Media Forms
Video Games
VID-ee-oh gaymz
Also Known As Computer Games
Interactive
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The interactive screen medium, in which the picture responds to the player. Born in research laboratories in the 1950s and 1960s and made a commercial industry by arcade and home consoles in the 1970s, video games grew into one of the largest entertainment industries in the world and the first mass medium that is played rather than watched.
Facts
Origin Year1972 marks Pong and the Magnavox Odyssey, the medium's first commercial successes; laboratory predecessors include Tennis for Two in 1958 and Spacewar in 1962. OriginSpacewar!, created in 1962, is generally regarded as the first widely shared video game, following the earlier, narrowly seen Tennis for Two of 1958. 1 Place of OriginCambridge, Massachusetts, United States 1 Primary FormatAn electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device to generate visual feedback from a display device. 1 Typical DistributionDistributed physically on ROM cartridges, magnetic and optical media or flash memory cards, and increasingly through digital distribution over the internet or cloud gaming. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
Spacewar! (1962) and the arcade and home-console games that followed it through the 1970s and 1980s were displayed on cathode-ray tube screens; the CRT was the medium's dominant display technology for its first three decades.
Media Entries
Sources
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationHistory of video games, Early history (1948-1970) sectionQuote, History of video games, Early history (1948-1970) section
Spacewar! [is] the first widely shared video game.
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationDistribution and legacy sectionQuote, Distribution and legacy section
Spacewar! was extremely popular in the small programming community in the 1960s and was widely recreated on other minicomputer and mainframe computers of the time before migrating to early microcomputer systems in the 1970s.
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationSpacewar!, lead sectionQuote, Spacewar!, lead section
It was written for the newly installed DEC PDP-1 minicomputer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationVideo game, opening sectionQuote, Video game, opening section
A video game, computer game, or simply game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device to generate visual feedback from a display device.
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationVideo game, Game media/Components sectionQuote, Video game, Game media/Components section
Physical formats include ROM cartridges, magnetic storage including magnetic-tape data storage and floppy discs, optical media formats including CD-ROM and DVDs, and flash memory cards. Furthermore digital distribution over the Internet or other communication methods as well as cloud gaming alleviate the need for any physical media.
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Cathode-Ray Tube, History of video games, Early gamesView the Source 1. Wikipedia
1. Wikipedia
1. Wikipedia
1. Wikipedia
1. Wikipedia
1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationAssociated With: Release of the Magnavox OdysseyView the Source 1. Wikipedia
Wikimedia FoundationMedia Entries: The Golden Age of Arcade Video GamesView the Source Encyclopedia Britannica
Open Questions (2 open questions)
Does violent screen media cause real-world aggression?
After more than six decades of research on screen violence and two decades focused on video games, the field remains genuinely divided. Laboratory studies find small short-term effects on aggressive thoughts and behavior, meta-analyses disagree over whether those effects are meaningful or artifacts of publication bias and weak measures, and long-term causal effects on real violence have not been demonstrated to the field's satisfaction; professional bodies have issued and then softened cautionary statements as the evidence has been re-examined.
What would resolve this Preregistered longitudinal studies with behavioral rather than proxy outcomes, large enough to detect or bound small effects, and adversarial collaborations between the camps that agree on the measures before the data are collected.
Psychology, Media Studies, EpidemiologyEncyclopedia Britannica
Which computer game is properly the first video game: OXO (1952), Tennis for Two (1958), Spacewar! (1962), or a later commercially released title such as the Magnavox Odyssey games (1972)?
Historians disagree because the answer turns on a contested definition rather than a missing fact. OXO ran on a specific vacuum-tube computer for a single university event; Tennis for Two used an oscilloscope display built for a lab open house; Spacewar! was the first game widely copied among research institutions on a raster-style display; and the Magnavox Odyssey (1972) was the first to reach ordinary homes commercially. Each is a genuine first by a different, defensible definition of what counts as a video game, and no consensus definition has settled which definition governs the title.
What would resolve this A scholarly consensus definition of video game (display technology required, degree of interactivity, public versus laboratory intent) that the video game history field has not settled on.
Video game history, computing historyWikipedia
Frequently Asked Questions
Who invented the video game?
Ralph Baer for the first home console (1972); Atari own Pong for the first commercially successful arcade game (1972); earlier lab projects have their own narrower claims.
It depends what counts as a video game. Ralph Baer developed the Brown Box prototype at Sanders Associates between 1966 and 1972; licensed to Magnavox, it was released in September 1972 as the Odyssey, the first commercially available HOME video game console, and Baer is widely called the father of video games for that work. Separately, Atari own Pong, released later in 1972 and designed by Allan Alcorn at Nolan Bushnell direction, became the first commercially successful ARCADE video game. Earlier laboratory and university projects, OXO (1952), Tennis for Two (1958) and Spacewar! (1962), have their own claims to being the first video game in a narrower technical sense; this atlas records that dispute as a genuinely open question rather than picking a single winner.
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