History of online games. History of the development of computer and video games The first computer game in the world

Good day to everyone and good mood to you, my dear friends. While I’m on vacation, I can’t really get into the mood for regular work. But I decided that I couldn’t leave you without an article and made a compromise with myself. If I am relaxing, then I would like you to relax too. Therefore, I have prepared an article for you to relax.

In the modern world, computer games have become an integral part in the lives of children and adolescents, and even adults. I myself used to often play with toys; at one time I even spent almost all my free time playing with them for about three years. Time constantly passes and games, of course, become more realistic, modern and are constantly being released. But it was not always so. Everything has its beginning.

And all this happened back in 1962, when two students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology first took a giant step in the computer industry. These students' names were Steve Russell and Martin Gretz. They called their first brainchild Spacewar and created it very quickly, literally in a couple of months.

At first they wrote a simple program, which they gradually developed and turned into a full-fledged toy about a battle between two space rockets. The two friends were passionate about science fiction, so they didn’t really stand on ceremony when choosing a theme for the game.

This game was played on the then modern PDP-1 computers, which had only 9 kilobytes of RAM. Can you imagine?

In general, the game was a black field on a computer screen, which symbolized space. In this outer space there was a certain number of white dots, which represented stars. Well, the main characters of this game were, as mentioned above, two spaceships (rockets). The goal of the game was to destroy the enemy missile.

Each ship could shoot at the enemy, but the supply of ammunition and fuel was limited. But there was a tricky move in the game: the player could make a hyperjump, thanks to which he would appear in a different place on the map. Thus, if you are lucky, you can take the enemy by surprise.

In 1971, the first space prototype of this game was released, which was called “Computer Space,” but this version did not bring success and was not in great demand. But a slot machine based on this game was installed at Stanford University. This move brought great success to the creator of this project, since the game on the machine was in great demand. The creator of this project, Bill Pitts, more than recouped his investment.

But despite the popularity of this game, it did not bring popularity and wealth to its creators, Steve Russell and Martin Graetz. But they did not leave their business and continued their development in the IT industry.

Here's a little story. Now you know how the first game appeared. I really hope you liked the article. If this is the case, then be sure to subscribe to my blog updates, then you will always be aware of everything interesting. By the way, how do you feel about computer games? Please write in the comments. Well, I say goodbye to you for today. Good luck to you. Bye bye!

Best regards, Dmitry Kostin.

Computer gaming emerged as a new industry in 1972, but the first PC games date back much earlier. Today, the world of the game has managed to conquer the whole world, and will soon become the most profitable business, if this has not already happened. It all started when a group of like-minded engineers decided to quit their jobs for the sake of one dream. Their leader Nolan Bushnell, who was then 28 years old, decides to open his own business at the same time. His initial capital at that time was $500. He gives the company the name Atari. Nolan's first move was to hire a developer, Al Alcorn, and offer him $1,000 a month and a share of the company. Al accepted the offer. The trial project of the company, which consisted of three people, was the game “Pong”. At first, this game was an ordinary slot machine, but it literally managed to conquer the United States in a matter of months. Without thinking twice, the partners decide to transform it into a home game, and this becomes their next success.

The essence of the game is very simple and not interesting today - two sticks from different sides of the screen must hit a square (ball). Four years later, Nolan decides to sell the company to Atari for $26 million. At the same time, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak joined the development of already popular gaming games, gaining popularity thanks to the game Arcanoid. Since not everyone could buy a PC in those years, there was only one way out - game consoles with high power.

But in fact, the first computer game was not Pong. The first PC games appeared around 1952. Douglas, while a student at Cambridge, created the world's first game. It was programmed on an EDSAC computer. But around 1958, the first video was created - a game by William Hijinbasam called “Tennis for Two”. In 1962, Steve Russell created the game SpaceWar. Back then it was only available to some programmers. Its essence is that two small spaceships shot down each other. It is considered the first, since it was intended specifically for playing on a PC. When creating it, a general purpose computer was used. Five years later, Ralph Baer wrote Pursuit, the first video game that could be played on a TV. In 1971, Bushnell and Dabney created the first maze game, the Space gallery, which was based on Spacewar. But the next game created was “Pong”, which was mentioned at the beginning.

Ordinary British teenagers, whose parents forbade them from buying consoles, decided to create their own game for the PC. For studying, parents bought computers for the boys, because in the early 80s a line of relatively cheap PCs appeared.

The Oliver Twins, then 12 years old, decided to create a game that would be different from the classic arcade games. Another important point was that there was no time limit for playing on a PC, unlike slot machines, where the game lasted several minutes. So the Olivers first began programming their computers and in 1982 (at the age of 13) their first game, “Road Runner,” was released.

The text of this program was published in one of the magazines, and each of its readers could start the game on their PC. This meant one thing to the twins - they were heroes. The essence of the game is that a car moving down the screen along a winding track had to overcome obstacles highlighted in one color. For this game, the guys received their first income from the magazine’s publishers, even if it was symbolic at that time.

But with the second game, the twins acted differently - they took part in a children's television show. They managed to win first place, and with it a cash reward. All this led to the fact that a simple hobby began to develop into the work of a lifetime. A lot of games were written right in the brothers' room. Sometimes the boys worked at night, because school was not canceled. The twins' games were distributed throughout the country and were sold in the largest stores.

After leaving school, the pay for the twins' jobs was still low. It was at this time that the boys met the Darling brothers. The Darling brothers are the same young guys who write games for a very nominal price, but who no longer like it. As a result, the Darlings open their own business and begin selling games by sending them by mail. Games were transferred to cassettes, covers were printed, and the result was a million game cassettes sold. But in 1986, the boys founded the Code Masters company. Their first fair brought a meeting with the Oliver twins, who showed like-minded people all their written games. When the Darlings replied: “Such a game will bring you 10,000 pounds,” the twins’ joy knew no bounds. As a result, after a month of sleepless nights, the game “Super Robin Hood” appeared. 100,000 tapes were sold and earnings amounted to £10,000. This gave the brothers a huge impetus to write new games. Some of them were written for Code Masters, and this union of PC gaming history is rightfully called one of the most successful. The twins created about half of all Code Masters games.

East is a delicate matter

But it wasn't just British teenagers who were creating PC games. At the same time, the gaming industry was also developing in the east. Her era in Japan began with Donkey Kong, Mario and Zelda. Their father was the genius of the 80s Shigeru Miyamoto, who works for Nintendo.

One fine day, Miyamoto realized the power of the game - it can awaken different feelings in a person. Therefore, he put all his memories from childhood into his games. Initially, Miyamoto worked for the company as an artist and did not even suspect that he would one day draw games on a PC. As a truly creative person, he hated the computer.

His whole life changed with the offer of cooperation. An order was received from Africa for 2000 cars with the game "Radar Scope", but the USA was not interested in it, so they asked to replace it with another one. Since there was no replacement and no developer available, the job went to young Miyamoto. His idea was based on creating a game like a movie, with a plot. This is how his first game, Donkey Kong, appeared. The plot of the game is about a gorilla who escapes from his cage to kidnap a girl. But a man with a hammer in his hands must catch up with her, turning away from the barrels. It all ends with the gorilla falling into a hole.

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It is worth noting that Miyamoto always tried to bring his characters to life, so he tried to emphasize any details, such as hair developing when falling, etc. But the technology of that time did not allow this to be done and the author decided to simply give his hero a red cap. This is how the Donkey Kong game was born, which Miyamoto sent to Seattle.

The Americans, having watched the game, were delighted, but decided to try it out. The game was installed in a local bar, and a day later they saw a box overflowing with money. In the first year alone, the company generated $100,000,000 in revenue from the game.

At the same time, in 1985, a new game console “NES” (Nintendo Entertainment System) from Nintendo entered the US market. Thanks to Miyamoto, gaming moved to a new level, and the first step was his masterpiece - “super Mario brothers”. Mario, a plumber from Italy, became Jump Man. He is capable of miracles of strength, he can jump high, but at the same time he can drown or break. He lived in a world full of sewer pipes, rock ledges, and cartoon monsters. This game, like its two subsequent sequels, won the love of children and adults all over the world. Well, who didn’t play Mario at that time? In 1987, “NES is the most popular toy in the world. Children in America loved and knew Mario more than the hero Mickey Mouse.

After this, the inventor releases another masterpiece - the game “The Legend of Zelda”. This game allowed you to roam freely and explore the whole world. It all starts with a field, in the middle of which stands a small and defenseless child. He is unarmed. First the player must give it a name, then understand what to do next - and this is complete freedom of action for the player. In a couple of years, more than 30 million consoles were sold. This brought Nintendo to first place in the production of games on the PC, and to confirm its title, it decided to release a game for people of any age - “Game Boy”. This leads to the emergence of a tandem between Nintendo and Tetris in the late 80s.

Development continues

Henk Rogers, a Dutch game publisher and developer, was importing new games to Japan. In 1988, he met Tetris in Las Vegas. His job was that whatever he found interesting at the exhibitions, he brought to Japan. First he played Tetris and left, but not for long. After a while he returned to play some more. The game attracted and beckoned him like a magnet. The game was invented in 1984 by Muscovite Alexei Pajitnov, who at that time lived in Seattle. Alexey was involved in voice recognition programs and the development of artificial intelligence, so Tetris was originally invented as a certain test for new computers. Alyosha's hobbies were puzzles and mathematical entertainment. “Tetris” is based on the puzzle from ancient Rome “Pentamino”, which consists of 12 figures of different shapes, consisting of 5 squares. But in the simplified version there are 4 squares, hence the name - Tetris (four in Greek). But the genius was that the game was timed, the filled lines disappeared, so the game could simply be played endlessly. The only thing that complicated the process was the speed at which the figures fell, which fell faster and faster throughout the game. The player did not have time to think quickly, began to get confused and lose. After getting acquainted with the game by Henk Rogers, Robert Stein, who works as a software importer from Hungary, learns about Tetris. Stein visits Moscow and meets Alexey. They agree on a license to release the game, and Pajitnov gives Stein Tetris as a gift. But they did not become partners. After Pajitnov and Henk meet, the rights to the game go to Rogers. As a result, Tetris becomes a favorite game, and Hank Rogers releases it for the Nintendo game console. This made it possible to release more than 32 million Tetris battle gems. Pajitnov, of course, did not earn anything from the game, because at that time he was a Soviet citizen, but he still immigrated to the United States. In 1996, the agreement between Nintendo and Pajitnov expired, which gave him the right to obtain copyrights. Today Alexey and Henk are selling Tetris on the new generation of machines.

A little history

The first games on PC were simple; since 1987, the world of computer games was just beginning to develop:

• 1987– Battle Tech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception, Pirates, Defender of the Crown.
• 1988- Life&Death, Megatraveller, Mean Streets.
• 1989- Death Track, Mech Warrior, Street Rod.
• 1990- Railroad Tycoon, Sim City, King's Bounty, Covert Action, Jones in the Fast Lane, Secret of Monkey Island, Ironman's Super Offroad.
• 1991– Civilization, Elite, Floor 13, Castles, Lemmings, 4D Boxing, Warlords, Gobliiins.
• 1992- Mad TV, Dune 2, Star Control 2, L.A. Law, Shadow President, Maelstrom, Stunt Island, Alone in the Dark.
• 1993- Master of Orion, Sim City 2000, Syndicate, Merchant Prince, Dino Park, Tycoon, Rags to Riches, Unnatural Selection, Fields of Glory, El Fish, Frontier.
• 1994- Theme Park, Reunion, Master of Magic, Settlers/Serf City, Horde, UFO: Enemy Unknown Quarantine, Transport Tycoon, Pizza Tycoon, Micro Machines.
• 1995- Civilization 2, Command & Conquer, Heroes of Might&Magic, Mechwarrior 2, First Encounters, Lemmings 3D, Capitalism, Motor City.
• 1996– Creatures, Emperor of the Fading Suns, Heroes of Might&Magic 2, Master of Orion 2, Syndicate Wars.
• 1997- Carmageddon, Imperium Galactica, Grand Theft Auto, Magic the Gathering, Sid Meier's Gettysburg, Pax Imperia, X-Com 3: Apocalypse.

The most interesting ideas in the development of computer games appeared before 1993. Every year something new, unique and exciting appeared. 1993 marked the beginning of cloning and duplication of previous games. The main game of 1994 was “UFO”, since it managed to combine all the best from previous games, and the two-year-old game “Laser Squad” was taken as a basis.

Without original and original ideas, the existence of any type of art is called into question. Today, thousands of PC games enter the market every year, but we are not spoiled with masterpieces that would delight us with their originality.

On June 4, 2018, the Tanki Online game celebrated its ninth birthday. Over nine years, many events have happened and valuable experience has been accumulated. New game objects and modes were added. The technology platform Flash was actively developed. An important event for the project was the appearance of a technical support service. This took it to the next level. The project continues to develop, and you can read about what happened before, what periods there were in the life of the game, what their results were in this article.

The material was prepared thanks to tankers sokol290 and Pashik-10.

“Tanks for two” (late 90s)

About sixteen years ago, the oldest ancestor of Tanki Online appeared - the game Tanki for Two. It was developed as an experiment by young Anton Volkov (wolf) and Alexander Karpovich (karp) - the founders of the Alternativa Games company and the Tanki Online project. A small store, graphics like in old java games for mobile phones and only two players - that’s all the simple functionality of “Tanks for Two”.

Thanks to this project, the idea of ​​​​creating an arcade tank action movie appeared.

The story of how the game was created can be found in the article by Alexander Karpovich on the official blog of Alternativa Games.

"Tanks" (late 2008 - early 2009)

Two months before the start of active development of Tanki Online, Alternativa Games employees developed a demonstration of the capabilities of the server platform. Demo codename: "Tanks".

It was a multiplayer action game about tanks in the Flash environment. The demo was developed using the Alternativa3D 5 graphics engine.

"Tanks" became the prototype of "Tanks Online".

The garage here was much more diverse than in “Tanks for Two.” There were three types of tanks: light, medium and heavy. There was only one gun. To hit a weak corps, one hit was required, a medium one - two, and a heavy one - four.

There was only one map and it existed in the form of a solid 3D model (in Tanki Online, maps consist of blocks - props). There was water. That card became the prototype of the current Tribute.

Archival video of “Tanks” gameplay:

As a result, prototypes of the Smokey gun and Hunter hull appeared. The idea of ​​a multiplayer action game about tanks began to materialize.

"Tanks online"

Beginning (2009)

"Rudiments" of parkour

Developer tanks (from left to right: antonio, zykov, danilova, arts80, Karp)

• On May 8, 2009, closed beta testing of the new game “Tanks Online” began.

It is noteworthy that at this moment the game receives an award at the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2009) in the category “Best Game Without a Publisher.” This suggests that already in the testing phase the game received recognition in the international gaming industry.

• A month later, on June 4, open testing began.

Speech by Anton Volkov, in which he invites all interested users to take part in open testing of the game:

Before the opening of Tanki Online, the developers of Alternativa Games gave an official interview to the famous gaming site GameStar.

Here is a small excerpt from it:

• Beginning of summer 2009 - the game was released on the main server.

The audience of players was just beginning to form. Everyone knew each other. The developers played together with the first users. During that period, the most “avid old men” of the maintenance project came.

In those days, prices for goods in the garage were different, and various glitches and lags were constantly discovered. In general, the chaos of primordial existence reigned...

It was then that the beginnings of parkour in TO appeared.

The idea of ​​introducing a racing mode arose. Mapmaker Avocado created the Monte Carlo map, which was supposed to be one of the arenas for the racing mode. Over time, this feature was abandoned, but the card remained. Now it is quite popular among tankers. Avocado gave an interview to the Tankov Online newspaper, in which he talked about how the Monte Carlo map was created.

In one version of this map, the skybox was made in blood red tones. At the same time, if you fall into the abyss, you could see that a city is depicted at its “bottom”.

• On July 31, 2009, the Capture the Flag (CTF) game mode was added.

Since then, Tanki Online has changed a lot, and now there is little that reminds us of those times.

The era of “DikoReli in Digital” (late 2009 - mid 2010)

First concept of Isis

Bugs with physics

Killer93 - moderator of the "Gazebo" section on the forum; Avocado - map maker, author of the Monte Carlo and Düsseldorf maps

By that time, about 200,000 people had already registered in the game.

In 2010, a large number of new cards appeared. The appearance of the game has changed beyond recognition. During this period, the number of registrations began to increase sharply: on June 24, 300,000 tankers were registered, on August 15 - 400,000, on September 19 - 500,000, and on December 19, the millionth player registered in the game. There was a wave of cheating. Cartoon farming began to flourish.

Demand for first-generation equipment has dropped significantly. There were rumors about a mysterious Shaft cannon.

In the process of balancing the new guns, the developers came to the conclusion that Frieze and Ricochet needed serious adjustments. Thus, it was noted that Ricochet is too powerful compared to other guns, and Frieze, on the contrary, is only suitable for freezing, but not destroying. Therefore, in the fall of 2010, all Freezes and Ricochet were removed from the garages, and the crystals for them were returned to the players' accounts so that they could purchase the rebalanced guns again.

A large number of new competitions were held: a video competition, the first “Mr. and Miss Tanki Online”, a short story competition. More details in the Competitions section.

Tankman Jeck_Aubrey started making FFFUUU comics on the theme of “Tanks” and created one of the most popular topics on the TO forum in the “Your Creativity” section.

In April 2010, the Chinese version of Tanki Online was launched. The Chinese servers were separate from the main ones and had a separate database (and remain so to this day). Here's what Ivan Zykov, art director of Alternativa Games, said about this:

• On May 7, 2010, Tanki Online became the site of the day at the Favorite Website Awards.

Old newsboy paint texture "Reporter"

• On July 7, 2010, Tanki got its own newspaper. It was created by enthusiastic players with the support of the administration. The newspaper existed for a long time until it merged with the News portal. For more details, see the article History of the creation of the Tankov Online newspaper.

• At the beginning of September 2010, "Tanks" celebrated Tankman's Day. The administration's gift to the tankers was a 25% discount on all goods in the garage - the first discount promotion in the history of the game.

• On November 25, 2010, the results of the Runet Prize were summed up, and the Tanki Online project entered the top ten. To mark the occasion, all items in the garage were given a 25% discount.

• For the New Year 2010-2011, “Tanks” pleased their players with another 25% discount on all goods in the garage, as well as a New Year’s card and festive decorations. Since then, not a single New Year in “Tanks” can do without these attributes.

2011-2012

“Tanks” entered the new year 2011 with a serious desire to build on the successes achieved in the past. Work continued on Tanki Online 2.0 (which was destined to end soon), new competitions and events appeared. The “battle of players versus developers” format was tested for the first time: on February 7, news about the upcoming “300 Tankers” competition appeared on the game’s main page. There were so many applications that the competition was renamed “3000 tankers.” The battle itself took place on February 15; a randomly selected team of players did not hold out against the developers equipped with M3 weapons.

On February 12, another significant event took place: the one and a half millionth registration. And on Valentine's Day, February 14, the famous Smokey XT gun was released to the main servers. She was stronger and more expensive than the standard Smokey. Within a week, any tanker with the rank of Warrant Officer 1 or higher could buy a gun and use it until February 22. The next day, the damage of Smokey XT was increased, and the duration of the promotion was extended for two more days. The event caused a considerable resonance among tankers (by the way, such innovations had never existed in the game before). On the forum and in the game, Smokey XT became the number one topic of discussion. On February 24, 2011 at 8:00 Moscow time, the Smokey XT gun was permanently removed from the garages.

On April 1, the developers presented another unusual competition. It was called “Goon Race,” and in it participants were asked to go through a special race track, competing with rivals in speed. A prerequisite was the constant spinning of the tower. The winner had the opportunity to receive any item available for purchase in the garage for free.

Also on April 1, an unusual object appeared in the store - the “Blue Ball”. The price tag amazed the imagination of the players: 100,500 crystals! This was equivalent to a quarter of the cost of the entire garage at the time, and at today's prices this amounts to 1,005,000 crystals. Of course, only a few tankers could afford to spend such a huge amount on an April Fool's joke. According to rumors, those who bought the Blue Ball received cheating superpowers for a while, and when the item was removed from the garages, everyone who bought it received a double refund. At the end of 2015, the rumors were officially denied in one of the video blog episodes.

• On June 2, the second thematic battle of developers against players took place - “1000 tankers”. This time they decided to play on VaspoSmok, and the result of the battle was a draw.

• On June 6, the project celebrated a new milestone - registration number 3 million. The lucky one was a tanker (or tanker?) with the nickname katyana.

• On July 8, the German localization of the game was launched.

Shaft Appears

Intriguing anticipation of the long-awaited gun

The first "shaft drivers"

sokol290 and Pashik-10

• On October 14, “Tanks” reached the milestone of 5,000,000 registered players, and a little more than a month later - on November 27 - tanker number 6,000,000 registered in the game.

• According to tradition, in November “Tanki Online” took part in the “Runet Award” and took ninth place in the “People’s Ten” nomination.

The year 2012 began for the project with new achievements. On January 4, the seven millionth player registered in the game under the nickname stepan1234567891. The popularity of the game grew like a snowball - not even a month passed between eight and nine million registrations. And on March 25, the number of game accounts exceeded 10 million. Nickname of the anniversary registered user - lYonsl.

The game gradually gained popular popularity. The following is a video sent by the player Virtvirt, in which his two-year-old son Stas ( BOECtankist) skillfully controls his tank, destroying opponents from his Shaft:

In addition, Stas took part in the competition “Mr. TO 2012” and took an honorable third place in it.

On June 4, the project celebrated its third birthday. A few days later, a large-scale event was launched dedicated to the European Football Championship that was taking place at that time. Players were catching football gold boxes, the denomination of which was significantly increased. You can read more. On June 28, the “1000 Football Players” battle took place, in which a team of tankers defeated the developers on the Stadium map.

Item "1000 experience" in the garage

The summer of 2012 was marked by many innovations: these were improvements to the maps, a test of the new FTC mode (CTF with an inverted arrangement of bases; however, the matter did not go further than the test) and the disabling of the rating (previously, the set of experience points depended on the rating - the higher it was, the fewer points were awarded for any action, which slowed down the development of experienced tankers-"benders" and gave rise to the phenomenon of artificially lowering the rating through automated self-destruction), and the sale of experience (1000 units for 100 crystals), and new graphic effects, and the introduction of display " cards conquered by clans during the Card Capture tournament.

Release 1.100 (second half of 2012)

• On July 3, the first episode of the video blog was released:

In it, Tanki Online community manager Maxim Khusainov spoke about all the events taking place in the game at that time: tournaments, competitions and releases. In particular, it was on this day that the option to report violators appeared in the game. Subsequently, the video blog became one of the main means of communication between players and developers. From issue to issue, new sections appeared (“Interview with the developer,” “Hello,” etc.). Community manager Nikolai Kolotov, who joined the company in the summer of 2012, brought the quality of the video blog’s images to a new level. The entire technical part from filming to publication on video hosting is in his hands.

At the beginning of August, players had the opportunity to take part in another “sports” competition - “Tankiada”. It is not difficult to guess that the competition was timed to coincide with the London Olympics. As part of the "Tankiada", players fought with project assistants.

Having exhaled after introducing new physics and micro-levelling into the game, the developers got busy with the maps and on January 31 rolled out a large-scale update that, to one degree or another, affected almost all game arenas. Some of them have been significantly changed. The most important event was the return to the game of the hit of all time - the “Madness” card, which has undergone a total rework. A week later, a topic appeared on the forum in which it was reported that several unpopular cards would be removed soon. Tankers could only “save” two of them, but the surge in gaming activity caused by the doubling of gold boxes on these maps changed the minds of the developers, and the decision to remove them was canceled.

The next milestone on the path of progress was the move of game servers to a powerful data center in Amsterdam. Servers located almost in the center of Europe, and not in Russia, allow players from all over the world to quickly and easily enter the game and not feel the discomfort associated with high ping.

Around the same time, team kick was removed from the game.

First Brazilian Generalissimo

On April 10, the Brazilian version of Tanki Online was launched. It uses its own database (just like the Chinese version) and operates on a separate server located directly in Brazil, so that players do not have to worry about transferring game data across the ocean. Along with the Brazilian localization, a new map “Rio” appeared in the game, made in a unique style. The map does not lose popularity to this day thanks to the thoughtful arrangement of game elements and room for maneuver. The visiting card of the map was the seemingly impregnable skyscraper - there was even a special competition dedicated to its conquest. The German parkour team GTT was the first to “saddle” the roof of the high-rise building.

"Tanks" is 5 years old!

• On June 2, an updated mode was introduced into the game, as well as a number of useful updates: linear distribution of the fund at the end of the game, the ability to add a player to the blacklist through the chat menu, and the ability to turn off chat.
• On June 4, Tanki Online celebrated its fifth anniversary.
• On June 24, the game application was launched on the VKontakte social network -

Since the times of ancient Rome, people have demanded “bread and circuses.” Entertainment and relaxation have always been one of the main components of any civilization. The very first game in the world, created for fans of virtual space, marked the beginning of a new era in the entertainment industry.

Today there are a great variety of computer games. New games come out almost every day. People who are fond of virtual games today do not experience the slightest difficulty in choosing a suitable toy that can brighten up their leisure time. Computer games today will satisfy even the most demanding connoisseur. But the market for such entertainment has not always been so abundant. After all, earlier computers did not have much power; there were no games for them at all.

The beginning of the era of virtual entertainment

This happened in the immemorial year of 1962. The game was called Spacewar. She could work on a computer with 9 kilobytes of RAM. Today's gamers will only smile when they see such funny numbers. By the way, modern computers can accelerate to 2 billion. And gadgets on the Android platform can handle the newest toys without any problems; there are even games with augmented reality.

The very first game in the world left an indelible and vivid imprint on the entire history of computer games. By the way, similar games have been created before; the creators of Spacewar were not pioneers in that sense. Back in 1952, A. Douglas came up with a game that was essentially an analogy of ordinary tic-tac-toe. In 1958, U. Hijinbasam created a game under the romantic name “Tennis for Two.” It was all just ping pong. But Spacewar had a slightly different purpose, because it had to be played on a computer, which fundamentally distinguished it from its predecessors.

Creating a cosmic masterpiece

The first computer game was a battle between two ships in space. She is the embodiment of the vastness of the universe, cold, merciless and bottomless, like an abyss. The game was created by a group of programmers working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It took them two months to work on the game. The leaders of the group were S. Russell and M. Gretz.

Fate brought them together in a tourist club at the university. Both were attracted to science fiction, and on this basis they became serious friends. At first they made a simple program, which after a month turned into a game with two missiles shooting at each other. The goal of the game was simple - you had to throw your opponent off balance before he beats you.

Players have equal chances of winning. Each of them has a supply of energy, embodied in two types: passive and active. Passive energy is needed to support the force field protection function. Without active energy, it will not be possible to perform such necessary active actions as jumping, traveling through space, fighting and camouflage.

Each player himself determines the style and rhythm of the game. He can only rely on himself, he is responsible for his actions and mistakes. Victory will be achieved by the one who shows great prudence and composure. Moments of calm are sweet for the player, because in such rare moments active energy is revived. But at the same time they are dangerous for him.

A fragment of the starry sky was displayed on the display; two players, using the keyboard, had to shoot at the enemy and maneuver in zero gravity. Fuel supplies and combat equipment were limited. In order to avoid being shot, you had to turn around a star located in the center of the map or decide to make a super jump. The last method to bypass enemy missiles was the hyperspace function, but this method was very dangerous and unpredictable, as the ship could explode when used.

The peculiarity of the game was that the first version of the starry sky background was imperfect. Samson did not like this at all, and he decided to write a program based on real diagrams of stellar space. After the successful implementation of this innovation, at least 50 percent of the stars became visible. The game has become a real inspiration for many game creators. Some are simply copies of the game, while others differ from it in such characteristics as the intensity of acceleration, different levels of gravity, and the presence of shields.

Followers of the first developers

In 1971, a similar game was created called Computer Space, but it did not gain much popularity. Spacewar, after ten years, has earned the title of the first commercial game. All in the same 1971, a machine with a different version of Spacewar - Galaxy Game - was installed in the building of the Stanford Student Union. This game enjoyed undoubted success for six years. The creator of the machine, B. Pitts, managed to quickly return the 60 thousand dollars he invested in the project.

The creators of Spacewar did not receive much financial benefit from their brainchild. They achieved only small fees by advising the courts in the 1970s in cases involving the gaming industry. And, of course, they improved their skills as programmers. Everyone who in one way or another took part in the creation of Spacewar is still associated with computers, and their name will remain for centuries. The very first game in the world opened the way for many talented programmers and developers who continue the work begun by the Americans and delight modern gamers with new products and surprises from the computer gaming industry.

The first computer game was created in 1952 by A. S. Douglas. Douglas created his first game at the University of Cambridge (one of the most prestigious universities in England). The world's first computer game was programmed on an EDSAC computer, the image on which was formed using cathode rays. Another computer scientist, William Hijinbasam, created his first video game around 1958. His video game was called Tennis for Two. In 1962, Steve Russell invented SpaceWar! It is worth saying that this game, SpaceWar!, was the first computer game that was intended specifically for playing on a computer, that is, for computer use. Steve Russell used a mainframe computer to design his game. But, just five years later, in 1967, Ralph Baer first wrote a video game that could be played on a TV. The game that Ralph Baer managed to write was called “Pursuit”.

The fact is that at that historical period, Ralph Baer worked in an organization dealing with military electronics. In 1971, Bushnell, along with Ted Dabney, created their first game - a maze, a gallery. This game was called "Space". “Space” was based on, that is, when it was created, Steve Russell’s earlier game Spacewar! was taken as a basis. Just a year later, in 1972, the Pong needle was created. Pong was created by Nolan Bushnell and Al Corn. In 1975, Atari released Pong as a home video game.

It is worth saying that Larry Kerekman was one of the first to create video games. In 1972, the first commercial video game console was released. Thanks to this remote control, you could play video games at home, meaning there was no need to go anywhere. Also, it is worth saying that such a commercial remote control for a video game was quite an expensive pleasure, which, however, is not surprising. Any thing that appears for the first time is always very expensive, because in this case such a thing practically claims to be exclusive.

Today, any child cannot imagine his childhood and youth without computer games. Today, a computer and everything that is necessary for a full-fledged and exciting game is quite accessible to anyone, even a not very well-to-do family. However, it is worth reminding our little computer geeks that it is not worth playing computer games for a long time, as this can damage your eyesight. Some games can cause cybernetic gambling addiction - this is what psychologists call addiction to computer games. It is much more fun to play outdoor games with your friends, run in the yard, or play any kind of sport.