1950's - 1970's

FROM MAGNAVOX ODYSSEY TO SPACE INVADERS: 1950's-1970's IN GAMING

Creators Alan Kotok, Steve Russell and J.M. Graetz play a game of Spacewar

Even though the title implies that Magnavox Odyssey was where it all began, in actuality it was only the first accessible set of video games that could be played at home and not only somewhere in a lab. In reality there was a few games created before the console has seen the daylight but because they were not played by anyone but its creators and few people that got to work with military electronics, I personally don't consider them as starting points in video game history. Cold War was the era which, ironically, gave birth to one of the biggest entertainment means currently present in the world - video gaming, thanks to extensive research into computers funded by the military. In 1958 William Higinbotham, an American physicist has created the first analog game called "Tennis for Two", by using an oscilloscope to manually control a ball between two screens hence emulating tennis. Not late after him came Steve Russell which created "Spacewar" in 1962 which, just like the previous game, was really simple as it involved controllable spaceships that 2 players could fire photon torpedoes at one another. It is vital for us not to omit the fact that those games were not made for marketing purposes or were not made for the purposes that video games are made now, but were simply thought about to create some kind of release and provide entertainment for computer scientists that were fascinated by the machinery they got to work with and wanted to experiment with it, aside from all the serious projects they were working on.

Pong Arcade

It is a common perception that Noel Bushnell is the father of video games, the person that made games accessible, however Ralph Baer preceded him with his "Brown Box" in 1967. On the other hand it can be easily understood, when looking at the fact that despite its initial success, the marketing was poorly executed and over time the console didn't fare that well, which also meant that it was a bit a one-off idea. More significant in the field of video games was previously mentioned Noel Bushnell and Atari which he started in 1972, as he was the first person who managed to use video games to make money and produce them on a worldwide scale. Atari's first massive success was the game "PONG", made in the same year, which after testing, turned out to be very popular and went on to be a standard in every social gathering place (bars, restaurants, pubs etc) that could afford it. In essence, it was an extremely simple game which required the player to move a block up or down in order to reflect the ball to the opponent but arguably its massive success can be attributed to the fact that 1) it was another means of people challenging each other, 2) when looking at women and men specifically and the time period in which women sought empowerment, PONG became a way for women to prove to the society that they are not inferior to men as they could play the game just as good or sometimes even better than men.

Space Invaders

At the same time, Japan decided to catch up with the West with the release of "Space Invaders" in 1978. Who here has not played Space Invaders at least once at some point in their life? That's right, everyone has. In Japan, the game was a massive success. In fact, so many people played it, that according to some stories, the country was running low on 100-yen coins at some point. In my next post I will be discussing how the 80's have marked the birth of the first protagonist in video gaming and how video gaming has developed well into the 90's.





Sources:
http://www.egmnow.com/sitepos/featured/egm-featuretop-5-most-influential-japanese-games-ever%E2%80%94day-1/#
http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=ConsoleMuseum.Detail&id=1&game=12
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u3Hc13wzHE
http://www.landley.net/history/mirror/atari/museum/Atari-Timeline.html
http://thedoteaters.com/?bitstory=spacewar