existed since the first arcade and console games, their limited graphics required gameplay to be highly simplified. When Sega of America first introduced the Genesis to the United States, it had gotten naming rights from high-profile people in the various sports, such as ''
Pat Riley Basketball
''Pat Riley Basketball'' is a video game which was released for the Sega Genesis, for the Mega Drive in Japan on March 2, 1990 under the title and Europe under the title ''World Cup Basketball''. It was released in 1990 in the United States. It w ...
'' and ''
Joe Montana Football
''Joe Montana Football'' is an American football video game developed by Electronic Arts, and published by Sega for the Genesis in 1991. Although the game does feature Joe Montana (as the title respectively says) as a playable character, since S ...
'', but the games still lacked any complexity. Electronic Arts, under
Trip Hawkins
William Murray "Trip" Hawkins III (born December 28, 1953) is an American entrepreneur and founder of Electronic Arts, The 3DO Company, and Digital Chocolate.
Career
A fan of the Strat-O-Matic Football pen and paper games, Hawkins started his f ...
, were keen to make a more realistic football game for the Genesis which had the computation capabilities for this, but did not want to pay the high licensing fees that Sega were asking for developing on the Genesis. They were able to secure naming rights for
John Madden
John Earl Madden (April 10, 1936 – December 28, 2021) was an American football coach and sports commentator in the National Football League (NFL). He served as the head coach of the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978, who he led to eight pl ...
and reverse engineer the Genesis as to be able to produce ''
John Madden Football
''Madden NFL'' (known as ''John Madden Football'' until 1993) is an American football video game series developed by EA Tiburon for EA Sports. It is named after Pro Football Hall of Fame coach and commentator John Madden and sold more than 130 m ...
'', one of the first major successful sports games. Electronic Arts subsequently focused heavily on sports games, expanding into other sports like basekball, hockey and golf.
SNK
is a Japanese video game hardware and software company. It is the successor to the company Shin Nihon Kikaku and presently owns the SNK video game brand and the Neo Geo video game platform. SNK's predecessor Shin Nihon Kikaku was founded in 1978 ...
's
Neo-Geo was the most costly console by a wide margin when released in 1990. The Neo-Geo used similar hardware as SNK's arcade machines, giving its games a quality better than other 16-bit consoles, but the system was commercially non-viable. The Neo-Geo was notably the first home console with support for
memory card
A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a so ...
s, allowing players to save their progress in a game, not only at home but also shared with compatible Neo-Geo arcade games.
1990s
The 1990s were a decade of marked
innovation
Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entit ...
in video games. It was a decade of transition from
raster graphics to
3D graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...
and gave rise to several genres of video games including
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...
,
real-time strategy
Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to p ...
, and
MMO. Handheld games become more popular throughout the decade, thanks in part to the release of the
Game Boy
The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same t ...
in 1989. Arcade games experienced a resurgence in the early-to-mid-1990s, followed by a decline in the late 1990s as
home consoles
A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. Home consoles are generally less powerful and customizable than ...
became more common.
As arcade games declined, however, the home video game industry matured into a more mainstream form of entertainment in the 1990s, but their video games also became more and more
controversial
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of conflicting opinion or point of view. The word was coined from the Latin ''controversia'', as a composite of ''controversus'' – "turned in an opposite d ...
because of their violent nature, especially in games of ''
Mortal Kombat'', ''
Night Trap
''Night Trap'' is a 1992 interactive movie developed by Digital Pictures and published by Sega for the Sega CD. Presented primarily through full-motion video (FMV), ''Night Trap'' tasks the player to observe teenage girls having a sleepov ...
'', and ''
Doom
Doom is another name for damnation.
Doom may also refer to:
People
* Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed
* Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist
* Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher
* ...
'', leading to the formation of the
Interactive Digital Software Association
The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is the trade association of the video game industry in the United States. It was formed in April 1994 as the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) and renamed on July 21, 2003. It is based in ...
and their rating games by signing them their
ESRB
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings to consumer video games in the United States and Canada. The ESRB was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Asso ...
ratings since 1994.
Major developments of the 1990s include the popularizing of
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for t ...
using polygons (initially in arcades, followed by home consoles and computers), and the start of a larger consolidation of publishers, higher budget games, increased size of production teams, and collaborations with both the music and motion picture industries. Examples of this include
Mark Hamill's involvement with ''
Wing Commander III
''Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger'' is the third main game in Chris Roberts' ''Wing Commander'' science fiction space combat simulation video game series, developed and released by Origin Systems in December 1994. It was a departure from ...
'', the introduction of
QSound
QSound is the original name for a positional three-dimensional (3D) sound processing algorithm from QSound Labs that creates 3D audio effects from multiple monophonic sources and sums the outputs to two channels for presentation over regular ster ...
with
arcade system boards such as
Capcom's
CP System II
The or CPS-2 is an arcade system board that Capcom first used in 1993 for '' Super Street Fighter II''. It was the successor to their previous CP System and Capcom Power System Changer arcade hardware and was succeeded by the CP System III hardw ...
, and the high production budgets of games such as
Squaresoft's ''
Final Fantasy VII'' and
Sega
is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...
's ''
Shenmue
is an action-adventure game series created, produced and directed by Yu Suzuki. '' Shenmue'' (1999) and ''Shenmue II'' (2001) were developed by Sega AM2 and published by Sega for Dreamcast. '' Shenmue III,'' developed by Suzuki's company Y ...
''.
Transition to optical media
By end of the 1980s, console games were distributed on ROM cartridges, while PC games shipped on
floppy disks, formats that had limitations in storage capacity.
Optical media
In computing and optical disc recording technologies, an optical disc (OD) is a flat, usually circular disc that encodes binary data ( bits) in the form of pits and lands on a special material, often aluminum, on one of its flat surfaces ...
, and specifically the
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both com ...
, had been first introduced in the mid-1980s for music distribution and by the early 1990s, both the media and CD drives had become inexpensive to be incorporated into consumer computing devices, including for both home consoles and computers. Besides offering more capacity for gameplay content, optical media made it possible to include long video segments into games, such as
full motion video, or animated or pre-rendered
cutscene
A cutscene or event scene (sometimes in-game cinematic or in-game movie) is a sequence in a video game that is not interactive, interrupting the gameplay. Such scenes are used to show conversations between characters, set the mood, reward th ...
s, allowing for more narrative elements to be added to games.
Prior to the 1990s, some arcade games explored the use of
laserdiscs, the most notable being ''
Dragon's Lair
''Dragon's Lair'' is a video game franchise created by Rick Dyer and Don Bluth. The series is famous for its Western animation-style graphics and complex decades-long history of being ported to many platforms and being remade into television a ...
'' in 1983. These games are considered as
interactive movies
An interactive film is a video game or other interactive media that has characteristics of a cinematic film. In the video game industry, the term refers to a movie game, a video game that presents its gameplay in a cinematic, scripted manner, ...
and used
full motion video from the laserdisc, prompting the player to respond via controls at the right time to continue the game.
While these games were popular in the early 1980s, the prohibitive cost of laserdisc technology at the time limited their success. When optical media technology matured and dropped in price by the 1990s, new laserdisc arcade games emerged, such as ''
Mad Dog McCree
''Mad Dog McCree'' is the first live-action laserdisc video game released by American Laser Games. It originally appeared as an arcade game in 1990.
The game gained considerable attention for its live-action video style, bearing similarities t ...
'' in 1990.
Pioneer Corporation
commonly referred to as Pioneer, is a Japanese multinational corporation based in Tokyo, that specializes in digital entertainment products. The company was founded by Nozomu Matsumoto in January 1, 1938 in Tokyo as a radio and speaker repair ...
released the
LaserActive
The is a converged device and fourth-generation home video game console capable of playing LaserDiscs, Compact Discs, console games, and LD-G karaoke discs. It was released by Pioneer Corporation in 1993. In addition to LaserActive games, separa ...
game console in 1993 that used only laserdiscs, with expansion add-ons to play games from the Sega Genesis and NEC TurboGrafx-16 library, but with a base console price of and add-ons at , the console did not perform well.
For consoles, optical media were cheaper to produce than ROM cartridges, and batches of CD-ROMs could be produced in a week while cartridges could take two to three months to assemble, in addition to the larger capacity.
Add-ons were made for the 16-bit consoles to use CD media, including the PC Engine and the Mega Drive. Other manufacturers made consoles with dual-media, such as NEC's
TurboDuo
The TurboDuo is a fourth-generation video game console developed by NEC Home Electronics and Hudson Soft for the North American market. The TurboDuo was test-marketed in Los Angeles in October 1992, before a nationwide rollout in May 1993. It i ...
.
Philips
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters i ...
launched the
CD-i in 1990, a console using only optical media, but the unit had limited gaming capabilities and had a limited game library. Nintendo had similarly worked with Sony to develop a CD-based
SNES
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in E ...
, known as the
Super NES CD-ROM, but this deal fell through just prior to its public announcement, and as a result, Sony went on to develop to the PlayStation console released in 1994, that exclusively used optical media. Sony was able to capitalize on how the Japanese market handled game sales in Japan for the PlayStation, by producing only limited numbers of any new CD-ROM game with the ability to rapidly produce new copies of a game should it prove successful, a factor that could not easily be realized with ROM cartridges where due to how fast consumers' tastes changed, required nearly all cartridges expected to sell to be produced upfront. This helped Sony overtake Nintendo and Sega in the 1990s. A key PlayStation game that adapted to the CD format was ''
Final Fantasy VII'', released in 1997; Square's developers wanted to transition the series from the series' 2D presentation to using 3D models, and though the series had been exclusive to Nintendo consoles previously, Square determined it would be impractical to use cartridges for distribution while the PlayStation's CD-ROM gave them the space for all the desired content including pre-rendered cutscenes. ''Final Fantasy VII'' became a key game, as it expanded the idea of console role-playing games to console game consumers.
Since the PlayStation, all home gaming consoles have relied on optical media for physical game distribution, outside of the Nintendo 64 and Switch.
On the PC side, CD drives were initially available as peripherals for computers before becoming standard components within PCs. CD-ROM technology had been available as early as 1989, with
Cyan Worlds
Cyan, Inc., also known as Cyan Worlds, Inc., is an American video game developer. Founded as Cyan Productions by brothers Rand and Robyn Miller in 1987, the company is best known as the creator of the ''Myst'' series. The company is located in ...
' ''
The Manhole
''The Manhole'' is an adventure video game in which the player opens a manhole and reveals a gigantic beanstalk, leading to fantastic worlds.
Summary
The game was first released on floppy disks in 1988 by Cyan, Inc. (now ''Cyan Worlds'') and d ...
'' being one of the first games distributed on the medium.
While CD-ROMs served as a better means to distribute larger games, the medium caught on with the 1993 releases of Cyan's ''
Myst
''Myst'' is a graphic adventure/puzzle video game designed by the Miller brothers, Robyn and Rand. It was developed by Cyan, Inc., published by Broderbund, and initially released for the Macintosh in 1993. In the game, the player's charact ...
'' and
Trilobyte's ''
The 7th Guest
''The 7th Guest'' is an interactive movie puzzle adventure game, produced by Trilobyte and originally released by Virgin Interactive Entertainment in April 1993. It is one of the first computer video games to be released only on CD-ROM. ''The ...
'', adventure games that incorporated full motion video segments among fixed pre-rendered scenes, incorporating the CD-ROM medium into the game itself. Both games were considered killer apps to help standardize the CD-ROM format for PCs.
Introduction of 3D graphics
In addition to transition to optical media, the industry as a whole had a major shift toward real-time
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for t ...
across games during the 1990s. There had been a number of arcade games that used simple
wireframe vector graphics
Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector display ...
to simulate 3D, such as ''
Battlezone'', ''
Tempest
Tempest is a synonym for a storm.
'' The Tempest'' is a play by William Shakespeare.
Tempest or The Tempest may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''The Tempest'' (1908 film), a British silent film
* ''The Tempest'' (1911 film), a ...
'', and ''
Star Wars''. A unique challenge in 3D computer graphics is that
real-time rendering
Real-time computer graphics or real-time rendering is the sub-field of computer graphics focused on producing and analyzing images in real time. The term can refer to anything from rendering an application's graphical user interface ( GUI) to ...
typically requires
floating-point calculations, which until the 1990s, most video game hardware was not well-suited for. Instead, many games simulated 3D effects such as by using
parallax rendering of different background layers, scaling of sprites as they moved towards or away from the player's view, or other rendering methods such as the SNES's
Mode 7
Mode 7 is a graphics mode on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System video game console that allows a background layer to be rotated and scaled on a scanline-by-scanline basis to create many different effects. The most famous of these effects ...
. These tricks to simulate 3D-rendeder graphics through 2D systems are generally referred to as
2.5D
2.5D (two-and-a-half dimensional) perspective refers to gameplay or movement in a video game or virtual reality environment that is restricted to a two-dimensional (2D) plane with little to no access to a third dimension in a space that other ...
graphics.
True real-time 3D rendering using polygons were soon popularized by
Yu Suzuki
is a Japanese game designer, producer, programmer, and engineer, who headed Sega's AM2 team for 18 years. Considered one of the first auteurs of video games, he has been responsible for a number of Sega's arcade hits, including three-dimen ...
's
Sega AM2
previously known as is a video game development team within the Japanese multinational video game developer Sega. Yu Suzuki, who had previously developed arcade games for Sega including '' Hang-On'' and ''Out Run'', was the first manager of t ...
games ''
Virtua Racing
''Virtua Racing'', or ''V.R.'' for short, is a Formula One racing video game developed by Sega AM2 and released for arcades in 1992. ''Virtua Racing'' was initially a proof-of-concept application for exercising a new 3D graphics platform under ...
'' (1992) and ''
Virtua Fighter
is a series of fighting games created by Sega-AM2 and designer Yu Suzuki. The original '' Virtua Fighter'' was released in October 1993 and has received four main sequels and several spin-offs. The highly influential first ''Virtua Fighter'' ga ...
'' (1993), both running on the
Sega Model 1
Sega is a video game developer, publisher, and hardware development company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with multiple offices around the world. The company's involvement in the arcade game industry began as a Japan-based distributor of coi ...
arcade system board;
some of the
Sony Computer Entertainment
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal co ...
(SCE) staff involved in the creation of the original
PlayStation video game console
A video game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can be played with a game controller. These may be home consoles, which are generally placed in a permanent location connected to ...
credit ''Virtua Fighter'' as inspiration for the PlayStation's 3D graphics hardware. According to SCE's former producer Ryoji Akagawa and chairman Shigeo Maruyama, the PlayStation was originally being considered as a
2D-focused hardware, and it wasn't until the success of ''Virtua Fighter'' in the arcades that they decided to design the PlayStation as a 3D-focused hardware.
Texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color.
History
The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974.
Texture mappi ...
and
texture filtering
In computer graphics, texture filtering or texture smoothing is the method used to determine the texture color for a texture mapped pixel, using the colors of nearby texels (pixels of the texture). There are two main categories of texture filtering ...
were soon popularized by 3D racing and fighting games.
Home video game consoles such as the PlayStation, the
Sega Saturn, and
Nintendo 64
The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and ...
also became able to produce texture-mapped 3D graphics. Nintendo had already released ''
Star Fox
is an arcade style rail shooter and third person action-adventure video game series created by Shigeru Miyamoto, produced and published by Nintendo. The games follow the Star Fox combat team of anthropomorphic animals, led by chief protagon ...
'' in 1993 which included the
Super FX
The Super FX is a coprocessor on the Graphics Support Unit (GSU) added to select Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) video game cartridges, primarily to facilitate advanced 2D and 3D graphics. The Super FX chip was designed by Argona ...
graphics co-processor chip built into the game cartridge to support polygonal rendering for the SNES, and the Nintendo 64 included a graphics coprocessor on the console directly.
On personal computers,
John Carmack and
John Romero
John is a common English name and surname:
* John (given name)
* John (surname)
John may also refer to:
New Testament
Works
* Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John
* First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John
* Secon ...
of
id Software
id Software LLC () is an American video game developer based in Richardson, Texas. It was founded on February 1, 1991, by four members of the computer company Softdisk: game programmer, programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer T ...
had been experimenting with real-time rendering of 3D games through ''
Hovertank 3D
''Hovertank 3D'', also known under a variety of other names (''Hovertank'' or ''Hovertank One''), is a vehicular combat game developed by id Software and published by Softdisk in April 1991.
Plot
''Hovertank 3D'' is set during a nuclear war. In ...
'' and ''
Catacomb 3-D''. These led to the release of ''
Wolfenstein 3D
''Wolfenstein 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game '' Castle Wolfe ...
'' in 1992, considered to be the original
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...
as it rendered the game's world fast enough to keep up with the player's movements. However, at this point, ''Wolfenstein 3D'' maps were restricted to a single flat level.
Improvements would come with ''
Ultima Underworld
''Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss'' is a first-person role-playing video game developed by Blue Sky Productions (later Looking Glass Studios) and published by Origin Systems. Released in March 1992, the game is set in the fantasy world of ...
'' from
Blue Sky Productions
Looking Glass Studios, Inc. (formerly Blue Sky Productions and LookingGlass Technologies, Inc.) was an American video game developer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was founded by Paul Neurath with Ned Lerner as Blue Sky Product ...
, which included floors of different heights and ramps, which took longer to render but was considered acceptable in the role-playing game, and id's ''
Doom
Doom is another name for damnation.
Doom may also refer to:
People
* Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed
* Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist
* Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher
* ...
'', adding lighting effects among other features, but still with limitations that maps were effectively two-dimensional and with most enemies and objects represented by sprites in-game. id had created one of the first
game engines that separated the content from the gameplay and rendering layers, and licensed this engine to other developers, resulting in games such as ''
Heretic'' and ''
Hexen'', while other game developers built their own engines based on the concepts of the
''Doom'' engine, such as ''
Duke Nukem 3D
''Duke Nukem 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by 3D Realms. It is a sequel to the platform games ''Duke Nukem (video game), Duke Nukem'' and ''Duke Nukem II'', published by 3D Realms.
''Duke Nukem 3D'' features the adventures ...
'' and ''
Marathon''. In 1996, id's ''
Quake'' was the first computer game with a true 3D game engine with in-game character and object models, and as with the ''Doom'' engine, id licensed the
''Quake'' engine, leading to a further growth in first-person shooters.
By 1997, the first consumer dedicated 3D
graphics card
A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer mo ...
s were available on the market driven by the demand for first-person shooters, and numerous 3D game engines were created in the years that followed, including
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of g ...
,
GoldSrc
GoldSrc ( ) is a proprietary game engine developed by Valve. At its core, GoldSrc is a heavily modified version of id Software's ''Quake'' engine. It originally made its debut in 1998 with ''Half-Life'', and would power future games developed b ...
, and
CryEngine
CryEngine (stylized as CRYENGINE) is a game engine designed by the German game developer Crytek. It has been used in all of their titles with the initial version being used in ''Far Cry'', and continues to be updated to support new consoles and ...
, and establishing 3D as the new standard in most computer video games.
Resurgence and decline of arcades
![Time Crisis II, Spain, 2017 03](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Time_Crisis_II%2C_Spain%2C_2017_03.jpg)
The 1991 release of
Capcom's ''
Street Fighter II'' popularized competitive one-on-one
fighting games.
[Spencer, Spanner]
The Tao of Beat-'em-ups (part 2)
, ''EuroGamer'', February 12, 2008, Accessed March 18, 2009 Its success led to a wave of other popular fighting games, such as ''
Mortal Kombat'' and ''
The King of Fighters
''The King of Fighters'' (''KOF'') is a series of fighting games by SNK that began with the release of '' The King of Fighters '94'' in 1994. The series was developed originally for SNK's Neo Geo MVS arcade hardware. This served as the main p ...
''.
Sports game
A sports video game is a video game that simulates the practice of sports. Most sports have been recreated with a game, including team sports, track and field, extreme sports, and combat sports. Some games emphasize actually playing the sport ( ...
s such as ''
NBA Jam
''NBA Jam'' (sometimes "Jam" for short) is a long-running List of basketball video games, basketball video game series based on the National Basketball Association (NBA). Initially developed as arcade games by Midway Games, Midway, the game foun ...
'' also briefly became popular in arcades during this period.
Further drawing players from arcades were the latest home consoles which were now capable of playing "arcade-accurate" games, including the latest 3D games. Increasing numbers of players waited for popular arcade games to be ported to consoles rather than pumping coins into arcade kiosks. This trend increased with the introduction of more realistic peripherals for computer and console game systems such as
force feedback
Haptic technology (also kinaesthetic communication or 3D touch) is technology that can create an experience of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user. These technologies can be used to create virtual objects in a computer ...
aircraft joysticks and racing wheel/pedal kits, which allowed home systems to approach some of the realism and immersion formerly limited to the arcades. To remain relevant, arcade manufacturers such as Sega and Namco continued pushing the boundaries of 3D graphics beyond what was possible in homes. ''
Virtua Fighter 3
is the sequel to 1994's '' Virtua Fighter 2'' and the third fighting game in the ''Virtua Fighter'' series, developed by Sega AM2 and published by Sega in 1996. It was the first arcade game to run on the Sega Model 3 system board.
Like its p ...
'' for the
Sega Model 3
is a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company headquartered in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Its international branches, Sega of America and Sega Europe, are headquartered in Irvine, California and London, respectively. Its division ...
, for instance, stood out for having real-time 3D graphics approaching the quality of
CGI full motion video (FMV) at the time. Likewise, Namco released the
Namco System 23 to rival the Model 3. By 1998, however, Sega's
new console, the
Dreamcast
The is a home video game console released by Sega on November 27, 1998, in Japan; September 9, 1999, in North America; and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, Nint ...
, could produce 3D graphics on-par with the
Sega Naomi
Sega is a video game developer, publisher, and hardware development company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, with multiple offices around the world. The company's involvement in the arcade game industry began as a Japan-based distributor of coin-o ...
arcade machine. After producing the more powerful
Hikaru
is a Japanese unisex given name meaning "light" or "radiance".
Possible writings
Hikaru can be written using different kanji characters and can mean:
* 光, "light"
* 輝, "radiance"
The name can also be written in hiragana or katakana. It is m ...
board in 1999 and
Naomi 2 in 2000, Sega eventually stopped manufacturing custom arcade system boards, with their subsequent arcade boards being based on either consoles or commercial PC components.
As patronage of arcades declined, many were forced to close down by the late 1990s and early 2000s. Classic coin-operated games had largely become the province of dedicated hobbyists and as a tertiary attraction for some businesses, such as movie theaters,
batting cage
A batting cage (or tunnel) is an enclosed area for baseball or softball players to practice the skill of batting.
The optimal material for batting cages is netting, and they are typically rectangular in shape. Chain-link fence is not required bu ...
s,
miniature golf courses, and arcades attached to game stores such as
F.Y.E.
2428392, Inc. (doing business as FYE, the initials for For Your Entertainment) is an American chain of entertainment retail stores headquartered in Albany, New York. Formerly owned by Trans World Entertainment, it began in 1993 and was expande ...
The gap left by the old corner arcades was partly filled by large amusement centers dedicated to providing clean, safe environments and costly game control systems unavailable to home users. These newer arcade games offer driving or other sports games with specialized cockpits integrated into the arcade machine,
rhythm game
Rhythm game or rhythm action is a genre of music-themed action video game that challenges a player's sense of rhythm. Games in the genre typically focus on dance or the simulated performance of musical instruments, and require players to press ...
s requiring unique controllers like ''
Guitar Freaks
is a music video game series produced by Konami. It is a rhythm game where the player uses a controller to simulate the playing of an electric guitar. The game consists of music predominantly from the rock music, rock and roll and J-pop genres ...
'' and ''
Dance Dance Revolution
(''DDR'') is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, ''Dance Dance Revolution'' is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance ...
'', and path-based
light gun
A light gun is a pointing device for computers and a control device for arcade and video games, typically shaped to resemble a pistol.
Early history
The first light guns were produced in the 1930s, following the development of light-sensin ...
shooting gallery games like ''
Time Crisis
''Time Crisis'' is a first-person on-rails light gun shooter series of arcade video games by Namco, introduced in 1995. It is focused on the exploits of a fictional international intelligence agency who assigns its best agents to deal with a m ...
''.
Arcade establishments expanded out to include other entertainment options, such as food and drink, such as the adult-oriented
Dave & Buster's
Dave & Buster's is an American restaurant and entertainment business headquartered in Dallas. Each Dave & Buster's has a full-service restaurant and a video arcade. As of October 2022, the company has 151 locations in the United States and two ...
and
GameWorks
GameWorks is a gaming-based entertainment center with a single location as of 2022, a chain of such businesses. It was owned by then-owner ExWorks Capital, each venue featured a wide array of video game arcades, in addition to full-service bars a ...
franchises, while
Chuck E. Cheese's
Chuck E. Cheese (formerly known as Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza and simply Chuck E. Cheese's) is an American family entertainment center and pizza restaurant chain founded in 1977 by Atari's co-founder Nolan Bu ...
is a similar type of business for families and young children.
Handhelds come of age
In 1989, Nintendo released the cartridge-based
Game Boy
The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same t ...
, the first major
handheld game console
A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the cons ...
since the
Microvision
The Microvision (aka Milton Bradley Microvision or MB Microvision) is the first handheld game console that used interchangeable cartridges and in that sense is reprogrammable. It was released by the Milton Bradley Company in November 1979 for a ...
ten years before. Included with the system was ''
Tetris
''Tetris'' (russian: link=no, Тетрис) is a puzzle video game created by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov in 1984. It has been published by several companies for multiple platforms, most prominently during a dispute over the appro ...
'', which became one of the best-selling video games of all time, drawing many that would not normally play video games to the handheld. Several rival handhelds made their debut in the early 1990s, including the
Sega Game Gear
The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console released by Sega on October 6, 1990, in Japan, in April 1991 throughout North America and Europe, and during 1992 in Australia. The Game Gear primarily competed with Nintendo's Game Boy, ...
and
Atari Lynx
The Atari Lynx is a hybrid 8/16-bit fourth generation handheld game console released by Atari Corporation in September 1989 in North America and 1990 in Europe and Japan. It was the first handheld game console with a color liquid-crystal disp ...
(the first handheld with color LCD display). Although these systems were more technologically advanced and intended to match performance of home consoles, they were hampered by higher battery consumption and less third-party developer support. While some of the other systems remained in production until the mid-1990s, the Game Boy and its successive incarnations, the
Game Boy Pocket
The is an 8-bit fourth generation handheld game console developed and manufactured by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989, in North America later the same year, and in Europe in late 1990. It was designed by the same tea ...
,
Game Boy Color and
Game Boy Advance
The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...
, were virtually unchallenged for dominance in the handheld market through the 1990s. The Game Boy family also introduced the first installments in the ''
Pokémon'' series with
''Pokémon Red'' and ''Blue'', which remains one of the best-selling video game franchises for Nintendo.
Computer games
With the introduction of 3D graphics and a stronger emphasis on console games, smaller developers, particularly those working on personal computers, were typically shunned by publishers as they had become risk-averse.
Shareware, a new method of distributing games from these smaller teams, came out of the early 1990s. Typically a shareware game could be requested by a consumer, which would given them a portion of the game for free outside of shipping charges. If the consumer liked the game, they could then pay for the full game. This model was later expanded to basically include the "demo" version of a game on the insert CD-ROM media for gaming magazine, and then later as digital downloads from various sites like
Tucows
Tucows Inc. is an American-Canadian publicly traded Internet services and telecommunications company headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and incorporated in Pennsylvania, United States. The company is composed of three independent busines ...
. id Software is credited with successfully implementing the idea for both ''Wolfenstein 3D'' and ''Doom'', which was later used by Apogee (now
3D Realms
3D Realms Entertainment ApS is a video game publisher based in Aalborg, Denmark. Scott Miller (entrepreneur), Scott Miller founded the company in his parents' home in Garland, Texas, in 1987 as Apogee Software Productions to release his game ' ...
), Epic MegaGames (now
Epic Games).
Several key genres were established during this period. ''Wolfenstein 3D'' and ''Doom'' are the formative games of the
first-person shooter
First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...
(FPS); the genre itself had gone by "''Doom'' clones" until about 2000 when FPS became the more popular term. Graphic adventure games rose to prominence during this period; including the forementioned ''Myst'' and ''The 7th Guest'',
several of LucasArts adventure games including the ''
Monkey Island
''Monkey Island'' is a series of adventure games. The first four games in the series were produced and published by LucasArts, earlier known as Lucasfilm Games. The fifth installment of the franchise was developed by Telltale Games in collabor ...
'' series. However, the adventure game genre was considered dead by the end of the 1990s due to the rising popularity of the FPS and other action genres. The first
immersive sim
An immersive sim (simulation) is a video game genre that emphasizes player choice. Its core, defining trait is the use of simulated systems that respond to a variety of player actions which, combined with a comparatively broad array of player ...
s, games that gave the player more agency and choices through flexible game systems, came along after the rise of FPS games, with games like ''
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss'' and ''
Thief: The Dark Project''. ''Thief'' also expanded the idea of stealth games and created the idea of "first person sneaker" games where combat was less a focus.
Real-time strategy game
Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to pla ...
s also grew in popularity in 1990s, with seminal games ''
Dune II
A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, f ...
'', ''
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'' and ''
Command & Conquer
''Command & Conquer'' (''C&C'') is a real-time strategy (RTS) video game franchise, first developed by Westwood Studios. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself based on Westwood Studios' influential strategy game '' Dune ...
''. The first
4X (short for "Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate") strategy games also emerged during this decade, popularized by ''
Sid Meyer's Civilization'' in 1991. ''
Alone in the Dark'' in 1992 established many elements of the
survival horror
Survival horror is a subgenre of survival of the players as the game tries to frighten them with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical ac ...
genre that were in the console game ''
Resident Evil
''Resident Evil'', known in Japan as is a Japanese horror game series and media franchise created by Capcom. It consists of survival horror, third-person shooter and first-person shooter games, with players typically surviving in environments ...
''.
Simulation game
Simulation video games are a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such ...
s became popular, including those from
Maxis
Maxis is an American video game developer and a division of Electronic Arts (EA). The studio was founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun, and acquired by EA in 1997. Maxis is best known for its simulation games, including '' The Sims ...
starting with ''
SimCity
''SimCity'' is an open-ended city-building video game series originally designed by Will Wright. The first game in the series, ''SimCity'', was published by Maxis in 1989 and were followed by several sequels and many other spin-off "''Sim ...
'' in 1989, and which culminated with ''
The Sims
''The Sims'' is a series of life simulation game, life simulation video games developed by Maxis and video game publisher, published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and it is one of the best-selling ...
'', which was first released in early 2000.
Online connectivity in computer games became increasingly important. Building on the growing popularity of the text-based MUDs of the 1980s,
graphical MUDs like ''
Habitat
In ecology, the term habitat summarises the array of resources, physical and biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species habitat can be seen as the physical ...
'' used simple graphical interfaces alongside text to visualize the game experience,. The first
massively multiplayer online role-playing game
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...
s adapted the new 3D graphics approach to create virtual worlds on screen, starting with ''
Meridian 59
''Meridian 59'' was a 1996 video game developed by Archetype Interactive and published by The 3DO Company. It was the first 3D graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) and one of the longest running original online role-p ...
'' in 1996 and popularized by the success of ''
Ultima Online
''Ultima Online'' (''UO'') is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released on September 24, 1997 by Origin Systems.
Set in the '' Ultima'' universe, it is known for its extensive player versus player combat system. ...
'' in 1997 and ''
EverQuest
''EverQuest'' is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed by Verant Interactive and 989 Studios for Windows PCs. It was released by Sony Online Entertainment in March 1999 in North Amer ...
'' and ''
Asheron's Call
''Asheron's Call'' (AC) was a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows PCs, developed and published by Turbine Entertainment Software. Though it was developed by the Turbine team (with Microsoft's ex ...
'' in 1999. Online connective also became important in genres like FPS and RTS, allowing players to connect to human opponents over phone and Internet connectivity. Some companies created clients to help with connectivity, such as
Blizzard Entertainment
Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the company was founded on February 8, 1991, under the name Silicon & Synapse, Inc. by three gradu ...
's
Battle.net.
During the 1990s Microsoft introduced its initial versions of the
Microsoft Windows operating system for personal computers, a graphical user interface intended to replace MS-DOS. Game developers found it difficult to program for some of the earlier versions of Windows, as the operating system tended to block their programmatic access to input and output devices. Microsoft developed
DirectX in 1995, later integrated into
Microsoft Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...
and future Windows products, as a set of libraries to give game programmers direct access to these functions. This also helped to provide a standard interface to normalize the wide array of graphics and sound cards available for personal computers by this time, further aiding in ongoing game development.
32- and 64-bit home consoles
![PSX-Console-wController](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/PSX-Console-wController.jpg)
Sony's introduction of the first PlayStation in 1994 had hampered both Nintendo and Sega's console war, as well as made it difficult for new companies to enter the market. The PlayStation brought in not only the revolution in CD-ROM media but built-in support for polygonal 3D graphics rendering. Atari attempted to reenter the market with the 32-bit
Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar is a home video game console developed by Atari Corporation and released in North America in November 1993. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it competed with the 16-bit Sega Genesis, the Super NES and th ...
in 1993, but it lacked the game libraries offered by Nintendo, Sega or Sony.
The 3DO Company
The 3DO Company (formerly THDO on the NASDAQ stock exchange), also known as 3DO, was an American video game company. It was founded in 1991 by Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, in a partnership with seven other companies. After 3DO's flagsh ...
released the
3DO Interactive Multiplayer
The 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, also referred to as simply 3DO, is a home video game console developed by The 3DO Company. Conceived by entrepreneur and Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins, the 3DO was not a console manufactured by the company ...
in 1993, but it also suffered from a higher price compared to other consoles on the market. Sega has placed a great deal of emphasis on the 32-bit
Sega Saturn, released in 1994, to follow the Genesis, and though initially fared well in sales with the PlayStation, soon lost ground to the PlayStation's larger range of popular games. Nintendo's next console after the SNES was the
Nintendo 64
The (N64) is a home video game console developed by Nintendo. The successor to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it was released on June 23, 1996, in Japan, on September 29, 1996, in North America, and on March 1, 1997, in Europe and ...
, a 64-bit console with polygonal 3D rendering support. However, Nintendo opted to continue to use the ROM cartridge format, which caused it to lose sales against the PlayStation, and allowing Sony to become the dominant player in the console market by 2000.
''Final Fantasy VII'', as previously described, was an industry landmark title, and introduced the concept of role-playing games to console players. The origin of
music video game
A music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's interactions with a musical score or individual songs. Music video games may take a ...
s emerged with the PlayStation game ''
PaRappa the Rapper
is a rhythm video game developed by NanaOn-Sha and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation in Japan in 1996 and worldwide in 1997. Created by music producer Masaya Matsuura in collaboration with artist Rodney Greenblat, t ...
'' in 1997, coupled with the success of arcade games like ''
beatmania
(styled as ''beatmania'') is a rhythm video game developed and distributed by Japanese game developer Konami and first released in December 1997. It contributed largely to the boom of music games in 1998, and the series expanded not only wit ...
'' and ''
Dance Dance Revolution
(''DDR'') is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, ''Dance Dance Revolution'' is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance ...
''. ''Resident Evil'' and ''
Silent Hill
is a horror anthology media franchise centered on a series of survival horror games created by Keiichiro Toyama and published by Konami. The first four video games in the series, '' Silent Hill'', ''Silent Hill 2'', ''Silent Hill 3'' and '' ...
'' formed the basis of the current
survival horror
Survival horror is a subgenre of survival of the players as the game tries to frighten them with either horror graphics or scary ambience. Although combat can be part of the gameplay, the player is made to feel less in control than in typical ac ...
genre. Nintendo had its own critical successes with ''
GoldenEye 007'' from
Rare, the first first-person shooter for a console that introduced staple features for the genre, and ''
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time'', one of the
most critically acclaimed games of all time.
2000s
The 2000s (decade) showed innovation on both consoles and PCs, and an increasingly competitive market for portable game systems. The impact of wider availability of the Internet led to new gameplay changes, changes in gaming hardware and the introduction of online services for the consoles.
The phenomena of user-created
video game modifications (commonly referred to as "mods") for games, one trend that began during the ''
Wolfenstein 3D
''Wolfenstein 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by id Software and published by Apogee Software and FormGen. Originally released on May 5, 1992, for DOS, it was inspired by the 1981 Muse Software video game '' Castle Wolfe ...
'' and ''
Doom
Doom is another name for damnation.
Doom may also refer to:
People
* Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed
* Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist
* Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher
* ...
''-era, continued into the start of the 21st century. The most famous example is that of ''
Counter-Strike
''Counter-Strike'' (''CS'') is a series of multiplayer tactical first-person shooter video games in which teams of terrorists battle to perpetrate an act of terror (bombing, hostage-taking, assassination) while counter-terrorists try to preve ...
''; released in 1999, it is still one of the most popular online first-person shooter, even though it was created as a mod for ''
Half-Life
Half-life (symbol ) is the time required for a quantity (of substance) to reduce to half of its initial value. The term is commonly used in nuclear physics to describe how quickly unstable atoms undergo radioactive decay or how long stable at ...
'' by two independent programmers. Eventually, game designers realized the potential of mods and custom content in general to enhance the value of their games, and so began to encourage its creation. Some examples of this include ''
Unreal Tournament
''Unreal Tournament'' is a first-person arena shooter video game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the '' Unreal'' series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Microsoft Windows, and late ...
'', which allowed players to import 3dsmax scenes to use as character models, and
Maxis
Maxis is an American video game developer and a division of Electronic Arts (EA). The studio was founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun, and acquired by EA in 1997. Maxis is best known for its simulation games, including '' The Sims ...
' ''
The Sims
''The Sims'' is a series of life simulation game, life simulation video games developed by Maxis and video game publisher, published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and it is one of the best-selling ...
'', for which players could create custom objects.
In China, video game consoles were banned in June 2000. This has led to an explosion in the popularity of computer games, especially MMOs.
Consoles and the games for them are easily acquired however, as there is a robust grey market importing and distributing them across the country. Another side effect of this law has been increased copyright infringement of video games.
The changing home console landscape
Sony's dominance of the console market at the start of 2000s caused a major shift in the market. Sega attempted one more foray into console hardware with the
Dreamcast
The is a home video game console released by Sega on November 27, 1998, in Japan; September 9, 1999, in North America; and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, Nint ...
in 1998, notably the first console with a built-in Internet connection for online play. However, Sega's reputation had been tarnished from the Saturn, and with Sony having recently announced its upcoming
PlayStation 2, Sega left the hardware console market after the Dreamcast, though remained in the arcade game development as well as developing games for consoles. The Dreamcast's library has some groundbreaking games, notably the ''
Shenmue series'' which are regarded as a major step forward for 3D
open-world gameplay and has introduced the
quick time event mechanic in its modern form.
![Xbox-console](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Xbox-console.jpg)
Sony released the PlayStation 2 (PS2) in 2000, the first console to support the new
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
format and with capabilities of playing back DVD movie disks and CD audio disks, as well as playing PlayStation games in a
backward compatible
Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especially in ...
mode alongside PS2 games. Nintendo followed the Nintendo 64 with the
GameCube in 2001, its first console to use optical discs, though specially formatted for the system. However, a new player entered the console picture at this point,
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
with its first
Xbox
Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the ...
console, also released in 2001. Microsoft had feared that Sony's PS2 would become a central point of electronic entertainment in the living room and squeeze out the PC in the home, and after having recently developing the
DirectX set of libraries to standardize game hardware interfaces for Windows-based computers, used this same approach to create the Xbox.
The PS2 remained the leading platform for the first part of the decade, and remains the best-selling home console of all time with over 155 million units sold. This was in part to a number of critical games released on the system, including ''
Grand Theft Auto III'', ''
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty'', and ''
Final Fantasy X''. The Xbox was able to gain second-place to the PS2 sales, but at a significant lost to Microsoft. However, to Microsoft, the loss was acceptable, as it proved to them they could compete in the console space. The Xbox also introduced Microsoft's flagship title, ''
Halo: Combat Evolved'', which relied on the Xbox's built-in Ethernet functionality to support online gameplay.
![Wii-console](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Wii-console.jpg)
By the mid-2000s, only Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft were considered major players in the console hardware space. All three introduced their next generation of hardware between 2005 and 2006, starting with Microsoft's
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...
in 2005 and Sony's
PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November ...
(PS3) in 2006, followed by Nintendo's
Wii
The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, ...
later that year. The Xbox 360 and PS3 showed a convergence with personal computer hardware: both consoles shipped with support for high-definition graphics, higher-density optical media like
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...
s, internal hard drives for storage of games, and had built-in Internet connectivity. Microsoft and Sony also had developed online digital services,
Xbox Live and
PlayStation Network that helped players to connect to friends online, matchmake for online games, and purchase new games and content from online stores. In contrast, the Wii was designed as part a new
blue ocean strategy
''Blue Ocean Strategy'' is a book published in 2004 written by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, professors at INSEAD, and the name of the marketing theory detailed on the book.
They assert that these strategic moves create a leap in value for ...
by Nintendo after the poor sales of the GameCube. Instead of trying to compete feature for feature with Microsoft and Sony, Nintendo designed the Wii to be a console for innovative gameplay rather than high performance, and created the
Wii Remote
The Wii Remote, also known colloquially as the Wiimote, is the primary game controller for Nintendo's Wii home video game console. An essential capability of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact wi ...
, a
motion detection-based controller. Gameplay designed around the Wii Remote provided instant hits, such as ''
Wii Sports
''Wii Sports'' is a 2006 sports simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console. The 1.0 (pre-release) version of the game was released in North America along with the Wii on November 19, 2006, and the ...
'', ''
Wii Sports Resort
''Wii Sports Resort'' is a 2009 sports simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Wii video game console, and is a sequel to ''Wii Sports''. It is one of the first titles to require the Wii MotionPlus accessory, which wa ...
'', and ''
Wii Fit
is an exergaming video game designed by Nintendo's Hiroshi Matsunaga for the Wii home video game console, featuring a variety of yoga, strength training, aerobics, and balance mini-games for use with the Wii Balance Board peripheral. Matsunag ...
'', and the Wii became one of the fastest selling consoles in its few years. The success of the Wii's motion controls partially led to Microsoft and Sony to develop their own motion-sensing control systems, the
Kinect and the
PlayStation Move
is a motion game controller developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Initially released in 2010 for use with the PlayStation 3 home video game console, its compatibility was later expanded to its successor, the PlayStation 4 in 2013, its Pla ...
.
A major fad in 2000s was the rapid rise and fall of
rhythm game
Rhythm game or rhythm action is a genre of music-themed action video game that challenges a player's sense of rhythm. Games in the genre typically focus on dance or the simulated performance of musical instruments, and require players to press ...
s which use special game controllers shaped like musical instruments such as guitars and drums to match notes while playing licensed songs. ''
Guitar Hero
''Guitar Hero'' is a series of music rhythm game video games first released in November 2005, in which players use a guitar-shaped game controller to simulate playing primarily lead, bass guitar, and rhythm guitar across numerous songs ...
'', based on the arcade game ''
Guitar Freaks
is a music video game series produced by Konami. It is a rhythm game where the player uses a controller to simulate the playing of an electric guitar. The game consists of music predominantly from the rock music, rock and roll and J-pop genres ...
'', was developed by
Harmonix
Harmonix Music Systems, Inc., doing business as Harmonix, is an American video game developer company based in Boston, Massachusetts. The company was established in May 1995 by Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy. Harmonix is perhaps best known as bei ...
and published by
Red Octane
RedOctane, Inc. was an American electronic entertainment company best known for producing the ''Guitar Hero'' series, beginning in November 2005. RedOctane became a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision in 2006. In February 2010, Activision clos ...
in 2005 on the PS2, and was a modest success. Activision acquired Red Octane and gained the publishing rights to the series, while Harmonix was purchased by
Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to:
* Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate
* Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom
* Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...
, where they launched ''
Rock Band'', a similar series but adding in drums and vocals atop guitars. Rhythm games because a highly-popular property second only to action games, representing 18% of the video game market in 2008, and drew other publishers to the area as well. While Harmonix approached the series by adding new songs as downloadable content, Activision focused on releasing new games year after year in the ''Guitar Hero'' series; by 2009, they had six different ''Guitar Hero''-related games planned for the year. The saturation of the market, in addition to the fad of these instrument controllers, quickly caused the market in 2008 to fall by 50% in 2009.
By 2011, Activision had stopped publishing ''Guitar Hero'' games (though returned one time in 2015 with ''
Guitar Hero Live
''Guitar Hero Live'' is a 2015 music rhythm video game developed by FreeStyleGames and published by Activision. It is the seventh main installment in the ''Guitar Hero'' series. The game was released for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, X ...
''), while Harmonix has continued to develop ''Rock Back'' after a hiatus between 2013 and 2015.
![Nintendo-DS-Fat-Blue](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/Nintendo-DS-Fat-Blue.png)
Nintendo still dominated the handheld games market during this period. The
Game Boy Advance
The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...
, released in 2001, maintained Nintendo's market position with a high-resolution, full-color LCD screen and 32-bit processor allowing ports of SNES games and simpler companions to N64 and GameCube games. The next two major handhelds, the
Nintendo DS and Sony's
PlayStation Portable (PSP) within a month of each other in 2004. While the PSP boasted superior graphics and power, following a trend established since the mid-1980s, Nintendo gambled on a lower-power design but featuring a novel control interface. The DS's two screens, with one being a touch-sensitive screen, proved extremely popular with consumers, especially young children and middle-aged gamers, who were drawn to the device by Nintendo's ''
Nintendogs
is a real-time pet simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console. It was released in Japan, and was later released in: North America, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and other regions. ...
'' and ''
Brain Age
''Brain Age'', known as ''Dr Kawashima's Brain Training'' in PAL regions, is a series of video games developed and published by Nintendo, based on the work of Ryuta Kawashima.
Video games
The ''Brain Age'' games, known as ''Brain Training'' ...
'' series respectively, as well as introducing localized Japanese
visual novel
A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...
-type games such as the ''
Ace Attorney
''Ace Attorney'' is a series of visual novel adventure video games developed by Capcom. With storytelling fashioned after legal dramas, the first entry in the series, '' Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney'', was released in 2001; since then, five ...
'' and ''
Professor Layton
''Professor Layton'' is a puzzle adventure video game series and transmedia franchise developed by Level-5. The property consists primarily of seven main video games, a mobile spin-off, an animated theatrical film, and an anime television serie ...
'' series to the Western regions. The PSP attracted a significant portion of veteran gamers in North America and was very popular in Japan; its ad-hoc networking capabilities worked well within the urban Japanese setting, which directly contributed to spurring the popularity of Capcom's ''
Monster Hunter
is a Japanese media franchise centered on a series of fantasy-themed action role-playing video games that started with the game '' Monster Hunter'' for the PlayStation 2, released in 2004. Titles have been released across a variety of platforms ...
'' series.
MMOs, esports, and online services
![The International 2016 picture](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/The_International_2016_picture.jpg)
As affordable broadband Internet connectivity spread, many publishers turned to online games as a way of innovating.
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...
s (MMORPGs) featured significant PC games like ''
RuneScape
''RuneScape'' is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Jagex, released in January 2001. ''RuneScape'' was originally a browser game built with the Java programming language; it was lar ...
'', ''
EverQuest
''EverQuest'' is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed by Verant Interactive and 989 Studios for Windows PCs. It was released by Sony Online Entertainment in March 1999 in North Amer ...
'', and ''
Ultima Online
''Ultima Online'' (''UO'') is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released on September 24, 1997 by Origin Systems.
Set in the '' Ultima'' universe, it is known for its extensive player versus player combat system. ...
'', with ''
World of Warcraft
''World of Warcraft'' (''WoW'') is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Set in the ''Warcraft'' fantasy universe, ''World of Warcraft'' takes place within the world of Azeroth ...
'' as one of the most successful.
Other large-scale massively-multiplayer online games also were released, such as ''
Second Life
''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...
'' which focused mostly on social interactions with virtual player
avatars
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...
and user creations, rather than any gameplay elements.
Historically, console-based MMORPGs have been few in number due to the lack of bundled Internet connectivity options for the platforms. This made it hard to establish a large enough subscription community to justify the development costs. The first significant console MMORPGs were ''
Phantasy Star Online'' on the Sega
Dreamcast
The is a home video game console released by Sega on November 27, 1998, in Japan; September 9, 1999, in North America; and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, Nint ...
(which had a built in modem and aftermarket Ethernet adapter), followed by ''
Final Fantasy XI
also known as ''Final Fantasy XI Online'', is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), originally developed and published by Squaresoft and then published by Square Enix as the eleventh main installment of the ''Final Fantas ...
'' for the Sony
PlayStation 2 (an aftermarket Ethernet adapter was shipped to support this game).
Every major platform released since the Dreamcast has either been bundled with the ability to support an Internet connection or has had the option available as an aftermarket add-on. Microsoft's Xbox also had its own online service called
Xbox Live. Xbox Live was a huge success and proved to be a driving force for the Xbox with games like ''
Halo 2
''Halo 2'' is a 2004 first-person shooter game developed by Bungie and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox console. ''Halo 2'' is the second installment in the ''Halo'' franchise and the sequel to 2001's critically acclaimed '' ...
'' that were highly popular.
The first major
esports (electronic sports) competitions also began in the 2000s. While ''Street Fighter II'' and other fighting games of the 1990s had introduced organized video game competitions earlier, professional esports emerged from
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
around 2000, with many of their events around current fighting games and various RTS games like ''
StarCraft'' and ''
WarCraft III
''Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos'' is a high fantasy real-time strategy computer video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment released in July 2002. It is the second sequel to ''Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'', after ''Warcraft II: Tides ...
''. By 2010, numerous international esports tournaments had been established across various game genres.
Browser, casual, and social games
![QWOP screenshot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/QWOP_screenshot.jpg)
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Internet accessibility and new online technologies flourished, such as
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
and
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...
. Though Adobe Flash was initially intended to be a tool to develop fully interactive websites, Flash lost favor in this area but individual developers found ways to use the tool for animations and games, aided by the ease of the development tools for this purpose. The website
Newgrounds
Newgrounds is an entertainment website and company founded by Tom Fulp in 1995. It hosts user-generated content such as games, films, audio, and artwork. Fulp produces in-house content at the headquarters and offices in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
...
was created to help people share and promote their Flash works. Though these
Flash games
A browser game or a "flash game" is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer.
Some browser games are also available as mobile apps, PC games, or on ...
lack the complexity of gameplay of games on consoles or computers, they were available for free and sparked creative ideas that would carry forward; for example, ''
Crush the Castle ''Crush the Castle'' is a physical Flash game developed by Armor Games. The Flash version was released on April 28, 2009, and the iPhone and iPod Touch versions were released on January 19, 2010. Notable for its "flinging" game mechanic, which inf ...
'' directly inspired the popular mobile game ''
Angry Birds
''Angry Birds'' is a Finnish action-based media franchise created by Rovio Entertainment. The game series focuses on the eponymous flock of angry birds who try to save their eggs from green-colored pigs. Inspired by the game ''Crush the Castl ...
'', while the founder of Newgrounds, Tom Fulp, teamed with animator
Dan Paladin to create ''
Alien Hominid
''Alien Hominid'' is an independently developed run and gun video game developed by The Behemoth. The game was developed from an Adobe Flash game originally released on Newgrounds in August 2002. O3 Entertainment released the game for PlayStati ...
'' as a Flash game, which they later built upon into the more complete ''
Castle Crashers
''Castle Crashers'' is a 2D side scrolling hack-and-slash video game developed by The Behemoth. It features music created by members of Newgrounds. The Xbox 360 version was released on August 27, 2008, via Xbox Live Arcade as part of the Xbox L ...
'' under the studio The Behemoth.
Flash and other in-browser platforms created a new trend in casual games, with limited complexity and designed for shortened or impromptu play sessions.
Many were puzzle games, such as Beverage can, Popcap's ''Bejeweled'' and PlayFirst's ''Diner Dash'' while others were games with a more relaxed pace and open-ended play. Sites like Kongregate and developers like PopCap, Zynga and King (company), King emerged as leaders in this area.
Casual games also entered into more mainstream computer games with numerous simulation games. The biggest hit was ''
The Sims
''The Sims'' is a series of life simulation game, life simulation video games developed by Maxis and video game publisher, published by Electronic Arts. The franchise has sold nearly 200 million copies worldwide, and it is one of the best-selling ...
'' by
Maxis
Maxis is an American video game developer and a division of Electronic Arts (EA). The studio was founded in 1987 by Will Wright and Jeff Braun, and acquired by EA in 1997. Maxis is best known for its simulation games, including '' The Sims ...
, which went on to become the best selling computer game of all time, surpassing ''Myst''.
As social media sites started to grow, the first social network games emerged on social platforms. These games, often based on casual game mechanics, typically rely on users to interact with their friends via the social media site as to gain a form of "energy" to continue to play. ''Happy Farm'', released in China in 2008, is considered the first such major social game.
Influenced by the History of Eastern role-playing video games, Japanese console RPG series ''Story of Seasons (series), Story of Seasons'',
''Happy Farm'' attracted 23 million daily active users in China.
It soon inspired many clones such as ''Sunshine Farm'', ''Happy Farmer'', ''Happy Fishpond'', ''Happy Pig Farm'',
and Facebook games such as ''FarmVille'', ''FarmVille, Farm Town'', ''Country Story'', ''Barn Buddy'', ''Sunshine Ranch'', ''Happy Harvest'', ''Jungle Extreme'', and ''Farm Villain''.
''Happy Farm'' served as direct inspiration for ''FarmVille'', which had over 80 million active users worldwide by 2010.
Rise of mobile gaming
Separately, gaming on mobile devices had limited success until the mid-2000s. Nokia had installed ''Snake (video game), Snake'' onto its line of mobile phones since the Nokia 6110 in 1997.
Similar manufacturers of phones, personal digital assistants and other devices also included built-in games, but these were designed to pass the time and not engaging. As phone technology improved, a Japanese mobile phone culture grew around 2003 with games ranging from Puzzle video game, puzzle games and Digital pet, virtual pet games that use camera phone and Fingerprint recognition, fingerprint scanner technologies to 3D computer graphics, 3D games with
PlayStation-quality graphics. Older Arcade game, arcade-style games became very popular on mobile phones, which were an ideal platform for arcade-style games designed for shorter play sessions. Namco made attempts to introduce mobile games to Europe in 2003.
Nokio released its N-Gage (device), N-Gage, a hybrid phone/handheld game system, in 2003 but had limited success compared to Nintendo's
Game Boy Advance
The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console developed, manufactured and marketed by Nintendo as the successor to the Game Boy Color. It was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, in North America on June 11, 2001, in the PAL region on June 22, ...
.
Around 2005, the first
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whi ...
s were available on the market, which offered data connectivity alongside phone services. Carriers licensed games to be made available for sale on a storefront, but this did not catch on due to the disparate storefronts and differences between phone models, and the games could not be as sophisticated as on consoles or handhelds due to limited hardware on the smartphones.
In 2007, Apple, Inc. introduced its iPhone which was technologically more advanced than other smartphones on the market, and unveiled its App Store (iOS), App Store in 2008 through which new apps could be purchased. With the App Store, developers, once signed up as a partner, could then develop and publish their own apps through the store. This allowed developers of any size to participate in the App Store marketplace. Google, which developed the competing Android (operating system), Android mobile operating system, released its own version of an app store in 2008, later named as Google Play in 2012.
The use of Apple's and Google's app storefronts for gaming applications quickly took off with early successes like ''Angry Birds (video game), Angry Birds'' and ''Bejeweled''.
When Apple introduced in-app purchases (IAP) in October 2009, a number of developers found ways to monetize their mobile games uniquely compared to traditional games, establishing the
freemium
Freemium, a portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium," is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge, but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical ...
model where a game is usually free to download and play but players are encouraged to speed up their progress through IAPs. Games like ''Candy Crush Saga'' and ''Puzzle & Dragons'', both in 2012, established this approach as highly-profitable business models for mobile games. Many of the social network game developers worked to either integrate a mobile version with their existing version, or completely shift their game to the mobile platform, as mobile gaming became more popular. A further rise in the popularity of mobile games was from China, where most residents do not own computers and where imported consoles were banned by the government starting in 2000, though eventually eased in 2014 and completely lifted in 2015. Instead, most players in China used mobile phones or accessed subscription-based games through PC bang, PC cafes. Mobile games also proved popular and financially-successful there as well, with a ten-fold growth of China's video game market between 2007 and 2013.
Coupled with the growth of mobile games was the introduction of microconsoles, low-cost home consoles that used the Android operating system as to take advantage of the large library of games already made for mobile devices. However, mobile gaming also displaced the handheld console market: both the Nintendo 3DS and the PlayStation Vita (both 2011 releases) had major drops in sales from their predecessors, the
Nintendo DS and
PlayStation Portable respectively (both 2004 releases), following the rapid growth of mobile gaming. Sony has since exited the handheld console arena.
The AAA video game industry and the emergence of indie games
Video games began seeing increasing larger budgets for development entering the 2000s; ''Final Fantasy VII'' had an estimated budget excluding marketing, while the first ''Shenmue'' game was estimated to cost . Larger developers began approaching games comparable to Hollywood filmmaking, not only considering the aspects of development, distribution, and marketing, but incorporating budgets for both in-game cinematography, including professional actors and licensed properties, and larger promotional elements. These new approaches further extended game budgets. Similar to blockbuster (entertainment), blockbuster films, the video game industry began calling these high-budget games and the publishers and developers behind them as "AAA" or "triple A" by the late 1990s and early 2000s.
As a result of the larger budgets and better technology, new narrative-driven games emerged to incorporate larger stories as more direct components of gameplay, such as by eliminating prerendered cut scenes in favor of scenes carried out within the game's engine.
Incorporation of narrative into action games partially led to the waning of the adventure game genre by the early 2000s. Examples of influential games from this period include ''Half-Life 2'', ''Portal (video game), Portal'', ''Batman: Arkham Asylum'', ''BioShock (video game), BioShock'', ''
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty'', and ''Resident Evil 4'',
as well as the first entries in the long-running series ''Call of Duty'' and ''Assassin's Creed''.
![Fez (video game) cover art](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Fez_%28video_game%29_cover_art.png)
Hobbyist and homebrew game development had been in place since the first home computers in the late 1970s and 1980s, with the shift to shareware by individuals and small development teams in the 1990s, but the importance of console gaming and the rise of 3D game technology had made it initially difficult for individual developers to participate competitively in game development. The growth of AAA games with large budgets further made publishers risk-averse to support smaller games with non-standard or more experimental gameplay.
Independent games, or indie games, gained a significant share of the market in the latter half of the 2000s that continued into the 2010s, and generally seen as a result of the industry looking for innovation beyond the safe, non-risky approaches that AAA development had centered on.
Interest in indie games grew out from the booming Flash game industry of the mid-2000s which had drawn attention to individual and small developers normally overlooked by the media.
Further, smaller developers were highlighted by the rapid growth in the mobile game industry, allowed them to complete equally on mobile app stores with larger developers.
Crowdfunding through sites like Kickstarter became a viable pathway for indie developers to gain funding in the late 2000s, explosively growing in popularity into the mid-2010s, while early access distribution, where players purchase a not-yet-final version of a game to help play, test and provide feedback, was successfully demonstrated with ''Minecraft'' in 2009 and used as a model for some indie games since. On personal computers, Valve Corporation, Valve opened up their digital content platform
Steam to allow indie games to be listed alongside triple-A games, and several other similar digital storefronts.
Microsoft launched the Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) in 2004 which they used to publish games for the Xbox and later the Xbox 360 from smaller publishers and independent teams. Sony and Nintendo followed suit with similar indie game publishing programs in the early 2010s.
Several indie games gained the media spotlight in this period, including ''Super Meat Boy'', ''Fez (video game), Fez'', and ''Braid (video game), Braid''.
2010s
In the 2010s, the traditional model of racing to a five-year console life cycle was reduced. Reasons included the challenge and massive expense of creating consoles that were graphically superior to the then-current generation, with Sony and Microsoft still looking to recoup development costs on their current consoles and the failure of content creation tools to keep up with the increased demands placed upon the people creating the games.
On June 14, 2010, during E3, Microsoft revealed its new Xbox 360 S or Slim. It is smaller and quieter, with a 250GB hard drive and 802.11n WiFi.
It started shipping to US stores the same day, and in Europe on July 13.
The OnLive cloud-based gaming system is one of the first cloud gaming services.
High-definition graphics in video game hardware
Cathode ray tube-based display units had begun to phase out in the 2000s, replaced by inexpensive Flat-panel display, flat-screen televisions and monitors which had far higher screen resolution and refresh rates. Video game hardware began introducing support for the new HDMI, High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) standard, allowing for resolutions up to 4K resolution, 4K (3840 × 2160 pixels), which itself stressed the need for more powerful GPU cards with faster processors and larger memory. Game engines such as Unreal, Unity, and DirectX added support for improved texture mapping to support high-resolution textures to give photorealistic graphics in games.
![Xbox-One-Kinect](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Xbox-One-Kinect.jpg)
Microsoft and Sony both released their next console generations, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, in 2013. Both expanded on features from their previous consoles with the added support for high-resolution graphics, and more support for digital distribution of content with additional storage space. The Xbox One had an initial flubbed launch, as Microsoft wanted to require users to be always connected to the Internet, along with persistent use of the Kinect motion sensor, which in turn would have given certain benefits to players. However, these decisions were met with negative feedback in the months prior to release over their privacy concerns, and Microsoft revamped their policies. The Kinect, though initially bundled with the Xbox One, was made optional, and a year after launch, Microsoft opted to end Kinect's production for the Xbox One.
Nintendo still kept to its own path. The company decided that the Wii may have lost a portion of core gamers and developed the Wii U to draw this group back in. The Wii U, released in 2012, included a tablet-like Wii U GamePad that included controls and a touchscreen display that acted as a second screen during gameplay, along with support for Wii Remote controllers, and included backward compatibility with Wii games. The Wii U was a commercial failure for Nintendo following the Wii; while the Wii had sold more than 100 million units, the Wii U only sold about 13 million in its lifetime. Nintendo attributed this to both the marketing of the Wii U which failed to make clear the purpose of the GamePad and which made consumers believe it was just another tablet system, and to the lack of third-party support on the console which dropped off quickly once initial console sale numbers were obtained. and marketing reasons.
![Nintendo-Switch-wJoyCons-BlRd-Standing-FL](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Nintendo-Switch-wJoyCons-BlRd-Standing-FL.jpg)
Nintendo had already been working on its next console once the Wii U had been released, but pushed ahead as to get another console to release sooner to financially recover from the Wii U. Again, staying with their past blue ocean strategy to focus on innovation rather than technical superiority of their competitors, Nintendo released the
Nintendo Switch
The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...
in 2017, one of the first hybrid consoles, with the ability to be played as a handheld device but also can be placed into a docking station connected to a television and played like a home console. The Switch uses detachable Joy-Con which function as both regular controllers and as motion-sensing devices like the Wii Remote. Alongside the Switch, Nintendo sought out third-party support for the console from both triple-A studios and indie developers. The Switch proved to be very successful, as of 2022, it is Nintendo's best-selling home console, succeeding the Wii, and helped Nintendo regain position in the hardware market.
The handheld market began to wane in the 2010s as mobile gaming supplanted it. Nintendo continued to refine the DS line; it released the Nintendo 3DS in 2011, which included a screen with a autostereoscopic display as to create a 3D effect without the need for special glasses. Sony released the PlayStation Vita in 2012 as a successor to the PSP, which included a front touch screen and a back-facing touchpad in addition to existing control. The Vita failed to gain a significant market share, and after Sony discontinued the product, have stated they have no plans for further handheld systems. Nintendo, on the other hand, released a modified version of the Switch, the Nintendo Switch Lite, in 2019. The Switch Lite a lower-cost version that directly integrates the Joy-Con into the unit and removes other features, as to create a device that supports handheld gameplay directly, but otherwise fully compatible with the existing Switch library.
In personal computers, the graphics card market centered on the progress made by industry leaders NVidia and AMD, who also supplied GPUs for the new consoles. Starting in the late 2010s, the power of these GPU cards were being used by cryptocurrency "miners", as they were comparatively lower cost than other computing hardware for the same purposes, and created a run on GPU cards that inflated prices and card shortages over extended periods. Solid state drives (SSDs), which had been used for Flash cartridge, flash card storage for video game consoles in the past, had advanced far enough to become consumer options for large volume storage. Compared to the traditional hard disk drive (HDD) which used electromechanical parts, SSD drives have no mechanical componentry and are capable of much higher data throughput, which made them popular options for computers designed for video games.
Further advancements in online gaming: Cross-platform play and cloud gaming
Until the 2010s, online play for most platforms were limited to players on that same platform, though some games such as ''Final Fantasy XI'' had experimented with limited models. As new gaming consoles converged in design to personal computers and with common middleware libraries, it became technically feasible to allow for cross-platform play between different platforms, but business objectives by Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony, looking to maintain control on their online services, initially rejected this, most notably by Sony who had stated they wanted to maintain a family-friendly environment for its online services.
Epic Games' ''Fortnite Battle Royale'' first released in 2017 proved an instrumental driver on cross-platform play. ''Fortnite'' had quickly gained popularity in its first few months of release, and Epic had been able to prove the ease which cross-platform play could be implemented between the Xbox, Windows, and mobile platforms with its backend libraries. Nintendo followed by allowing cross-play on the Switch, and eventually, by 2018 Sony agreed to allow selected games such as ''Fortnite'' to have cross-platform play. Since then, numerous games have gained or were released with cross-platform play support across consoles, computers, and mobile devices.
The first cloud gaming services emerged in 2009. These services allowed players to play games where the processing power was performed on a computer system at a hosted location, while the game's output and player's input were sent to that system over the Internet, using the power of cloud computing. This eliminated the need for a costly console or dedicated gaming computer for players. Early services like OnLive and Gaikai showed that cloud gaming was possible but was very much tied to the player's Network delay, latency, as a slow network could easily stall the game's performance.
Cloud gaming became more refined in the 2010s as total network capacity around the world increased with higher bandwidths made available to consumers, in addition to new technologies to try to overcome the latency issue. Sony acquired both OnLive and Gaikai in the mid-2010s, and used the former as the basis for its PlayStation Now cloud gaming service, allowing players to play older PlayStation games on newer consoles. Other players in the cloud gaming arena that emerged in this period include NVidia's GeForce Now, Microsoft's Xbox Cloud Gaming, xCloud, Google's Google Stadia, Stadia, and Amazon Luna.
New revenue models for video games
With game development budgets for triple-A games growing larger, developers and publishers looked for ways to gain additional revenue for games beyond the first sale of the game. Multiple factors from the prior decade including the growth of the mobile game market and the introduction of in-app purchases, subscription-based games such as MMOs, and the digital distribution market, led to new avenues for recurring revenue by treating games as a service (GaaS).
Larger expansions and downloadable content had existed prior to the mid-2000s, and players had become accustomed to the subscription-based model for MMOs by that point. Microsoft enabled developers to offer microtransactions, content sold at a small price point typically under , for their games on the Xbox 360 around 2005, with one of the most well-known examples being a horse armor package for ''The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion'' in 2006. While mostly a cosmetic item in the game, the armor pack was one of the most popular items sold in for ''Oblivion'' by 2009, and cemented the idea of microtransactions.
![Electronic Arts 2020](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Electronic_Arts_2020.svg)
Games that followed ''Oblivion'' found ways to include additional microtransaction content to games to extend per-game earnings.
Publishers that produced games with online content created special online passes, such as Electronic Arts' "Project Ten Dollar", which required purchase to gain access to online features; this was also intended to stall secondary sales of games. This approach was heavily criticized by consumers and players, and abandoned by 2013. Instead publishers offered the season pass (video games), season pass model, first appearing in games like ''L.A. Noire'' and ''Mortal Kombat (2011 video game), Mortal Kombat''. Without a season pass, players would still have access to all fundamental features of a game including online play, but the season pass gave access to all planned expanded content for single player modes and new characters or items and cosmetics for online modes, all planned to be released typically within a year's period, typically at a discount compared to purchasing each individually. A game could thus offer repeating season passes year after year and generate revenue this way.
A related concept to the season pass is the battle pass, first introduced in ''Dota 2''. Within a battle pass are a number of in-game items that a player can earn at various levels of the battle pass, but requires them to complete in-game challenges as to earn the levels within the pass. Some battle passes include a free tier of items but most incorporate a tier that requires purchase of the pass. Battle passes can be cycled like season passes, offering a fresh set of items with new challenges on a regular basis, and supply recurring revenue for a game.
From mobile and free-to-play games, gacha game, ''gacha'' games had grown popular in Japan by the early 2010s, based on the Gashapon, capsule toy vending machine concept, with the earliest known system being in ''MapleStory''. In-game, players would earn currency that they could use to earn a random draw from a set of items based on a preset rarities, often with the goal to collect all of a one set of items to gain a powerful in-game reward. While players could earn more currency through in-game actions, typically by grinding (video games), grinding, they could also can currency by spending real-world funds into the game. The ''gacha'' concept expanded out into loot boxes through the Chinese game ''ZT Online'', and in Western games like ''FIFA 09'' and ''Team Fortress 2'' in the early 2010s; players would earn loot boxes through in-game actions, or which could be purchased through real-world funds, and when opened would contain a variety of items, randomly selected based on rarity. By 2016, numerous high-profile games had included loot box mechanics, but this drew attention of world governments and policy makers, fearing that loot boxes were too similar to gambling, since real-world money could be used to purchase them. Since many of these video games were being aimed at minors, some countries had passed laws banning or restricting games with loot box mechanics due to their gambling nature. Coupled with poor implementation of loot box mechanics in ''Star Wars Battlefront II (2017 video game), Star Wars Battlefront II'' and Electronic Arts's ''FIFA'' Ultimate Team game mode, loot box mechanics began to lose favor with consumers by the end of the 2010s.
China's impact in monetization played a key role during this period, which exceeded over 500 million players by the mid-2010s. While the console ban had been lifted, China's government still required that imported hardware be sold through Chinese companies, and requires Chinese operators to manage online games as to uphold the country's laws on censorship and gameplay limitations for minors. Chinese companies that were already publishing games within the country began to make partnerships or other arrangements with foreign firms to help bring their games and hardware into the company through the complex approvals process. Such companies include NetEase and Perfect World (company), Perfect World, but the largest mover had been Tencent, which made numerous investments into foreign firms over the 2010s, which included full acquisition of Riot Games and partial ownership of Supercell and
Epic Games, as well as minority stake in publishers
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', ...
, Activision Blizzard and Paradox Interactive. In exchange, Tencent had helped these companies refine their monetization approaches using their past experience with their own games.
Mixed, virtual and augmented reality games
![Oculus-Rift-CV1-Headset-Front_with_transparent_background](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Oculus-Rift-CV1-Headset-Front_with_transparent_background.png)
Virtual reality (VR) systems for video games had long been seen as a target for VR technology and had been in development as early as the 1990s, but had been hampered by their high cost and impractical for consumer sales. One of the initial attempts, Nintendo's Virtual Boy in 1996, used a monochromatic Stereoscopy, stereoscopic display to simulate 3D, but the unit was impractical and failed to gain developers, leading it to be a commercial failure for Nintendo. Breakthroughs in consumer-ready VR hardware came in the early 2010s with the development of the Oculus Rift by Palmer Luckey. The Rift was demonstrated at trade shows in 2013, and proved popular enough to lead Facebook to purchase the company and technology for in 2014. Shortly afterward, Valve and HTC announced the HTC Vive, first released in 2015, while Sony released its PlayStation VR in 2016. Valve later developed its own VR hardware line, the Valve Index, released in 2019. While numerous VR games took advantage of VR effectively over "flat-screen" games (those lacking VR capabilities) for immersive experience, VR's "killer app" came by way of ''Half-Life: Alyx'', released by Valve in 2020. ''Half-Life: Alyx'' brought several new ideas for integrating first-person shooter gaming into a VR app, and spurred sales of the Index.
Augmented reality (AR) games, where the game takes a real-time video game image and renders additional graphics atop it, had also existed before the 2010s. Some PlayStation console games used the EyeToy, PlayStation Eye, or PlayStation Camera as part of the gameplay, as well as
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...
and Xbox One games using the Kinect. Most of the games were more experimental since cameras were fixed and limited what interactions could be made. As handheld consoles including the PSP and the Nintendo DS line, and mobile phones incorporated video camera capabilities, new AR possibilities opened up on portable devices. Initial games were still more experimental and toys without comprehensive gameplay loops. AR-based games took off with the release of ''Pokémon Go'' in 2016, which combined AR with location-based games. Players would use their mobile device to guide them to where a virtual Pokémon may be found, which they searched for and attempted to capture using AR atop their device's camera.
2020s
Ray-tracing and photorealistic graphics
NVidia and AMD introduced graphics cards in 2020 with hardware support for real-time ray tracing (graphics), ray tracing, which was also a major component introduced with Microsoft and Sony's next consoles, the Xbox Series X and Series S, Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, both released in November 2020. Significant improvements in technology also furthered the ability to display highly detailed textures, allowing for photorealism in rendered video game scenes at high resolutions and high frame rates. These changes necessitated larger storage space for texture memory on the hardware and greater bandwidth between the storage memory and graphic processor. Both new consoles included specialized SSD options designed to provide high-bandwidth storage options, which had the added benefit of virtually eliminating loading times in many games particular those featuring in-game streaming for open world games.
The metaverse, blockchain and NFT games, and video game acquisitions
Moving into the 2020s, the concept of the metaverse grew in popularity. Similar in nature to the social spaces of ''
Second Life
''Second Life'' is an online multimedia platform that allows people to create an avatar for themselves and then interact with other users and user created content within a multi player online virtual world. Developed and owned by the San Fra ...
'', the concept of a metaverse is based on using more advanced technology like virtual and augmented reality to create immersive worlds that not only can be used for social and entertainment functions but as well as for personal and business purposes, giving the user the ability to earn from participation in the metaverse. ''Roblox'' is a more recent example of an open world game that allows players to build their own creations within game with the potential to earn money from these creations.
The metaverse in the early 2020s was not yet well defined but those developing the nascent technologies recognized that a financial system would be tied to these systems. Avoiding the pitfalls of prior game currency systems, the development of cryptocurrency-based games and systems that used decentralized blockchain technologies started to grow in popularity. These blockchain games were frequently based on the trading of non-fungible tokens that players created and improved through the game, mimicking how metaverse content would function. Some video game companies have expressed strong support for using blockchain and NFTs in their games, such as
Ubisoft
Ubisoft Entertainment SA (; ; formerly Ubi Soft Entertainment SA) is a French video game publisher headquartered in Saint-Mandé with development studios across the world. Its video game franchises include '' Assassin's Creed'', ''Far Cry'', ...
, but there has been generally negative feedback from players and game developers that consider cryptocurrency and NFT a scam.
Regardless of these developments, interest in the metaverse had led to a large number of major acquisitions in the video game industry at the start of the 2020s as large publishers gathered more studios and other publishers within their folds as to be able to offer their properties within the parent's version of the metaverse, diversify their offerings, and preparate for futures where gaming platforms shift away from traditional systems. Tencent, Tencent Holdings has gained stake in numerous video game developers since the 2010s, including full ownership of Riot Games and minority ownership of
Epic Games. Epic Games themselves have also used Tencent's investment and further funding to acquire numerous additional video game developers and middleware developers in the 2020s as part its goal to build out its version of the metaverse using its
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter game '' Unreal''. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of g ...
. Embracer Group also launched a large series of acquisitions leading into the 2020s as to broaden its portfolio, including Gearbox Software. Other major acquisitions in the 2020s in support of the metaverse includes Take-Two Interactive's purchase of mobile game publisher Zynga, Sony Interactive Entertainment purchase of developer Bungie for supporting live-service games, and Microsoft's purchases of ZeniMax Media (including Bethesda Softworks) and Activision-Blizzard.
See also
* Chronology of real-time strategy video games
* Chronology of real-time tactics video games
* Game On (exhibition)
* International Center for the History of Electronic Games
References
Further reading
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* Day, Walter.
The Golden Age of Video Game Arcades' (1998) – A 200-page story contained within ''Twin Galaxies' Official Video Game & Pinball Book of World Records''.
* ''Video Game Invasion: The History of a Global Obsession'' (2004) (Documentary
Press ReleaseIMDb
External links
*
Brief history of Video Gaming University of Nevada
* [https://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/ ''The Video Game Revolution''] (2004) is a documentary from PBS that examines the evolution and history of the video game industry, from the 1950s through today, the impact of video games on society and culture, and the future of electronic gaming.
{{History of Video Games
History of video games,
History of computing, Video games