Before, Now and Then: Gaming Technology
The well-known Cathode-Ray Tube thing is not only a boring chemistry experiment, that thing is the ancestor of modern video games; first interactive electronic game; “Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device” got invented by Thomas T. Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann in 1947. We all know those 2D Spaceship games where you shoot aliens coming towards you, CRTAD (seriously… why didn’t they make it shorter) was like that, you used knobs to hit targets.
Till 1958; games like tic-tac-toe (Bertie the Brain, first publicly demonstrated game), OXO, Draughts, Chess (you know the boring ones) were created but in 1958 first sports game was created and nope, it was not a football game because football was probably too complicated for our friends in 1958 to develop so they developed a tennis game, “Tennis for Two”. It again used Cathode-Ray Tube technology but this time it was smaller and called as Oscilloscope; it looked like a PlayStation console. Gameplay was easy you just had to move your character using a joystick-y thing while trying to hit the ball.
In the beginning of the 1960s, computers got smaller and smaller so it became easier for developers or university students to work with developing thus, improvement in the technology used in gaming started to develop unbelievably fast.Numerous games were published throughout these years and it caused software and hardware companies to work even more harder on computers so that they can catch up with these inventions of video games and they can create computers which can be cheaper and stronger.Video games started becoming the first reason for people to buy a computer (try to tell this to your parents…).New games called “Computer Space” or “Galaxy Game” were released and following these inventions, Magnavox released “Magnavox Odyssey” first home gaming console(ancestor of PS4 or Xbox) in 1972.
In 1972 again, well-known Atari Inc. was formed and they released their first game “Pong”.It was an arcade cabinet game. The concept of arcade cabinet continued till the 1990s. Taito, North American Industry(which will cause Nintendo to form in 1983) and Atari were the leaders of this concept.Till 1980s everything was good for these companies and they were earning over 15 billion a year (Hollywood films were earning around 3 billions at that time, take this into consideration) but in 1985 Nintendo released its first console called “Nintendo Entertainment System” and this started the doomsday for arcade cabinet concept.In addition, the beloved “Pac-man” was released in 1980 too.Nintendo kept dominating the market by its games and inventions throughout the whole decade and in 1989, the first hand-held console was released “Game-boy”.
In 1990s the modern age of video games started.It was still 2D sadly but arcade cabinet concept was almost dead.With computers getting cheaper and better, CD gaming started to rise.A lot of companies started to produce CD-based games instead of going with the old-style (which actually caused Nintendo to lose a lot of money because they couldn’t catch up with the improvement fast enough).In 1996, “id Software” created a miracle on MS-DOS, the first real and fully 3D game was released, “Quake 1”.These improvements kept going and as we all know in 1996 Gabe “Gaben” Newell founded “Valve Corporation” which dominated the gaming market ever since and they released the ground-breaking game of 20th century in 1998, “Half-Life” using “GoldSrc” engine.
After this point there is not much to talk about we all know what is going to happen.It is not even possible to write about improvements in our age because every second a new technology comes out.But to summarize it from 1998 to 2017, 3D got into an amazing state, graphics became even more realistic than the reality, Computer development got even faster but also -unfortunately- got so expensive, gaming consoles such as PlayStation or Xbox or Wii became alternatives to computers for people who cannot afford a Gaming Monster and most importantly we got bored even from computers or consoles ; we started to search for new ways to entertain ourselves: VR Technology, Sensors or Mobile Gaming started to dominate gaming industry. And I think that especially Mobile Gaming Industry will become the main concept and will finish the computer concept just like computers did to the arcade cabinets (Karma). Here are few videos for you to understand what will happen in the future, this game is called “Sword Art Online: The Beginning” and it will be published in 2022.
So as you can see Gaming Technology has come a long way and the future is so bright and there is always room for improvement (in this case this room is huge). We can’t totally predict what the future is going to bring and all I can say is I am so sure that we all will be amazed. Always be open for new ideas and technologies so you won’t live the same thing as North American Industry. Oh and also Stay Golden friends… :D
