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1. Early History of Computer Games

1. Early History of Computer Games. 1961 Spacewar Designed by Steve Russell at MIT Ran on a PDP-1 Distributed and played by 100’s of programmers and engineers. Magnavox Odyssey. Video Games. 1972 Nolan Bushnell starts Atari develops Pong as arcade game

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1. Early History of Computer Games

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  1. 1. Early History of Computer Games • 1961 • Spacewar • Designed by Steve Russell at MIT • Ran on a PDP-1 • Distributed and played by 100’s of programmers and engineers

  2. Magnavox Odyssey

  3. Video Games • 1972 Nolan Bushnell starts Atari • develops Pong as arcade game • After playing ping-pong on Odyssey

  4. Pong

  5. Arcade Milestones in 1970’s • 1974 Tank (Atari) • First game to use ROM to store graphic data • 1975 Gunfight (Taito/Midway) • First to use a microprocessor • 1976 Breakout (Atari) • Designed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak • 1978 Space Invaders (Taito/Midway) • First game to appear outside arcades and bars (restaurants, ice-cream parlours)

  6. Space Invaders - 1978 • Hugely popular • Caused coin shortage in • Japan until supply • quadrupled • Cause of juvenile crime

  7. 2. The Crash of 1983-84 • Video game business crashed 1983-1984 • Bankruptcies • What went wrong?

  8. Aggressive pricing of computers • From US$1000 to US$500, then lower to under $100 • Commodore ads saying university/college bound kids needed a computer more than a console • Computers more powerful, better graphics and could run other programs

  9. Flood of products • Hardware manufacturers lost control of software • Companies rushed in after 3rd party production declared legal • Stores became overload with product • Ill-prepared companies produced poor games

  10. E.T. • Atari rushed ET (1982) to market (6 weeks) • Produced 4 million cartridges – sold 1.5 million • Mass burial of cartridges in landfill in New Mexico • After paying $20 million for rights Atari loses $536 million in 1983

  11. Retailers Lost Faith • Products distributed on sale or return • With developers going bust, no return • So retailers discounted • From standard $34.95, games went for $4.95 • So market for $34.95 games evaporated • Retailers decided video games a fad, so cut shelf space

  12. Results • Long term console manufacturers gone • Mattel, Coleco, Magnavox • Atari damaged and sold off • Most importantly, centre shifted from Japan to US • Third gen consoles would be dominated by Nintendo and Sega

  13. 3. Gaming Computers in the 80’s and the rise of the PC • In the 80’s multiple computing platforms for games • Commodore • Atari • Apple • PC • And others

  14. Computer Hardware • 1977 - Apple II • 1978 – 8088 • Adopted for IBM PC 1981

  15. Motorola 68000 • Atari ST • Apple Macintosh • Commodore Amiga

  16. Home Computers - The 80’s • 8-bit • Atari 400/800 & successors 1979-1992 (8K/16K memory) • Commodore 64 8 bit 64K memory 1982-1993 • Very popular • Apple II • IBM PC 1981 • Sinclair ZX Spectrum 1982-1987 (successor to ZX80) • 16 bit • Atari ST 512K (later 1,2,4 MB) 1985-¬1993 • Commodore Amiga 1985-1994 • Apple Macintosh • IBM PC 1986 • Texas Instruments TI-99/4A 1981-1983

  17. Commodore 64 • Sound and graphics well beyond PC when introduced International Karate 1987 1986 version

  18. Commodore Amiga • Commodore bought Amiga to get into 16 bit market • Probably most advanced of its time Original Amiga - 1985

  19. Commodore Amiga • Blitter (block image transfer hardware) • Rapid copying of video memory • Freed CPU for other tasks • Forerunner of separate GPUs

  20. Atari ST • Fully bit-mapped GUI • First integral MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) support • Not as powerful as Amiga, but cheaper Atari 520ST 1985

  21. Apple II • 1977-1993 • Good graphics and sound • Heavily used in schools and universities

  22. IBM PC • Initial failure in home market – 1981 • Graphics not taken seriously • MS-DOS didn’t have an API for graphics • Not a serious player until VGA graphics -1987 • 640x480 16 colours • 320x240 256 colours

  23. Why the PC? • In 80’s PC was not the game system of choice • More like 4th or worse • So why did it supplant the others?

  24. Some Clues • EGA – 1984 • Enhanced Graphics Adapter • 640,350, 16 colours • VGA – 1987 • Video Graphics Array • 640x480, 16 colours • 320x200, 256 colours • SVGA -1989 • Super Video Graphics Array • 1024x768, 256 colours

  25. More • Intel 80386 – 1986 • 32-bit • Intel 80486 • 25 MHz 1989 • 33 MHz 1990 • 50 MHz 1991

  26. More • Soundblaster - 1989 • Windows 3.0 – 1990 • First widely successful version of Windows • Windows 3.1 – 1992

  27. So?? ??? (come back next week)

  28. Online Gaming – Multiplayer FPS • Quake – 1996 • First to popularise it • Unreal Tournament – 1999 • Another popular one • Counterstrike – 1999 • Team based • Battlefield 1942 – 2002 • Another important team based series

  29. MMORPGs Ultima Online 1997 First popular one But there were some graphical ones before it And if you want to really understand the history of these things, look up MUDs – multi user dungeons Everquest 2002

  30. World of Warcraft 2004

  31. There are many others out there • You might want to look at the rise of free to play, combined with microtransactions • And the difference between western and eastern designed ones

  32. Social/Casual Games • Think World of Warcraft is the biggest online game? • This thing beats it hands down Farmville 2009 Topped out around 80 million, compared to WoWs 15 million Although considerably down on that now

  33. Social Games • Easy to play social games are a big market • Many played through facebook and other social networking web pages

  34. Casual Games • Not everything is a AAA multi million dollar budget title • Computer games didn’t start that way • And many games are still released that are simple and have mechanics that resemble those of the early days

  35. Bejeweled 2001 75 million copies sold Angry Birds 2009 Over 300 million downloads across all platforms

  36. Independent Games • One person or small team • You might like to look up • Minecraft • Dwarf Fortress • But there are so many others, in so many genres

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