Back in 1958, any visitor to the Brookhaven National Laboratory Open House could observe a curious pattern: a crowd of people did not move from one of the exhibits – the screen oscilloscope light spot, representing a tennis ball, obeying the commands from the remote controls of two players, flew from side to side through the drawn on the same grid oscilloscope. The pastime was a great success, but not many people could have imagined that they were observing the dawn of a new era: the era of video games.
History Page
The history of video games is somewhat similar to virtual gambling. Now no one is surprised to play online different games, but once, the mechanical slot machines, known as one-armed bandits due to the characteristic lever on the side of the body, were a real revolution. You can read more about the history of slot machines at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slot_machine, but we’ll return to video games. Similarly to slots, the first slot machines were mechanical devices that were unlocked by placing a coin or token in the slot-money-receiver. Pinball was a typical representative of games of that time. The player ran a pusher spring-loaded ball, which rolled out on the playing field. The field was tilted in the direction of the player, so the ball sought to roll into the pocket, which is located near the player’s edge. The game was over, so the player tried to prevent the ball from leaving the game, manipulating the two bits. Under the bats, the ball went into the gate, giving the player a scoring point.
Many attempts were made to move the action from the physical playing field to the screen of a cathode-ray tube, but the results of these attempts were too expensive, and the spectacle left much to be desired.
Everything changed with the development of portable computer technology. Electronic computer-based slot machines were much more exciting and cheaper than analog ones. Such machines were usually installed in arcade galleries of shopping malls, for which the machines themselves received the unofficial name “arcade”, which, later on, stuck to the genre of dynamic casual video games.
Video games entered the homes of gamers in the early 1970s, when the first brown box game console went on sale. The technology of that time did not allow to “cram” into a compact case a powerful enough processor, which affected the quality of games. In particular, only dynamic elements of the game were programmatically drawn (it should be noted, very minimalistic). Static elements were depicted by transparent overlays on the screen. The console contained 13 stitched games, when switching between them, it was necessary to change the overlay.
Although the brown box was very popular and commercially successful (its sales exceeded 300 thousand pieces), Atari’s Pong was a real success, making the company what it was, for example, Nokia in the world of cell phones. In some years, the sales of Atari consoles were comparable to the sales of all the other consoles on the market together.
Such success allowed the company to carry out some risky experiments, one of which was the release of the console with games on cartridges – Atari-2600. Before that, consoles had a limited set of games flashed into the processor. The idea was to build the processor with the game or games into a separate, easily replaceable case. In this way, players had access to an almost endless array of games on the same console. But another aspect was just as important: console manufacturers could no longer develop games at all, leaving the process to third-party companies, thus turning game development or gamedev into a separate business.
In less than ten years, this business has become a powerful industry with multi-million dollar turnover which allows gamers to play online bingo for real money. Now we will tell you about the main giants of the game industry.
The Best Game Developers
So, our top for today is as follows:
| 1 | Blizzard | Masters of the Worlds |
| 2 | Valve Corporation | Contributions to Cybersports |
| 3 | Electronic Arts | Best game series |
| 4 | RockStar Games | It’s a single series, but what a great one! |
| 5 | Bethesda Softworks | Oldfags will love it! |
We want to note right away that the places in our top are conditional, each of the companies is worthy of the top. Let’s go into more detail.
Bethesda Softworks
Although Bethesda has not created the legendary Fallout, it certainly managed to breathe new life into the series, taking the game to a new level. Translating isometric RPG in full 3D with an open world and the first-person, even optional, was a very risky step, which justified itself not a hundred percent.
And what universe can compete with “Foul” by the number of loyal fans? Perhaps, the first one that comes to mind is The Elder Scrolls, and it belongs to Bethesda Softworks, too.
RockStar Games
This company put its name in the pantheon of top video game developers due to the GTA series. Carjacker simulator from the end of 90-th attracts the fans of really adult games. The plot gives a head start to many crime thrillers, and the corporate style is simply impossible to confuse with anything else.
The company has repeatedly been involved in scandals related to over-the-top violence in games, but it is only for the benefit of the company.
Electronic Arts
Initially, the company was only engaged in game publishing, but later it moved to development, betting on the sports series. The EA Sports brand name features:
- NHL;
- FIFA;
- NBA;
- UFC;
We should also mention the Need for Speed and The Sims series.
Valve Corporation
This company became famous thanks to HalfLife game and revolutionary approach to the supply of the story through gameplay. But the release of the legendary Counter Strike was no less important milestone, the influence of which on the development of multiplayer games is as great as the influence of HL on the development of the singleplayer game.
Blizzard
It is not for nothing that we call Blizzard the master of worlds, because this company owns the game universes:
- StarCraft;
- WarCraft;
- Diablo;
- Hearthstone;
- Heroes of the Storm.
One mention of these brands will make the heart of any gamer beat faster.
This is the general editors account for Old School Gamer Magazine. Press releases and other general information sent to Old School Gamer are often posted here.
