Slide Deck: A Brief History of Video Games
Humans have been playing games as long as we have been around. Games are a way that people can interact and share a common bond. Sometimes games have deep cultural significance. Sometimes they are ways to pass the time. Sometimes they are an opportunity to avoid more serious conflict. Sometimes they teach us something. Games can be as important to a culture as art, literature, dance, theater, music, or any number of other ways that we can express ourselves.
To say that games are important doesn’t seem to do it justice, in my opinion.
So, of course, when computers became the newest tool for humans to use… well, of course we figured out a way to play games on them. Games using a computer added new layers we didn’t necessarily have before. At first, they were an objective rules keeper, making sure the players engaged fairly. Eventually, computers added graphics and audio, blurring the lines with art even further. New ways of interacting with computers had to be created - the joystick, adapted from machine controls, is often identified as one of the first. But there were others - dials, number pads, and simply just buttons. We found new ways to combined these components together to make controllers.
We then found other ways to play - with plastic guitars and dance pads. With pretend drums and maracas. Devices that could “see” our movements.
Games are important. Games matter to people.
Computers are just one way to create them.
Probably the best history of computer games I’ve seen can be found at https://crpgbook.wordpress.com/. I invite you to take a trip through the stages of history.
Most importantly, though, consider the evolution of how we have played games:
Where will games go next?