Video games might be a popular thing now but back when they were invented, most kids or people didn’t even have the necessary equipment to play that game. The first video game, Spacewar was created about 50 years ago by three people we have to thank for today, namely Steve “Slug” Russell, Martin “Shag” Graetz and Wayne Wiitanen at the prestigious MIT.
The equipment required to play that game was called DEC PDP-1, something not many people possessed back then. But video games have come a long way. Let’s have a look at the evolution of video games over the time.
1970s
Games might have a huge fan-base now but back in the 70s, there weren’t many people who were excited about video games. The initial couple of games like Computer Space and Galaxy Game were only followed and played by the engineers from MIT and Stanford.
However, this changed soon in 1972 when Magvavox Odyssey, the brainchild of Ralph Baer and the work of Magnavox was bought to life. Ralph was the head of the instrumentation dept at Sanders Associates at the time and he had given rise to the gaming culture.
1980s
Fast forward into the next decade, gaming consoles are a thing now. However, they look very different from the gaming consoles we have today. The consoles were bulky and were big and complicated pieces of machinery. To run a game with 8 bit graphics and minimal music, the size of the console was unreasonable by today’s standards.
This is when arcade games and consoles were born. The period from 1970-1980 is credited with the creation of some of the most popular arcade games such as “Pac-Man” and “The Legend of Zelda”. This is also the period when games started being categorized and categories such as Adventure, Action Adventure, Role Playing Games, Action Role Playing Games and Fighting came into being.
1990 onwards
After the arcades, the consoles were the next big thing. Almost all the big names in the gaming industry today had their breakthrough during this period with the gaming consoles. Sony came out with the Playstation, Microsoft with the X-Box and Nintendo with the GameCube and then the Wii during this period, making video games more accessible to the public while at the same time improving the graphics quality drastically.
Up until the 2000s, playing video games was labeled as “something for kids” but then came along a series of games which changed this perception and were widely played by adults as well, Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog to name a few. Then came games such as Halo, Assassin’s Creed and the very famous game that almost everyone has played as a child- Grand Theft Auto that is still played and enjoyed by the 90’s kids who are adults now.
Now, you no longer need to own a console to play video games. High-end gaming PCs and laptops and even your tablet or smartphone will go the job equally good if not better of running the modern high-graphic video games. Not only that, gaming has become a full-time career for a lot of pros out there who make big bucks through gaming.
Along pro-gaming came betting, like with every other professional sport. The masses were quite late in realizing the fact that if they could bet on physical sports on online betting sites, why not on virtual sports? The first instance of esports betting, which is basically the term used to refer to betting on pro-video gaming events was observed in 2010.
This was made possible by Pinnacle. Pinnacle was founded 1998 and since then, it has become one of the biggest esports betting websites in the world. Since then, a lot of people have taken it up as a hobby and that has really given a boost to the pro-gaming scene.
People are also making a fortune through online betting on gaming tournaments. A big change from where we started from indeed.
