The Video Game Industry

The Greek Poet, Palladas, flourished in 4th century that “life is but a game”, he could hardly imagined, how pervasive games would become in every aspect of modern lives as a social phenomena for massive players across the gender, culture and age.
A.S. Douglas’s OXO/ Noughts and Crosses (Tic-Tac-Toe) invented in 1952 as the first Video game in the industry. After 6 years in 1958, William Higinbotham created an interactive video game known as ‘Tennis for Two' which has changed the status of video game.

Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney introduced the ‘computer space’ in 1971 which was the world’s first mass-produced computer game. In 1972, Ralph Baer introduced the ‘Magnavox Odyssey’, the first ever video game console operated with battery power.
First gaming console of ‘Pong’ introduced by Atari in 1972. It was the first arcade video game with a widespread success. Year 1978, considered as the ‘Golden Age’ as ‘Midway’ released the ‘Taito’ developed game 'Space Invaders' in America with an enormous success and still in minds due to shortage of 100 Yen coins in Japan. In 1978, Magnavox released the Odyssey2.

Atari (the pioneer of the Video game industry) with the worth of 2 billion dollars in 1982 holds 80% of the market at that time with games like ‘Pacman’ originally, ‘PUCMAN’ and space invader. Then in 1981donkey Kong created with a character named ‘Mario’. Later in the year 1985, another hit for Nintendo ‘Tetris’ ruled the market especially for its portable system.
With the arrival of Sony in the industry during the late 80s, the industry saw a fierce rivalry and competition and resultantly deemed a significant advancement with the arrival of 3D graphics networked multiplayer gaming ‘Doom’. From mid 90s to early 00s there was a battle between the likes of Sega, Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo with Sony becoming the sole winner with the help of extremely hyped Play station.

Now, companies like, Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony introducing the modern consoles of ‘Wii’, ‘Xbox360’ & ‘Play Station 3’ and earning billions of dollars. In the year 2008 there was an approximate 11.7 billion dollars of business in the video game industry. Today the industry is expanding day-by- day as the technological advancement further extends its reaches and it’s not just a ‘game’ but a huge commercially globalised industry with a long remarkable history.

References:

-- Steven Conway (2010). The History of Video Games. Lecture's Slides.

--Vorderer, P. & Bryant, J. (eds.) (2006). Playing Video Games:Motives,Responses and Consequences. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Images:

1. Tic-Tac-Toe
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/game/TicTacToeNetwork/TicTacToeNetwork.gif [Accessed on: 03-12-2010]
2. Tennis for Two
http://www.livbit.com/article/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/tennis-for-two_1.jpg [Accessed on: 03-12-2010]
3. Pong
http://www.stibbe.net/History/Games_Speech/Images/Pong.h4.jpg [Accessed on: 03-12-2010]
4. Mario
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheRjlJvEyM0fCOOvGBQK-aKKtW5hQA-oRBqLyrZ17ZYDM5d9FGDrDXy9zb4B9K5JArgzC2WGgilx9UKIyz9jPSrdxNsaiia1wQijCTJSsgUGxPG24_1V7FNhcNaGrzuyjRjkNbitKCEks/s1600/mario_CLAT_time_management.jpg [Accessed on: 03-12-2010]
5.Pacman
http://www.maniacworld.com/pacman-game.jpg [Accessed on: 03-12-2010]
6. XBox
http://media.teamxbox.com/faq/xbox.jpg [Accessed on: 03-12-2010]
7. PS4
http://www.ultimonivel.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/playstation4.jpg [Accessed on: 03-12-2010]