A brief early history of video games

From OXO to E.T., video games have been around for a long time and they continue to influence our daily lives in various ways!

Spawn Point

In 1952, the first video game was created. This game was called OXO. OXO was a graphical video game of tic-tac-toe where a human played against a computer program that was designed to be “unbeatable”.

Alexander S. Douglas created this game as a part of his thesis on computer-human interaction. Because of the game’s academic purposes, it was never publicly released and was discarded shortly after. But, this video game wasn’t a complete waste since it carved a path for many others and PvE games.

Shortly after came the “golden age” of arcades.

The “golden age” of arcades was defined by the rise of coin-operated arcade cabinets as a cultural phenomenon of the 80’s.

During that time, many new characteristics were introduced to video games, such as the introduction of color graphics, vector displays and powerful microprocessors that allowed more complex games to appear. These games included Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong.

The Crash

In 1983, the video game industry experienced one of the biggest crashes of all time. Nearly $100 million (equivalent to $292.36 million in 2024) was lost in the gaming industry, a drop of almost 97%. It was mainly caused by the uncontrolled publication of cheaply made Atari games such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man.

This period is signified by the dumping of many Atari products. Atari buried hundreds of thousands of unsold Game Consoles and cartridges in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial cartridges, widely considered one of the worst and most commercially unsuccessful video games of all time, became the most famous part of this disposal because most of the pile contained this game.

Redemption

Nearly two years after the video game crash, Nintendo launched its first game console: The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).

The NES was a huge success because of their business practices. Nintendo’s secret to their business model was their consumers’ trust. They gained that trust by releasing high-quality games and licensing developers, effectively preventing the flood of low-quality titles that had led to the crash.

The NES led to Nintendo being one of the most commercially successful companies of all time. It has influenced many other companies to make higher quality games, leading to the video game industry rapidly increasing!