A Look at the Very First Modern Video Games

With thousands of different titles spanning numerous different game systems, video games have become quite popular. And with consumers paying anywhere from $20 to $60 for brand new games, it has become quite a profitable industry for game manufacturers and designers; but it hasn't always been this way - and in fact, the very roots of the modern day video game can be traced back much further than you might think.

The Earliest Video Games

Believe it or not, the very first video games were developed in the 1950's as a way for bright young students to demonstrate their skills in the earliest form of computer programming. These video games were played mainly on large mainframe computers in large universities throughout the United States, which allowed a group of MIT students to create "Spacewar!" in 1961, which is recognized as the very first video game to put two human players head-to-head and in direct competition with one another.

It wasn't until five years later, in 1966, when Ralph Baer developed the first game that was capable of being played on the earliest home television sets - this game was titled "Corndog". And as you know by now, this would pave the way for many games to come.

The First Commercial Video Games

In September of 1971 the first coin-operated video game, "Galaxy Game" (which was based on Spacewar!) was installed at the campus of Stanford University. Another clone of Spacewar!, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in late 1971 was also a coin-operated video game, and is credited with being the first mass-produced video game; though it wasn't very successful.

Atari was founded in 1972, releasing the video game classic "Pong" - which is the title that many gamers consider to be the earliest video game. The late 70's and early 80's would see other classic Atari games, such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Pac-Man, which were soon showing up in shopping malls, retail stores, and restaurants nationwide; though this is considered the Golden Age of Video Games, we all know by now that they would have quite the road ahead of them.

The Magnavox Odyssey was also released in 1972, and though it had no game cartridges (instead featuring only a few games programmed into the machine's memory), this was the earliest version of the video game console as we know it today. Personal home computers hit the consumer market not too long thereafter, which allowed consoles like the VES (Video Entertainment System), Atari 2600, ColecoVision, and numerous other early game systems. And the rest, as they say, is history...

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games