Week 2 - The History Of Games 1950's - 1970's

The History of computer games 1950’s – 1970’s


For me to explain the history of games during the 1950’s to the 1970’s is like telling me to explain when I was born, I don’t know because I don’t remember???

But for me to get a better understanding of the history of computer games or video games I must research on how this magnificent innovation was created. The history of computer game/video games is a subject riddled with many inconsistencies (referring to my hand out) and partiality.

But from my research it has come to my attention that during the 1950’s a man by the name of Ralph Baer a T.V engineer who worked for Loral, was asked by his chief engineer to create the best television set in the world. This was a task that was easy for Ralph, as he wanted to add new thing to this project that his hierarchy wouldn’t understand. Like for instance introducing a game onto the television set. Thus the video game concept was born. But the concept was just only a concept as his idea was removed from the project.

But during the mid 1960’s, the idea of a video game inside a television set was still fresh inside of Baer’s head, as he began creating the first T.V with a built in game. It could be argued that he was the man who started the gaming entertainment. Began by experimenting with a ‘‘Chase’’ game. The concept was to capture the other squares on the screen. But this would lead further experimentation and then he created pong, a very simple tennis like game, where you would have move stick or cursor to deflect back the ball into the opposition’s goal.

During the early 1950’s following the Korean War, a man named David Rosen an American veteran was an photo booth importer in 1954 and a manger of arcade in 1956. Rosen was the main instigator in merging both SEGA and Rosen enterprises to form Sega Enterprises. Which began creating its own game 1966 with a submarine simulator called Periscope. The company would the eventually take on the SEGA name and then would dominate the gaming industry into the 1990’s.

For my own personal gaming history, I mean I could go on for ages but I wont for your sake. I was introduced to games from a young a age, playing on such consoles as the BBC and Sega Master System, but that didn’t really set it off for me up until I played the SEGA Mega Drive a couple odd so years later.

I mean this was console that opened my eyes to the shear brilliance of gaming. The first actual game I played properly was the legendary Golden Axe; I mean this game had it all, brilliant animation, graphics (at the time) and most of all game play. This was the tuning point as from then I turned into an annoying brat, begging for the console and game. Through time from all that begging I just lost interest because they just kept saying no. Until that one morning I was going to school and my dad pull out a box from out a bag and revealed that he had bout me a 16 bit Sega Mega Drive, I felt like the luckiest kid the in the world. But this was the reason for me getting into the whole gaming culture, not what I saw on the T.V but what I could do on the T.V that’s what appealed to me.