1980's - 1990's

From Pac-Man to "sufficient enough library so that choosing the appropriate game is impossible": 1980's to 1990's in gaming.

1980 was the time of many games that introduced something new, innovative into games. One example would be "PAC-MAN" . It was so innovative not only because it was the first time gaming has seen a antagonist in a game, but also because it tried to engage the female side of the population a bit more into gaming. In effect the game was such a massive success that it was documented in the Guinness's World Records book as being the best selling game of all times.

Nintendomination begins

At the same time in 1983 Atari was not doing so well. After their initial success with "PONG" the company started to take their success for granted and fell under the impression that anything they release will be a success as was proven wrong by "ET" that metaphorically sealed the deal and made Atari go bankrupt. However it has to be noted that their failure could also be directly correlated with the rapid influx of below-average-effort games all trying to make money on the market which consequently led to the video gaming market crash. It could be argued that if Nintendo has not stepped up the industry would die before it could gain momentum however, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto saved the day with his massive hit game "Donkey Kong" which introduced a simple yet enjoyable story of princess being kidnapped by an ape and that it was your task to save her. The game become so popular that Miyamoto was "forced" to make more games which resulted in us being able to play well established franchises like "Donkey Kong" series, the various Mario titles and well known RPG precursor with a confusing timeline, "The Legend of Zelda" series.

Can't say I had one of those

Looking at how prominent PC gaming is nowadays it is only logical to assume that this was the case also in the early days. However, that was not the case. By the time that consoles have scored quite a few good titles previously mentioned, PC games were scarcer and different in nature as instead of demanding reflexes from the player, they demanded patience just like Mystery House from 1980. However to say that PC gaming was inferior to consoles would be an overstatement as, when looking at PC library after simple graphics could be bettered, the amount of quality games went through the roof spawning titles like Warcraft, Half Life, Fallout or Diablo.

The 80's and the 90's were an unstable period. It was a time when the best but also the worst games were produced and played. Two different "camps" originated: PC vs consoles, however I think it is unfair to compare those two means of playing video gaming as they were original in their own way and the demands of the game were completely different depending on the platform.

References:
http://acidcow.com/pics/17659-games-102-pics.html
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/history.jsp
http://www.neatorama.com/2008/05/05/the-rise-and-fall-of-atari/#!oNKly
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134790/the_secret_history_of_donkey_kong.php?print=1
http://www.fastcocreate.com/1683023/how-pac-man-changed-games-and-culture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03P_tSWJIpE