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Edward U. Condon designs computer game
for the Westinghouse display at the World’s Fair that plays the traditional game Nim in which players try to avoid picking up the last match. Tens of thousands of people play it, and the computer wins at least 90% of the games. -
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Video Game History
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Firing a gun at a target
Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann file a patent for a "cathode ray tube amusement device." Their game, which uses a cathode ray tube hooked to an oscilloscope display. -
Programming a computer to play chess
Claude Shannon lays out the basic guidelines for programming a chess-playing computer in an article, That same year both he and Englishman Alan Turing create chess programs. -
Hutspiel
The long tradition of military wargaming enters the computer age when the U.S. military designs Hutspiel, in which Red and Blue players (representing NATO and Soviet commanders) wage war. -
Mouse in the Maze
Students at MIT create Mouse in the Maze on MIT's TX-0 computer. Users first draw a maze with a light pen, then a mouse navigates the labyrinth searching for cheese. In a revised version, a bibulous mouse seeks out martinis yet still somehow remembers the path it took. -
Spacewar!
MIT student Steve Russell invents Spacewar!, the first computer-based video game. Over the following decade, the game spreads to computers across the country. -
Television and Video Games
While waiting for a colleague at a New York City bus station, Ralph Baer conceives the idea of playing a video game on television. On September 1, he writes down his ideas that become the basis of his development of television video games. -
Pong
Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn of Atari develop an arcade table tennis game. When they test it in Andy Capps Tavern in Sunnyvale, California, it stops working. Why? Because people played it so much it jammed with quarters. Pong, an arcade legend, is born. -
Adventure
Don Woods's version of the pioneering text-based game, Adventure (first created by William Crowther in 1975), plunges players into an imaginary world of caves with treasures. Inspired by Dungeons and Dragons, it paves the way for Zork and thousands of other computer role-playing games. -
Space Invaders
Taito’s Space Invaders descends on Japan, causing a shortage of 100-yen coins. Within a year, 60,000 Space Invaders machines in the United States tempt Americans to spend millions of quarters driving back the seemingly unstoppable ranks of attacking aliens. -
Pac-Man
A missing slice of pizza inspires Namco's Toru Iwatani to create Pac-Man, which goes on sale in July 1980. That year a version of Pac-Man for Atari 2600 becomes the first arcade hit to appear on a home console. Two years later, Ms. Pac-Man strikes a blow for gender equality by becoming the best-selling arcade game of all time. -
Tetris
Russian mathematician Alexey Pajitnov creates Tetris, a simple but addictive puzzle game. The game leaks out from behind the Iron Curtain, and four years later, Nintendo bundles it with every new Game Boy. -
Gameboy
Nintendo's Game Boy popularizes handheld gaming. Game Boy is not the first handheld system with interchangeable cartridges—Milton Bradley introduced Microvision 10 years earlier—but it charms users with its good game play, ease of use, and long battery life. -
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sega needs an iconic hero for its Genesis (known as Mega Drive in Japan) system and finds it in Sonic the Hedgehog. Gamers, especially in the United States, snap up Sega systems and love the little blue guy's blazing speed and edgy attitude. -
Tomb Raider
Lara Croft debuts as the star of Eidos's adventure game Tomb Raider. Players love her, but critics charge that she's an example of sexism in video games. -
The Sims
Will Wright's The Sims models real life. It is not the first simulation game—Utopia on Intellivision (1982), Peter Molyneaux's Populous (1989), Sid Meier's Civilization (1991), and Wright's own SimCity (1989) preceded it—but it becomes the best-selling computer game ever and the most popular game with female players. -
X-box
Microsoft enters the video game market with Xbox and hit games like Halo: Combat Evolved. Four years later, Xbox 360 gains millions of fans with its advanced graphics and seamless online play. -
Nintendo DS
Nintendo maintains its dominance of the handheld market with the Nintendo DS, an easy-to-use, portable gaming system packed with two processors, two screens, multiplayer capabilities, and a stylus for the touchscreen. Great games like Super Mario Kart DS helped too. -
Nintendo Wii
Nintendo Wii gets gamers off the couch and moving with innovative, motion-sensitive remotes. Not only does Nintendo make gaming more active, it also appeals to millions of people who never before liked video games. -
World of Warcraft
More than 10 million worldwide subscribers make World of Warcraft the most popular massively multiplayer online (MMO) game. MMOs create entire virtual universes for players and redefine how we play, learn, and relate to each other. -
Minecraft
The indie game movement comes of age with the tremendous popularity of Minecraft, the addictive brick-building game from Swedish developer Markus Persson. -
Skyrim
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim showcases the beauty, majesty, and massiveness of video games as players explore a seemingly endless, beautifully rendered fantasy world.