Gaming
Games
Brief history of video games and their design: From Pong to virtual reality
Learn more about gaming’s primitive origins and how it progressed into the massive industry we know today.
Jack Etienne, co-founder of one of the biggest gaming brands Cloud9, started playing games as a kid when his dad brought home a Pong system. “I remember picking up this funny little paddle and you bounce a ball back and forth and I loved it,” he said on the Save Your Game podcast.
Cloud9 Compete during Red Bull Home Ground 2022 in Manchester, UK
© Mark Roe / Red Bull Content Pool
He has used video games for entertainment and to escape from the monotony of the real world for decades. One of his favorite games is a throwback to 1996, DragonRealms, a multiplayer real-time virtual world (or MUD) game.
"To be frank, [in 1996] the internet wasn’t good enough for graphical games, but you could do text-based games, and you could use your imagination to fill in the blanks,” Etienne said.
“The aspect of being better than your opponent or trying to do things as a group was still there, and it was really fun for me. It’s a unique part of my history that I’ve learned to embrace, and now I’m kind of proud of it.”
From Atari, which was the first video game to captivate a mass audience to the intricate stories of Skyrim, the beautiful graphics of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or the open-world sandbox adventures of Minecraft, video games have come a long way.
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In this article, we will talk about gaming’s primitive origins and how it progressed into the massive industry we know today.
01
The Birth of Video Games
The first video games ever were developed in the late-1940s and early 1950s. They were system-specific, meaning that they could only be played on the computer they were created on, and they were very simple simulations like tic-tac-toe or Nim. (It took about a decade for video games to be developed that could be played on other computers.)
One of these games was Spacewar!, a space combat video game that was developed for the PDP-1 mainframe computer at MIT. The game featured two spaceships, each controlled by a player, that engaged in a dogfight. As the MIT students left the school, they took the source code for the game with them. Spacewar! became one of the first games to experience widespread distribution.
By the 1970s, video game developers began to realize the true potential of video games, realizing they could be powered on smaller, coin-operated machines.
This realization led to the creation of arcade video games.
02
History and significance of Pong
The first highly successful arcade game was Pong. The Pong arcade game consoles were first released in November 1972.
- Developed by Atari Inc.
- Very lucrative, each machine brought in $40 a day at its peak and out-yielded any other arcade game at the time.
- Mimicked by other game developers creating very similar “ball-and-paddle” games. They took Pong’s overall general function and applied them to other games like basketball and hockey.
After Pong, came the introduction of the programmable microprocessors. Arcade video game developers seized on the new technology creating Space Invaders. It became the flagship title of what became known as the “golden age of arcade games.”
Pac Man
© Namco
From 1978-1982, some of the most popular arcade titles of all time were born like Galaga, Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong. These games introduced aspects or ideas that had not yet been utilized in video games before like background music, measuring game time through “lives” that go away on player failure, and high score tracking.
As video games became more popular, there became an increased push to bring video games into the homes of everyday people for everyday use.
03
Console Games
The first-ever home video game console was the Magnavox Odyssey.
Released in 1972, the game data for Odyssey was stored within the console, which could be accessed through interchangeable game cartridges. This console featured ball-and-paddle games like Table Tennis and Cat and Mouse.
It was with the Odyssey series that Nintendo first stepped into the console game industry, as the Japanese gaming company developed light guns for the Odyssey. But the first home video game console to spark major success was a home version of Atari’s Pong.
Nintendo Switch in the lounge at Red Bull Study Club 2020 in Belgium
© Jelle Lapere / Red Bull Content Pool
After the success of its arcade game, Atari decided to release Pong to the homes of American consumers. About 150,000 units were sold during the 1975 holiday season. Just like with the arcade version, several copycat games were developed as a result, creating an influx of clones who took the blueprint left by the Odyssey and Home Pong and ran with it.
With so many companies testing their hands in the dedicated console market, video game developers started looking for ways to break out of an increasingly saturated market. In tandem, the price of microprocessors began to drop.
By 1976, the Fairchild Channel F released a cartridge-based console, but the most successful of these was the classic Atari 2600. It took popular arcade titles like Space Invaders and Missile Command and integrated them seamlessly into the console.
Despite their early success, the perception of Atari started to sour as a result of underperforming games like Pac-Man. From 1983 to 1985, the US video game market collapsed from an estimated value of three billion to just $100 million dollars.
However, there was another factor that played a major part in the video game crash of 1983: the rise of computers.
04
PC Games
The video game crash of 1983, along with home computers becoming more popular and less expensive led to a second, much larger wave of computer gaming during the mid 1980s. This second wave resulted in some games being developed specifically for PCs like Ultima and Elite, the latter of which is considered a ground-breaking game in the sandbox genre.
Participants during Red Bull Campus Clutch in Warsaw, Poland 2022
© Jacek Jabłoński / Red Bull Content Pool
The IBM PC compatible series were a huge part of this second wave. These computers were designed with open architecture, meaning that parts could be swapped or added to the units with ease. This made these computers much easier to upgrade, and game developers could create games for IBM computers without worrying about its make or model since the game would work regardless.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, we also saw the birth of online gaming. Dial up bulletin board systems were used sometimes to play games. Most personal computers at this time had their own computer networks.
However, as schools and institutions gained access to the ARPANET, the predecessor to the modern Internet, more intricate online gaming set-ups were created.
Students explored ways to use their newfound connectivity for gaming. Multiplayer games started popping up in this period, a major foundational step in the creation of the massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) genre.
05
Mobile Games
Mobile phones came into the mainstream during the late 1980s, but gaming on them wasn’t common for another few decades. Sure, certain phones had games installed on them (Nokia phones had Snake on them since 1997), but these types of games weren’t designed for extended play.
Red Bull M.E.O. in Tokyo, Japan in 2020
© Jason Halayko / Red Bull Content Pool
Older arcade-style games were very popular on the early generations of mobile phones. The graphics were relatively the same, and the games were intended for the short-term style of play that mobile phones were capable of.
Mobile gaming finally became more popular when smartphone giants Apple and Google established their own app marketplaces in the late 2000s. Early titles like Angry Birds and Bejeweled were very successful during this early period and pushed gaming forward.
This surge also saw the birth of “freemium” games as app developers looked for ways to bring in more gamers and revenue.
These types of games are free-to-play, but an improved experience (through character upgrades, more attractive aesthetics, etc.) would be available for a small fee. This model is a precursor to the “battle pass” model that we see in a lot of games today.
The surge in mobile gaming took a major chunk out of the handheld console market, causing models that were released during this time, like the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS, to suffer.
06
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality started in the 1970s, with devices for services like physical rehabilitation and military training. However, it took much longer for virtual reality to catch on in the gaming industry.
David Nelson and GZA at the MxR Lab in Los Angeles, California in 2015
© Kevin Slack / Red Bull Content Pool
Video game developers have been working on virtual reality technology since the 1990s, but none of these early attempts were deemed practical enough for consumer use. One of the most high-profile of these early failures was Nintendo’s Virtual Boy in 1996.
Virtual reality wouldn’t find stable footing in the video game industry until the 2010s. The creation of the Oculus Rift proved that there was true potential integrating virtual reality into gaming. Then, in 2013, gaming developer Valve publicly shared how to create virtual reality displays that weren’t blurry or laggy.
More companies started to release their own VR headsets as a result like Google’s Cardboard in 2015, which combined a stereoscopic view with a smartphone to create an immersive experience.
Recent developments in virtual reality technology include Internet connectivity, which has figuratively and literally opened a new world for both gaming and marketing.
The metaverse and digital marketplace have become a lucrative opportunity in several industries. Musical talents like Billie Eilish and Imagine Dragons have performed in virtual venues, while the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball have created a virtual reality of their home stadium for fans to attend and watch live games.
Gaming has been an integral part of our lives for over 50 years and has a rich history. With it having such a positive impact on our lives, it’s no wonder that esports has become such a popular industry in recent years!
