Evolution of video games over the years

If you would like to know the history and evolution of video games, then this article is for you, know the changes in video games over the decades and how they have come to what they are today.

History and evolution of videogames

We can start a trip to the past to talk about the video games of the 50s, it is incredible how over the years the evolution of video games It has come so far to become one of the most money-moving industries in the world.

Despite the fact that their evolution has been in an up and down throughout their history, they have always known how to overcome obstacles and develop video games better and better. The goal of video games today seems to be to show the greatest possible realism when before it was simply a simulation of the fantasies that players could have, be it driving a race car or simply advancing a story and completing the game.

50's - 60's The first video game in history

The first video game in history was developed in 1952, named OXO simulating a version of the game "Tic Tac Toe", this project was launched by Alexander Douglas, who was a Cambridge University professor using the principles of Turing research to be able to give artificial intelligence to your game and that in this way the player could compete against a machine.

This is all thanks to Alan Turing, who was a British programmer and mathematician who, after WWII, worked on a way to make a computer think like a human. In trying to create this, what is known as the "Turing machine" appeared.

The next advance would be in 1958, thanks to the American engineer William Higginbotham, who was the one who worked on the Manhattan project where the first nuclear weapons were born, and was also developing and creating Tennis for two, which was a game in a large computer that simulated the games of a tennis game. In the 60's there was no breakthrough and no one else talked about video games again.

70's The birth of genres

In the 70's there was a revolution to what had been done in the previous decade, the researchers managed to reach a conclusion: the development of video games was on par with the development of devices that will be able to run these games. Then in 1971, the American Ralph Baer, ​​who had years researching the work of Turing and Higginbotham, developed the first video game console in history, which was called the Magnavox Odyssey.

It had a great commercial success, since this console raised more than $ 10.000.000 dollars at the time, selling 100.000 units and this caught the attention of investors, who saw a new entertainment industry for people being born.

Atari was founded by Americans Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, marking an era in the evolution of video games, who were ahead of the rest and launched PONG, which was a huge arcade machine that had an improved version of the Pong that contained the Magnavox.

At this time, Atari was by far the most important video game company, they innovated with the idea of ​​the new video game console for homes, it had improvements over the Magnavox, called Pong for Your Home TV, which would be a greater success than the Magnavox , selling more than 150.000 units during Christmas of that year.

It improved in graphics, quality and playability compared to the Magnavox, this was much more fluid than what had been seen at the time, all this became a reality thanks to the agreement that Atari had with the Sears companies, who supplied it with a microprocessor for the consoles.

Atari success

The success that Atari had was enviable, they became the company with the largest assets in the United States, its owner Nolan Bushnell, made the decision to sell his console to Warner Communication for about 26 million dollars in 1976, leaving a large budget to Atari, getting down to work to develop a new console.

In 1977 the Atari UBSS was born, a powerful console that had a joystick and two buttons, which gave a new experience in gameplay to users and the evolution of video games. This console sold hundreds of thousands of copies in the year of its launch and its competition would be the Mattel console, Intellivision. By then more than 50% of American households had a game console.

In 1978 a new historical event occurs as the company called Taito created Space Invaders, a video game for Atari and Mattel consoles and it became a viral phenomenon with millions of copies sold worldwide.

80's The age of the arcade

The 80's arrived with Space Invaders as the best-selling video game in history, however, the excitement did not last long since this year would come the birth of the first most emblematic gamer icon of all, Pacman.

Pacman was a game different from anything that had been developed to date, when everyone thought of space missions and 8-bit laser shooting, this game was a maze in which you had to move a yellow head as points and running from the viruses that could infect you. By the end of this year, it surpassed Space Invaders as the best-selling video game in the world, today it remains the most marketed copies in history.

A year later, another video game hit came to light, Donkey Kong, a platform game in which you have to dodge the barrels that a gorilla was launching from the top of a tower. It was the first video game released by the Japanese company Nintendo, who would later launch the next legendary games on the market, Super Mario Bros and Legend of Zelda.

At this time in 1982, a group of engineers who worked for Warner and Atari, created Activision, which would be a company that manufactured video games independently for Atari.

However, the market was saturated due to competition that manufactured low-quality games, creating distrust among the public, which represented a big bump for the large video game companies, which ended with Warner selling Atari in 1982, which would later disappear.

The birth of Nintendo and the new light of video games

His replacement would be the Japanese company Nintendo, who in 1983 created Family Computer, a console that had the main successes of the company, succeeding in Japan and two years later it would arrive in the United States and the Family Computer would be redesigned and renamed for this market. like Nintendo Entertainment System, one of the most legendary consoles in all of history.

The video games it included were from the company, which guaranteed quality products. The most representative video game of this console was always Super Mario Bros, this character became as famous as Pacman in his time and even became more famous than Disney's Mickey Mouse himself.

Thanks to this, the American video game industry was saved, since for the entire world both the NES and Super Mario Bros were the most important console and video game in the entire world. evolution of video games.

With this came a new official license chip so as not to make the same mistake as Atari and prevent third parties from developing games without quality control for the NES, this recognition chip allowed us to know if the game on the cartridge was original and if the console was not. accepted the game was not started, working as a vaccine against piracy; With this move, Nintendo monopolized the industry that demanded better developers and better titles for the console.

Already in 1985, renowned production companies such as CAPCOM, the creator of the legendary Street Fighter, Megaman and also Konami with its Contra and the popular SEGA were born. The latter was the most successful, since after producing titles for Nintendo, it launched its own console this year called Master System, although it was more powerful than the NES, it could not overcome the fame that it had in the markets. However, SEGA managed to become one of the best video game developers in history.

In 1988, SEGA and Nintendo had a legendary rivalry, then the 16-bit console would arrive on the market, SEGA's Genesis, positioning itself as the best of the moment, but due to its limited catalog many users returned to the NES that had more games that were renewed every so often.

A year later, Nintendo developed the first portable console called GameBoy, with this console another mythical title would be born within the world of video games, Tetris. SEGA also launched its portable console that was much more powerful than the GameBoy, called GameGear; however, it lost its battle against Tetris on the Game Boy, a less powerful black and white console.

90's

The 90's began with the rivalry of SEGA and Nintendo at its highest point, SEGA needed a hit on the table to be able to unseat Nintendo and hired the CEO of Mattel to create a mascot that could compete with Mario, the Nintendo icon and to 1991 was released Sonic, a game that completely revolutionized the platform genre.

It competed directly with Super Mario with a more developed version of its game, with a better story and smoother gameplay, and was a historic best-seller for the industry.

Nintendo was not planning to sit idly by and anticipated the launch of its new fourth-generation console, the Super Nintendo. With this console would come games like F-Zero and Super Mario Kart, which will revolutionize the racing genre.

These games took advantage of the Mode 7 graphics system that allowed creating the first 3D motion effects for video games. That would later be enhanced with ID Software, which would be the most representative brand of this aspect in the evolution of video games with titles like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D.

Later

By the end of 1993, optical CD support was developed because games needed more space and were better than cartridges, the company that invested the most in this was Sony, a rookie company that would change everything in December 1994 by launching its Playstation 1 devastating the market, it brought legendary titles like Wipeout or Destruction Derby.

Nintendo in 1996 launched the legendary Nintendo 64 console with a 64-bit processor, graphics processing of a higher level than the PlayStation. The console was released with the Super Mario 64 game, considered by many to be one of the best video games ever.

Despite all these games, Nintendo 64 failed to surpass the PlayStation because the latter had a larger catalog of titles that were periodically updated, in addition to its games in CD format.

By the end of the decade, Sony was positioning itself as the new king of the video game industry with Nintendo falling into oblivion. The final blow came in 1997, with Square Software developing the title Final Fantasy 7, which was the first 3D game in the series and a worldwide success. Nintendo was saying goodbye making noise by launching video games like Legend of Zelda Ocarina of time and Goldeneye 007, one of the best FPS games ever developed.

2000-2010

Nintendo released the GameCube as a competition to the Playstation but it would be a complete failure, because Sony launched its PlayStation 2 in response, which became the best-selling console in the history of the video game industry.

This console would bring new titles like God of War and Bloody Roar, the world realized that video games had a short life and Sony released video games every year and people got bored of this, but in computers everything was different due to the superiorities techniques that allowed developing interesting titles such as Call of Duty, Diablo and Age of Empires, but the one that would deliver the final blow in 2004 would be when Blazer launched World of Warcraft.

Online games allowed video games a longer life since they lasted for years and in 2006 Sony launched its PlayStation 3, however, its competitor would be much more difficult to beat, Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

The latter was the perfect tool for Nintendo's rebirth, thanks to its innovative user movement detection system and games for the whole family like Just Dance or Wii Sports.

Being able to connect with Wi-Fi to the Internet would change everything for consoles and evolution of video games, which also had their own storage, that is when the use of Steam became popular, a platform that allows you to play online with other users and buy games directly from your console.

Another great company

EA Sports launches FIFA 07 In mid-2006, this was the title that positioned EA Sports as a reference in the sports genre. This multiplatform game that had versions for PlayStation and computer, at the level of graphics and gameplay they were a sensation, since you could control players as if they were real. Konami had already been developing its Pro Evolution Soccer for several years, it was successful at the time and it would start one of the most important wars in the world of the sports genre, PES vs FIFA.

In 2007 computers had been launched into the video game industry, with hardware manufacturers focusing on creating more powerful graphics cards, processors, RAM, creating the Gaming computing sector.

So when the action and free adventure genre explodes with the Prince of Persia and Assassin's Creed, the latter was one of the best-selling sagas in history alongside God of War. Without forgetting IN the racing genre, the mythical saga of Need for Speed ​​and its title "Most Wanted".

At the end of the decade, titles would be released that would grow greatly in the coming years, Minecraft and League of Legends created by Mojang and Riot Games, respectively. You can also discover where to download PC games.

2010 - Present

Already the internet went hand in hand with video games, FIFA and PES with its competition in football, Call of Duty being the best FPS, Warcraft continued to be a leader in the MMORPG genre. This is the decade where Minecraft became one of the best viral phenomena for children, a simulation game with an 8-bit graphic quality that became addictive, making it the most played sandbox in history so far.

On the other hand, League of Legends was crazy in Asia where it had millions of users in just one year, this genre was known as MOBA or multiplayer online battle arena, this would send the WOW to the brink of the abyss.

In 2011, the first professional eSport tournament was born, another important step in the evolution of video games, with The International of DOTA2. In 2013, both DOTA and LoL were two of the most powerful franchises in video games and their professional tournaments brought a lot of money to the professional gaming sector, which made companies like Call of Duty, Counter strike and FIFA join these competitions.

Last years

In 2014, one of the most viral games in memory was born, the Candy Crush Saga for mobile phones. It was then that mobile phones were taken into account by video game developers, dedicating a sector to them. In 2015, eSports were already a reality and the DOTA International was the most important of all, which already had prizes of up to $ 25.000.000.

In 2017, another viral title was born, Fortnite, which in a short time positioned itself among the most played eSports in the world and the main online FPS. Currently, eSports is the sector that moves the most money in the video game industry with more than 500 million dollars and a growth of 40% in recent years.

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