The History of Computer Games - All About Computer Games

Computer games, that is, games that you can play on a personal computer, originated in the minds of Martin Graetz and Alan Kotok, two MIT students, in 1961. The original game named "Spacewar!" involved two player controlled ships battling around a central star. About 10 years later, the text based computer game burst on the scene. Originally called "Adventure," the game featured no graphics and was based entirely on imagination and text. Now the mid 1970's, the power of home personal computers was growing rapidly. Soon, games would be released that combined graphics with text.

From here, computer games really began to take off. Different gaming groups and organizations were formed so that gamers could talk about their interests. In fact, the real explosion of computer games did not occur until the 1980's thanks to a little bit of luck. It took the downfall of their rival, console gaming, for computer games to really succeed. Luckily, in 1983, there was a major crash in video games. Console makers like Atari, after posting record highs in profits for the previous years, began to flood the market with poor games and many different versions of consoles that discouraged buyers. In 1983, Atari and the console gaming industry would have record losses that would continue into the next few years.

In contrast, during the video game crash of 1983, sales of home computers were on the rise due to a significant decrease in price. Low cost computers like the famous Commodore 64 found their way into millions of homes and with that, the purchase of computer games rose significantly. Computer games exploited a great hole in the market. Many parents were selling their children's video game consoles and equipment to purchase a computer to help with the children's education. However, the children would still want to play some type of game and would purchase computer games. Electronic Arts, a company that vowed to stick to the creation of computer games, benefited greatly from the success of the home personal computer.

The adaptation of the mouse marked another great day in computer games history. Games like King's Quest became amazingly popular, especially with the improvement in graphical interfaces. Improvement in sound came with the Creative Labs Sound Blaster card which allowed computers to utter more than simple beeps. And then in the early 1990's, the 3D revolution began. Games like Hovertank 3D and Wolfenstein 3D, both designed by iD Software, became mildly famous for their new 3D graphics which marked another generation in computer games. In fact, Wolfenstein 3D created a new genre that would turn into one of the best selling genres in gaming: the first person shooter. Wolfenstein 3D also was distributed in a unique way: shareware. Players were able to play through a limited portion of the game, but if they enjoyed it, they were required to pay a fee for the full version.

At this point in computer games history, consoles were lagging behind tremendously. In fact, consoles put out by Nintendo and then popular Sega were operating at only 3 to 7 megahertz, while many home personal computers were operating around 16 to 100 megahertz which allowed for more calculations. With this increased capacity, computer games developer created the first person shooter Doom whose graphics were considered amazing at the time and a goal for the console developers. The Doom breakthrough in 3D graphics thrust computer games into the forefront of the gaming industry and led computers into the modern era.

The Multiplayer and Modification Era of Computer Games

The late 1990's had much to offer to the industry of computer games. The battle between consoles and computers still raged on throughout this period, and computers had the help of many momentous releases by computer games developers and the exponentially growing popularity of the internet. Blizzard, a computer game developer, created three instant classics: Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft. These real time strategy games contained some of the best graphics of the era. Soon, Blizzard would introduce something that would take these games to epic proportions: Battle.net.

Battle.net was one of the first online multiplayer programs that offered cooperative and player versus player action. It was released in 1997 along with Diablo and featured online chat, a matchmaking system and a ranking system all ahead of its time. This online multiplayer system became extremely popular, especially after the release of Starcraft in 1998. There are millions of players that logged on just before the turn of the century, and hundreds of thousands still continue to play games on their servers as you read this. The popularity of Battle.net has sparked a new interest in online multiplayer gaming that has been a focus of almost every game developed, on consoles or computers, since.

In fact, computer games offer hardcore gamers more solutions that console gaming. Almost all console games are created in a way that does not allow for user modification by discouraging the use of "home brew software" to alter the source code both legally and physically. On the contrary, computer games have encouraged it with companies like iD Software releasing source code of game engines to older games for users to modify. This has prompted the creation of new games or heavily modified versions of the original to be released into the market. The ability to modify code has made computer games the choice of any hardcore gamer.

The pinnacle of modifying computer games, as well as online play, has come with the game Counterstrike. Counterstrike was originally a modified version of the Valve classic "Half Life." This first person shooter that pits a group of anti terrorists against terrorists became an instant hit with the online gaming crowd. Millions still play Counterstrike and all of its succeeding releases online. Counterstrike was the game that proved that allowing users to modify and have access to source code of older game engines would produce great results for computer games. In fact, it is a belief among the gaming crowd that only the most "hardcore" computer gamers play the Counterstrike series.

The New Era of Computer Games and Controversy

The rise of 3D gaming in general has caused a revolution in gaming technology, especially on the computer. Hardware developers have been pushing the limits of current technology since the outbreak of 3D graphics in the early to mid 1990's. It has sparked the development of different 3D graphics libraries such as OpenGL and DirectX that regulated the graphics in computer games and led to more efficient game play that can be seen in games like Unreal and Unreal Tournament. Developments in hardware also allowed computer game developers to push the limits.

nVidia and ATI have been constantly improving the power of their video cards, along with the development of more advance RAM and processors, to allow computer game developers to increase realism. A side effect of the increase in realism is the use of physics engines within computer games. Physics engines simply emulate the physics of natural life such as velocity, mass and friction. This has sparked debate through the computer gaming community as to whether it is beneficial as many physics engines require great processing capabilities leaving developers unable to provide consistent experience to gamers.

Emulation has been another debated part of recent computer games action. Emulation provides computer users the chance to play vintage games, such as those for the Nintendo Entertainment system or the Sega Genesis through the use of ROMS, or recreated games. The question of emulation is one of copyrights. Many feel that by recreating the game and playing it for free on a computer is breaking the copyright held by Nintendo or Sega, while others feel the games are so outdated that it should not be a problem. Whatever the answer to this moral debate, the emulation of older console games has become extremely popular all over the world.

Recent monster computer games like F.E.A.R and Half Life 2 have pushed the limits of current hardware while showing gamers just how realistic games are becoming. The innovations will keep occurring, especially in the computer games industry which has been ahead of the console market for some time now regarding technology. With the amazing graphics and physics engines of these two games it seems that actual virtual reality may be the next step to computers games, and a step that could be seen soon.

The popularity of computers games can be traced back to a few poor decisions made by console developers in the early 1980's. Thanks to those poor decisions, gamers have been blessed with such titles as Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Half Life, Diablo, Starcraft, Counterstrike and the invention of services like Battle.net. Computer games have been pushing the development of hardware and technology in both computers and consoles since the beginning of the 1980's. While consoles have recently expanded in popularity and overtaken computer games, it is safe to say that many of the innovations in the gaming world would not have occurred without them. 

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