Task 2. A history of computer games, part one 1950s - 1970s

It is hard to exactly find the exact time a computer game was was first developed. It is likely that there was a few "video game" like prototypes where being developed around the same time and it can be argued which was the first. I'm going to consider the first computer game to be SpaceWar! which was invented by Stephen Russell in 1962. This was a simple game, as expected, which involved two ships and two players. The aim was the shoot the other player whilst circling a planet.

The next big step and easily recognised game was Pong. Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn created this arcade game in 1972. Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney started Atari in the same year, as many company's copied the idea of Pong, Atari re-released Pong as a home video game in 1975. The next game which i consider to be important to the evolution of gaming would be Space Invaders. Which was released in 1978 by a Japanese company called Taito. It was originally designed by Tomohiro Nishikado. Space Invaders is still recongnised today and many people have played it. It keeps the same kind of idea in which many games go by, the player must try and reach the highest score possible with a limited number of lives. As a shooter, the idea was the destroy the enemy aliens by controlling a laser cannon, as you progress through the levels the difficulty increases. The alien space invader symbol is often used today to represent video games.

Games like these, especially as early as the 60s usually required a very large computer to be played on or an arcade machine which obviously aren't as practical as the game consoles/hand held games we are used to today. The Magnavox Odyssey (also known as other names such as the Phillips Odyssey) was the first succesfull home video game system on the market. Released in 1978 in America and later in other countries. Another successful console towards the end of the 1970s was the Atari 2600, which was released in 1977, it sold well in 1979 when people realised it was possible to play other games than just pong. 

I think the jump in video game popularity and accessibility in this era is very interesting. Games changed from being played physically, like board games, to the early prototypes which required a lot of work and development. But didn't necessarily sell well or last very long, some company's gave up on video games and many people thought it would just be a fad. But after 20 years allot of homes had games consoles and have developed so far from what used to be very simple games played in an arcade. Although the basic idea of a video game has always stayed similar to what we play today.