Video games are constantly on the increase in popularity and the sales are huge
. They are even up there with the sales of music. There are amazing games out there that draw in the players into a thrilling world, which entertains you for hours on end.
Games (video) were invented after the invention of computers because a processor is required to make graphics on the screen, tracking player interaction, keeping score and assuming the role of game referee or another player. Computer video games can be very easily run on home PCs. The difference between video games and electronic games is the addition of screen as compared to electronic board games that may produce sounds only.
The first computer games used oscilloscopes for plotting the movement of dot on a screen or simply displaying a character in a given position. The early games sometimes contained a piece of a clear film positioned over the screen for providing extra information. The very first video game was written at Cambridge on EDSAC computer by Alexander Douglas in 1952. It was a very effective and simple version of tic-tac-toe. According to many historians, this was the first video games but it was not influential as it could not be played at the Cambridge.
in 1958 William Higinbotham developed another game at the Brookhaven National Library. Like the other game an oscilloscope was also used for displaying the game. It consisted of a horizontal line with a small vertical line in its middle. A dot moved from one side to the other simulating a tennis game. There were dials that could be operated by two players to hit the ball back to the opponent on the opposite side.
Spacewar was the first game that could be played on more than one machine. It was written by Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen and Steve Russell in 1961 for DEC PDP-1 platform. The source code of the game was openly shared among the academic society and was played on several machines and qualified as the first video game.
The first game you could play on a TV was called Chase and Ralph Baer developed it back in 1967 for a gaming console being developed by Sanders Associates. This was then licensed to Magnavox and sales exceeded a staggering 100,000 at the time. Several other games were also shipped with this. The patents of Ralph Baer were also licensed to Atari who became the developer of the largest and most successful gaming console of the 70's and 80's... and the rest is history.