Scott Rogers [Scott Rogers] - Level Up!: The Guide to Great Video Game Design

• Q: What is a game?

• A: A game is an activity that:

  • requires at least one player

  • has rules

  • has a victory condition.

• Q: What is a video game?

• A: A video game is a game that is played on a video screen.

The 1950s. The dawn of television, 3-D movies, and rock 'n' roll. Video games were invented in the 1950s too, only they were played by a very few people on very large computers. The first video game programmers were students in the computer labs of large universities like MIT and employees of military facilities at Brookhaven National Laboratories. Early games like OXO (1952), Spacewar! (1962), and Colossal Cave (1976) had very simple or even no graphics at all. They were displayed on very small black and white oscilloscope screens.

After playing Spacewar! at the University of Utah's computer lab, future Atari founders Ted Dabney and Nolan Bushnell were inspired to create Computer Space , the first arcade video game, in 1971. While (despite the name) the first arcade games could be found in bars, arcades dedicated to video games began appearing by the late 1970s.

Early arcade games like Asteroids, Battlezone , and Star Castle were rendered in vector graphics (images constructed from lines). After color raster graphics (images constructed from a grid of dots called pixels) were introduced, cartoon-inspired video game characters appeared. Characters like Pac-Man (Namco, 1980) and Donkey Kong (Nintendo, 1982) became pop culture icons virtually overnight.

During the early 1980s, three styles of game machines dominated arcades: uprights (cabinets which the player stood in front of while they played), cocktail tables (arcade games set into the top of a small table, allowing the player to sit down while playing), and cockpits (elaborate game cabinets that allowed the player to lean or sit down to further enhance the gaming experience).

In the mid-1980s, arcades began springing up everywhere and video games took the world by storm. Game genres and themes became more varied, while gaming controls and cabinets became more elaborate with realistic controllers and beautiful graphics decorating uniquely designed cabinets. You could sit back-to-back in a two-player spaceship cockpit while playing Tail Gunner (Vectorbeam, 1979), battle Klingons from a replica of Captain Kirk's command chair in Star Trek (Sega, 1982) or drive in an actual Ferrari Testarossa that moved and shook in Out Run (Sega, 1986). By the late 1990s, many arcade games started to resemble mini theme-park rides complete with rideable race horses, gyroscopically-moving virtual simulators and fighting booths that allowed players to battle virtual foes using actual punches and kicks. The most elaborate of these arcades was Virtual World's BattleTech Centers; steampunk-themed arcades with linked "battle pods" that allowed 8 players to fight each other while stomping around in giant virtual "mechs."

These elaborate arcade games required lots of floor space and were very expensive to maintain. In the late 1990s, home systems began to rival and eventually surpassed the graphics seen in most arcade games. Arcades went out of business by the dozens. The video games became replaced with more lucrative redemption machines and games of skill like skeeball. With the liquidation of arcades, many cabinets ended up in the hands of private collectors. The golden age of video game arcades was over.

Most recently, arcades have become social and virtual experiences. LAN gaming centers combine retail and social space to allow players to play computer and console games on a per-hour basis. Many have upgraded to feature large-scale gaming experiences held in movie theater-sized venues. Internet cafes are similar to LAN centers but with an emphasis on cultivating a caf-style environment.