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The First Video Game, Nim
For a display at the New York World's Fair, American Physicist, Edward U. Condon designed a computer that plays Nim. In the game, players would use strategic thinking and take turns removing matchsticks until only one was left for the loser to pick up. Computers programmed to do something like this had not been seen until the World's Fair. -
Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device
Considered one of the earliest known video games, the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device uses analog circuitry and a cathode ray tube. it was created by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. The player would face a screen and use a control knob to position the crt beam on the screen, that simulated a missile. You would line the beam up with a target and fire at it within a certain time span, simulating an explosion. -
OXO
Known as noughts and crosses in United Kingdom and tic-tac-toe on America, OXO was created by A.S. Douglas. He created it on Cambridge's EDSAC computer as part of his research on the interaction between humans and computers. This was the first graphical video game. -
Tennis for Two
In 1958, Willy Higinbotham created a game called Tennis for Two on a oscilloscope and an analog computer for a public demonstration at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Two people would play the game using hand controllers to control the movements. The game was dismantled two years later and mainly forgotten about. -
Spacewar!
Created in 1962 by MIT student Steve Russel, Spacewar! is the first computer based video game. It is a space combat video game that has two spaceships that are controlled by players in an attempt to shoot each other. After the creation of the game, it spread to computers everywhere. -
Video Games on Television
While at a bus station in New York City, Ralph Baer comes up with the idea of video games on television. He writes down his ideas and this begins the idea. In 1968 he patents his idea of an interactive television game. -
Pong
Based on the idea of Tennis for Two, Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn from Atari develop an arcade tennis game. Pong is known as one of the earliest arcade games. When the creators went to test the game where they had put it, in Andy Capps Tavern in California, the game did not work because it had jammed with quarters from people playing it too much. -
Atari 2600
In 1977, the company Atari released the Video Computer System known as the Atari 2600. The system featured joysticks, interchangeable cartridges, color games and switches that control the difficultly level and selecting games. This was the start of at home video game playing. -
Space Invaders
Created by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978, Space Invaders is a game where the goal is to defeat waves of aliens with a laser to earn points. It was created and released in Japan initially, but soon came to the United States where Americans spent millions of coins on it. This game inspired many others and was even re-released a few times. -
Pac-man
This game was created by Japanese video game designer Toru Iwatani and released in Japan in May of 1980. This game was released at a time where space shooting ships were popular and Pac-man succeeded because it created a new genre. Soon after its release as an arcade game, Atari made a version for the Atari 2600. -
The Game Boy
The game boy is a handheld gaming device created by Nintendo and released in 1898 for everyone to use. This was not the first handheld gaming device, but it was the most popular at the time.They released new versions of this device almost ten years later and continued to do so. -
Rating System
After the creation of violent video games such as Mortal Combat, the United States Senate met to discuss video game violence. The video game industry was prompted to create a video game rating system. Every game was given a rating based on the amount of violence in the game. -
PlayStation
PlayStation is a home video game that was created by Sony in competition with Sega Saturn. The PlayStation sold for $100 less and a year later Nintendo released a new console a year later, further weakening Sega. 5 years later a second PlayStation was released marking it as the main home video game console. -
X-Box
Microsoft enters the video game market in 2001 with the creation of the X-Box. Along with releasing the console, they released new games made just for X-Box. Four years later the X-Box 360, a better version of the original, was released. -
Steam
With the release of all these new video games, the people needed somewhere to keep them all. Based on that need, Valve releases Steam for PC gaming, a place to store and update all your games. Every kid that uses a PC to play video games has a Steam account.
