Chapter 1.

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A Brief History of Video Games

(Note the use of the term "video"

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Tennis for Two
The First Video Games
 Steve Russell and Spacewar
 Created in 1961 at MIT for the DEC PDP-1
computer
 Hugely popular within MIT
 Required prohibitively expensive equipment
 Eventually shipped as a diagnostic program with
PDP-1s

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Spacewar
Games for the Masses
 The Advent of Home Video Games: Ralph
Baer and the Magnavox Odyssey
 1966, initial idea for a game machine that
would work on home TVs
 Created a shooting game and ice hockey game
 Sold to Magnavox in 1972

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Magnavox Odyssey
Games for the Masses
 Breaking Into the Amusement Business:
Nolan Bushnell and Atari
 Engineering major at the University of Utah
 Background in coin-operated amusement devices
 Tried to bring Spacewar to arcades as Computer
War

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Games for the Masses
 Bringing Games to the Masses
 Atari founded by Nolan Bushnell in 1972
 Brought Pong to arcades
 Sued by Baer and Magnavox
 Paid a one-time license fee of $700,000

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Pong & Space War
 Console Kings
(Past, Present Future)
The Console Kings
 Atari and the 2600
 Released October, 1977
 Not quite the first
cartridge-based home
system
 Open architecture allowed
easy development
 First to introduce
licensing of a system

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The Console Kings
 Video Game Crash of 1983
 Factors leading to the crash
 Poor economy
 Natural market cycle
 Video games perceived as fad
 Glut of poor 2600 games
 Introduction of home computers

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The Console Kings
 Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto
 Released Donkey Kong arcade machine in 1981
 Released Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985
 By late 80’s Nintendo owned 90% of the market

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The Console Kings
 Sega
 Created in 1952 in Japan to sell amusement
games on US army bases
 Released the popular Sega Genesis in 1990
 Final console was 1999’s Sega Dreamcast
 Now dedicated to software

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Sega (in memoriam)
The Console Kings
 Sony’s PlayStation
 Created out of an aborted attempt to launch a CD-
ROM based system with Nintendo
 Released PlayStation in 1994
 PlayStation 2 (2000), backwards compatibility with
hugely popular PS1
 PSP handheld, Wi

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The Console Kings
 Microsoft and the Xbox
 Xbox released in 2001, Xbox 360 2005
 Based on a PC-like architecture
 Significant money lost on each console sold
 Halo became the reason to own the system.

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 Home Computers?
Who can afford $12,000?
Home Computers
 Apple Computer
 Founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Mike
Markkula in 1976
 Apple II was released in 1977
 Revolutionized the home computer market
 Why? Complete System & Low Cost (48K $2,638.00
$1,938.00 board only).

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Home Computers
 Commodore
 Commodore Vic-20 Released in 1981
 Low price and shrewd marketing lead to success
 Commodore 64, released in 1982, became the
best selling computer in history

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Home Computers
 IBM
 IBM PC introduced in 1981
 Moderate pricing helped it gain a foothold in the
business world
 BIOS licensing model backfired on them, allowing
cheap clones to enter the market

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Famous Games & Designers
The Designers
 Maxis and Will Wright
 SimCity released in 1989
 Sid Meier
 Concentrated on strategic simulations
 Pirates! (1987) Railroad Tycoon and Civilization
 Sierra and Ken and Roberta Williams
 Created first graphical adventure game, Mystery
House in 1980
 King’s Quest series, Police Quest series, and
Leisure Suit Larry series, Published Half-Life
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The Designers
 Origin Systems and Richard Garriott
 Created the Ultima series and Ultima Online, one
of the first MMORPG (tanked in 2000)
 Origin & Chris Roberts
 CreatedWing Commander
 One of the more popular starfighter games
 Known for epic storylines and full-motion video
 Spawned a 1999 movie, directed by Roberts

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 "You never played
__________ ?
Where've you been?"
 The Phenomenons

 Space Invaders
 Introduced to the US in
1978
 First big Japanese success
 Introduced the “High
Score” list to video games

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 The Phenomenons
 Pac-Man
 American debut in 1981
 Attempt to create a completely non-violent game
 Generated $100 million in sales during its lifetime
 Tetris
 Russian programmer Alexy Pajitnov in 1985
 Became a pop culture sensation
 Helped drive the success of
Nintendo’s Game Boy

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The Phenomenons
 Capcom (1979) Resident Evil
 Also created Street Fighter, Mega Man
 Resident Evil has spawned 15 variations and
sequels as well as two Hollywood movies
 Square and Final Fantasy
 In 1987 released Final Fantasy as a last-ditch
effort to stave off bankruptcy
 15 games have been released since then, selling
more than 40 million copies (and a movie)

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The Phenomenons
 Cyan and Myst
 Created by Rand and Robyn Miller
 Released in 1993 on the Apple Macintosh
 Helped popularize the CD-ROM drive

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The Phenomenons
 Pokémon
 Created by Japanese video game enthusiast
Satoshi Tajiri
 Pokémon Red and Green released for Nintendo
Game Boy in 1996
 Movies, TV series and multiple sequels have
followed

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"We're looking for a few
good programmers"
The Studios
 Activision and Infocom (& Blizzard)
 Founded by former Atari programmers
 Lawsuit by Atari created “royalties” system still
employed today
 Merged with Infocom and gutted it
 Still a strong player today

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The Studios
 Electronic Arts
 Created by Trip Hawkins in 1982
 Revolutionary business plan did three things
 Creative talent treated like artists
 Creation of in-house tools to aid cross-platform
development
 Handle own distribution

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The Studios
 Interplay
 Formed in 1983
 First big hit was The Bard’s Tale in 1985
 Famous for their CRPGs, including Wasteland,
Fallout, Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows
of Amn
 Currently bankrupt.

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The Studios
 LucasArts
 Formed in 1982 (offshoot of LucasFilm Ltd).
 Released Maniac Mansion in 1987
 Created strong history of adventure games and
Star Wars universe games

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The Studios
 Blizzard (subsidiary of Activision 2007)
 1991 by Frank Morhaime, Allen Adham, and Frank
Pearce.
 Released one of the seminal Real-Time Strategy
games, Warcraft, in 1994
 World of Warcraft (MMORPG), became the fastest
selling PC game in history

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The Studios
 id Software
 Formed on February 1, 1991
 Utilized Apogee’s shareware formula
 Created the defining first-person shooter with
DOOM

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Top Studios 2009 (GD)
Rank (2009) Publisher
1 Nintendo
2 EA
3 Activision/Blizzard
4 Ubisoft
5 Take-Two Interactive
6 Sony Interactive
7 Bethesda
8 THQ
9 Square Enix
10 Microsoft
11 Konami
12 Sega
13 Capcom
14 MTV Games
15 Namco Bandai
16 Warner Bros. Interactive
17 Disney Interactive
18 Atari
19 Atlus
20 LucasArts

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Genres
 Can be thought of in “historical” terms
 We will consider them in Design terminology
and discuss them next week.

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Modern Trends
 Casual Gamers?
 Controls and Interfaces
 On-line Content (downloads)
 Return of shareware (content charging)
 On-line Identities & Communities
 Game economies
 Multimedia PC's vs. Multimedia Consoles
 Mobile Gaming
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The End