chobopeon Profile Blog Joined May 2003 United States 7339 Posts Last Edited: 2012-06-20 02:35:12 #1 On June 20 2012 11:34 chobopeon wrote:

Show nested quote +

On June 16 2012 09:20 RoyaleBrainSlug wrote:

What happened to this project? I enjoyed reading and listening to it so much.



So I gotta say sorry. I stopped this because I thought it could do much better than just a non-spotlighted post on TL. I do love TL and all but it seemed like it had a lot of potential. I talked to people about putting it on other sites (big, mainstream sites like Gamespot) but nothing has come of that yet. Maybe I'll still do that in the future.



For now, I'm going to keep posting everything



God I hope this doesn't crash that page. Apologies if it does, it has barely been tested. So I gotta say sorry. I stopped this because I thought it could do much better than just a non-spotlighted post on TL. I do love TL and all but it seemed like it had a lot of potential. I talked to people about putting it on other sites (big, mainstream sites like Gamespot) but nothing has come of that yet. Maybe I'll still do that in the future.For now, I'm going to keep posting everything here . I've already posted 6 new chapters and I'll keep them coming in the near future. Let me know what you think.God I hope this doesn't crash that page. Apologies if it does, it has barely been tested.





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8rRLqdYV-8



+ Show Spoiler [An intro] +

Last month, I was peeing in the urinal next to Artosis when we locked eyes and began to speak to one another. All good stories begin like that. Dan acknowledged me by way of saying “Chobopeon! This guy is like the third or forth best journalist in esports!”



Ouch. I used to be cool, right? People used to



However, after leaving MLG, I fell off the face of the earth. Well, in recent weeks I’ve found my way back to the pale blue dot and back to esports. I’ve been working on



“The Chobopeon Show” will premiere this Monday at 7pm Eastern (Midnight CET) with “A History of Esports Part 1”. The episode is an hour long. I’ll release the entire text of the show with the new episode.



For those of you who know radio shows like This American Life and Radiolab, you’ll recognize the big influence those shows are on this new project. For those of you used to Live of 3 and State of the Game, this will be something new for esports. I think you’ll like it.



So, new show on Twitch this Monday. If you can’t make it live, it’s the kind of show you can watch any time. However, if we have enough live viewers, we may take Skype calls and tweets (@chobopeon, duh) for those of you who like talking about esports history.



All in all, this is over 60,000 words dedicated to esports. If you see a mistake or anything you'd like changed, please let me know. I'd love for more relevant images and videos to be added.



If you'd like to translate or repost the thing, please ask first. The text may not fully match the spoken portion because the text is being continuously updated.



All feedback is welcome. Thanks for checking it out.

Last month, I was peeing in the urinal next to Artosis when we locked eyes and began to speak to one another. All good stories begin like that. Dan acknowledged me by way of saying “Chobopeon! This guy is like the third or forth best journalist in esports!”Ouch. I used to be cool, right? People used to retweet me, no big deal.However, after leaving MLG, I fell off the face of the earth. Well, in recent weeks I’ve found my way back to the pale blue dot and back to esports. I’ve been working on The Executives with Jason Lake from Complexity and Odee from Dignitas . Now, I’m getting ready to put out my own content.“The Chobopeon Show” will premiere this Monday at 7pm Eastern (Midnight CET) with “A History of Esports Part 1”. The episode is an hour long. I’ll release the entire text of the show with the new episode.For those of you who know radio shows like This American Life and Radiolab, you’ll recognize the big influence those shows are on this new project. For those of you used to Live of 3 and State of the Game, this will be something new for esports. I think you’ll like it.So, new show on Twitch this Monday. If you can’t make it live, it’s the kind of show you can watch any time. However, if we have enough live viewers, we may take Skype calls and tweets (@chobopeon, duh) for those of you who like talking about esports history.



Every episode will have the text released prior to the stream. You can listen, you can read or you can do both.



Part 1, 1950s-1980s

VOD:



“Everybody saw us, kids pointed, cars honked, girls waved. We were gods.”

- Walter Day, creator of the U.S. National Video Game Team in 1983, touring the nation.



Every episode will have the text released prior to the stream. You can listen, you can read or you can do both.VOD: Here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQXiuK-dn7k



+ Show Spoiler [Soundtrack] +

Chris Zabriskie - Wonder Cycle

Chris Zabriskie - I Am A Man Who Will Fight For Your Honor

Macaw - Five Minutes at the Rainforest Cafe

Night Owl - Broke For Free

Ghostly Dust Machine - Ode To A Baby Snowstorm

Plaistow - Cube

Chris Zabriskie - Divider

Introduction



Why do people play video games? Why do they play games competitively, pushing themselves deeper and deeper into a virtual world?



There isn’t one answer. Reasons vary greatly from person to person and you’d have to decode the fibers that make up the individual to know his or her every motivation.



Who knows what leads people to dedicate themselves to mastery of a form like this? This is a form dismissed by millions as a waste of time, enjoyed by millions more still and deeply delved into by only a select few.



Why would a person focus their energy on pushing themselves and their games beyond prescribed limits? Why would hundreds of thousands of fans sit with eyes wide, following the every move of the champion, the one who has dedicated 10,000 hours to be the best?



Let’s start from the top.



Philosopher Bernard Suits gave us the definition of play.



“Playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”



Why do we do it?



“Games make us happy because they are hard work that we choose for ourselves and it turns out that almost nothing makes us happier than good, hard work,” wrote games researcher Jane McGonigal.



“The opposite of play isn't work, it's depression,” wrote psychologist Brian Sutton-Smith.



“When we're playing a good game, we're actively moving ourselves toward the positive end of the emotional spectrum,” wrote Jane McGonigal in her book Reality is Broken. “We are intensely engaged, and this puts us in precisely the right frame of mind and physical condition to generate all kinds of positive emotions and experiences. All of the neurological systems that underlie happiness -- our attention systems, our reward center, our motivation systems, our emotion and memory centers -- are fully activated by gameplay. This extreme emotional activation is the primary reason why today's most successful computer and video games are so addictive and mood-boosting. When we're in a concentrated state of optimistic engagement, it suddenly becomes more biologically possible for us to think positive thoughts, to make social connections, and to build personal strength. We are actively conditioning our minds and bodies to be happier.”



In esports, as in most areas of the enormous video game industry, the social connections we have created are strengthening and expanding. More than a game, more than a sport and even more than an industry, esports is building a global community of enormous scale and intensity.



“Many of my friends would say, ‘it’s just a game, John, quit it.’ Being here today, people from all over the world being together and sharing this moment is something that politics or money can’t do. It’s a miracle,” said Jun Kyu Park in a speech delivered to a crowd of tens of thousands at the StarCraft 2 Code S finals at BlizzCon 2011.











What starts as simple fun grows and grows until you take the leap from player to competitor to contender to champion to god, through which thousands live vicariously, worship and curse.



What starts as a small group of friends becomes a global community. Despite the stereotypes of the impersonal internet and of the alienated gamer playing alone, the entire world is circled by close friends who play games and build relationships that will last a lifetime.



What starts as a small hobby becomes an international business. Wide-eyed entrepreneurs push millions of dollars this way and that, big-mouthed bullshit artists pedal phony promises on every continent, heroes and villains in suits and ties watch as the industry traverses booms and busts, starts and stops, comings and goings.



What starts as a something small becomes an opportunity for something more. The young kid feeling directionless sees the chance to inject color into his life and tries his hand at professional gaming. The young man who has spent years of his youth in the glow of the computer monitor sees his future in the globe trotting, keyboard smashing, blink-and-you-miss-it world of esports.



How does it begin?



You and the kid next door press start on your favorite game and play for hours, two friends working and figuring every piece of the puzzle out. You introduce it to all the kids at school, start playing against each other and soon you’re fighting to figure out your friend, what makes him or her tick. You spend the day thinking of ways to outsmart, outplay, outdo your friend, your opponent.



When you don’t win, you feel it. When you do win, the rush of blood to your head pays you back tenfold. You’re hooked. Egos are fed as scores climb higher. Every success you have, every kill you make quantifies and proves that you’re moving forward, getting better. Another win, another rush that you might expect to find on the playing field. Now, you find it in the gamer as well.



Viewers see the most talented players in the world mold the games to their will like an artist and are inspired. In competition, gaming presents the ultimate level playing field. For the newbie sporting the same tools and weapons as the professionals, it’s easy to feel intimately connected to the even the greatest minds of our sports.



Great competitors seem to catalyze our awareness of how glorious it is to touch and perceive, think and solve, move through space toward goals and solutions. Granted, what great competitors can do with their bodies and minds are things that the rest of us can only dream of. But these dreams are important — they make up for a lot, wrote David Foster Wallace.



A world-class gamer does this.







Emil Christensen (Heaton) was a 17-year-old Swedish sharpshooter at the turn of the century, a global star in Counter-Strike whose tremendous natural talent and inexplicable ability to bend the game to his will marked a new plateau in Counter-Strike. For a time, he was the face and the screaming voice of the one of most dominant franchises ever. He was also just a kid, happily playing, travelling the world, winning tournaments and building an industry before he was old enough to drink at many competitions.



Ma Jae Yoon (Savior) was a Korean StarCraft champion. Fittingly, he was a messiah for his fans, a man who stubbornly changed the way his game was played at just 19 years old. He won multiple championships with such command, such power that, for many of those who saw him play, Savior still sits alone on the highest plateau. Shortly following his peak, Ma Jae Yoon fell from grace and was soon convicted of throwing matches for money and banned from the game for life.



These are the famed few who have reached the top of their worlds using mental and physical dexterity to push beyond what was thought possible.



The greatest competitors don’t simply win, their victories are a revelation. They blaze new paths and inspire in all the realization that our potential has not been met, not yet. We have not hit a solid wall, we can still move forward. We will still move forward.



Anyway, these games are fun.

Why do people play video games? Why do they play games competitively, pushing themselves deeper and deeper into a virtual world?There isn’t one answer. Reasons vary greatly from person to person and you’d have to decode the fibers that make up the individual to know his or her every motivation.Who knows what leads people to dedicate themselves to mastery of a form like this? This is a form dismissed by millions as a waste of time, enjoyed by millions more still and deeply delved into by only a select few.Why would a person focus their energy on pushing themselves and their games beyond prescribed limits? Why would hundreds of thousands of fans sit with eyes wide, following the every move of the champion, the one who has dedicated 10,000 hours to be the best?Let’s start from the top.Philosopher Bernard Suits gave us the definition of play.“Playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”Why do we do it?“Games make us happy because they are hard work that we choose for ourselves and it turns out that almost nothing makes us happier than good, hard work,” wrote games researcher Jane McGonigal.“The opposite of play isn't work, it's depression,” wrote psychologist Brian Sutton-Smith.“When we're playing a good game, we're actively moving ourselves toward the positive end of the emotional spectrum,” wrote Jane McGonigal in her book Reality is Broken. “We are intensely engaged, and this puts us in precisely the right frame of mind and physical condition to generate all kinds of positive emotions and experiences. All of the neurological systems that underlie happiness -- our attention systems, our reward center, our motivation systems, our emotion and memory centers -- are fully activated by gameplay. This extreme emotional activation is the primary reason why today's most successful computer and video games are so addictive and mood-boosting. When we're in a concentrated state of optimistic engagement, it suddenly becomes more biologically possible for us to think positive thoughts, to make social connections, and to build personal strength. We are actively conditioning our minds and bodies to be happier.”In esports, as in most areas of the enormous video game industry, the social connections we have created are strengthening and expanding. More than a game, more than a sport and even more than an industry, esports is building a global community of enormous scale and intensity.“Many of my friends would say, ‘it’s just a game, John, quit it.’ Being here today, people from all over the world being together and sharing this moment is something that politics or money can’t do. It’s a miracle,” said Jun Kyu Park in a speech delivered to a crowd of tens of thousands at the StarCraft 2 Code S finals at BlizzCon 2011.What starts as simple fun grows and grows until you take the leap from player to competitor to contender to champion to god, through which thousands live vicariously, worship and curse.What starts as a small group of friends becomes a global community. Despite the stereotypes of the impersonal internet and of the alienated gamer playing alone, the entire world is circled by close friends who play games and build relationships that will last a lifetime.What starts as a small hobby becomes an international business. Wide-eyed entrepreneurs push millions of dollars this way and that, big-mouthed bullshit artists pedal phony promises on every continent, heroes and villains in suits and ties watch as the industry traverses booms and busts, starts and stops, comings and goings.What starts as a something small becomes an opportunity for something more. The young kid feeling directionless sees the chance to inject color into his life and tries his hand at professional gaming. The young man who has spent years of his youth in the glow of the computer monitor sees his future in the globe trotting, keyboard smashing, blink-and-you-miss-it world of esports.How does it begin?You and the kid next door press start on your favorite game and play for hours, two friends working and figuring every piece of the puzzle out. You introduce it to all the kids at school, start playing against each other and soon you’re fighting to figure out your friend, what makes him or her tick. You spend the day thinking of ways to outsmart, outplay, outdo your friend, your opponent.When you don’t win, you feel it. When you do win, the rush of blood to your head pays you back tenfold. You’re hooked. Egos are fed as scores climb higher. Every success you have, every kill you make quantifies and proves that you’re moving forward, getting better. Another win, another rush that you might expect to find on the playing field. Now, you find it in the gamer as well.Viewers see the most talented players in the world mold the games to their will like an artist and are inspired. In competition, gaming presents the ultimate level playing field. For the newbie sporting the same tools and weapons as the professionals, it’s easy to feel intimately connected to the even the greatest minds of our sports.Great competitors seem to catalyze our awareness of how glorious it is to touch and perceive, think and solve, move through space toward goals and solutions. Granted, what great competitors can do with their bodies and minds are things that the rest of us can only dream of. But these dreams are important — they make up for a lot, wrote David Foster Wallace.A world-class gamer does this.Emil Christensen (Heaton) was a 17-year-old Swedish sharpshooter at the turn of the century, a global star in Counter-Strike whose tremendous natural talent and inexplicable ability to bend the game to his will marked a new plateau in Counter-Strike. For a time, he was the face and the screaming voice of the one of most dominant franchises ever. He was also just a kid, happily playing, travelling the world, winning tournaments and building an industry before he was old enough to drink at many competitions.Ma Jae Yoon (Savior) was a Korean StarCraft champion. Fittingly, he was a messiah for his fans, a man who stubbornly changed the way his game was played at just 19 years old. He won multiple championships with such command, such power that, for many of those who saw him play, Savior still sits alone on the highest plateau. Shortly following his peak, Ma Jae Yoon fell from grace and was soon convicted of throwing matches for money and banned from the game for life.These are the famed few who have reached the top of their worlds using mental and physical dexterity to push beyond what was thought possible.The greatest competitors don’t simply win, their victories are a revelation. They blaze new paths and inspire in all the realization that our potential has not been met, not yet. We have not hit a solid wall, we can still move forward. We will still move forward.Anyway, these games are fun.

+

The Beginning (1950s)



Change comes rapidly now. When looking deep into the past, we can speak in terms of millenniums or centuries. As we near the present, we work in decades. Now, we talk in years, months, weeks, days and hours. We distinguish between individual minutes and seconds and beyond to a degree that no one ever has before.



If the world is growing smaller, perhaps the day is growing longer.



New ideas are being born and made real more rapidly than at any other point during history. Technology is progressing at such a speed that it can look something like a blur. The advent of computers and the internet were both a consequence of and a catalyst for this quickening of the pace.



The more things change, the more they stay the same. We seem to be finding myriads of new and better ways to satisfy our age old needs. How will dinner get to my table? Will water flow where it ought to? Will I be getting laid? If all of the above go well for you tonight, chances are that modern technology had a part to play somewhere.



Then perhaps it should be of no surprise that we also use our new arsenal of ideas to satisfy another long-held disposition of ours: we are bent to compete.



Computers, increasingly powerful and dynamic, are but the latest theater of war for the human mind. Video games seem like the perfect arena in which to compete and the speed with which we began competing on the medium reflects that.



At the very least, competitive gaming can trace its near progenitors back to pinball, slot machines and novelty games in the arcades. Think of a pistol game which you might now see at an old amusement park. Coin operated games predate video games and were big business long before pixels and power ups were involved.



With a bit more ambition, we can also bring games such as chess into the conversation about competitive gaming’s roots. After all, in the early 1950s, chess became one of the first interactive games programmed onto a “regular” computer of the time as opposed to a machine dedicated entirely to playing chess which dates back to the early 1920s. Major computer scientists of the time such as Alan Turing and Claude Shannon believed that having a computer beat a human at chess would signal a milestone in computing, the ultimate goal being artificial intelligence.



Following were games such as Nim (a math-heavy parlor game developed in Britain on the aptly named NIMROD computer in 1951) and OXO (that’s Tic-Tac-Toe or Noughts and Crosses, written in Cambridge in 1952).



They impressed. Nim was called “the electric brain”. Although the games were functional (albeit the player only competes against the computer, i.e. the designers) and fun, their popularity was limited by the fact that they could not be played except on their enormous, unwieldy machines of origin. These games were to be found in no homes, only universities, labs and select technical work spaces.



Nim and OXO were created as a means to an end. Nim, because of its math-heavy play, was used to illustrate the NIMROD’s mathematical prowess and practical applications. OXO conveyed the power of the first computer (EDSAC) to use RAM (“memory which users could read, add or remove information from,” wrote Tristan Donovan in Replay).



Both games were viewed at the time as mostly unimportant in and of themselves, only tools of research and then conveyance of their machine’s power.



In 1958, American physicist William Higinbotham developed Tennis for Two, a simple two-player tennis game. Unlike its predecessors, Tennis for Two was created specifically to entertain, to cure the boredom of visitors to the Brookhaven National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility in Long Island, New York where Higinbotham worked. Higinbotham died regretting that he’d be remembered for his invention of a game rather than for his work in the nuclear nonproliferation movement.



Change comes rapidly now. When looking deep into the past, we can speak in terms of millenniums or centuries. As we near the present, we work in decades. Now, we talk in years, months, weeks, days and hours. We distinguish between individual minutes and seconds and beyond to a degree that no one ever has before.If the world is growing smaller, perhaps the day is growing longer.New ideas are being born and made real more rapidly than at any other point during history. Technology is progressing at such a speed that it can look something like a blur. The advent of computers and the internet were both a consequence of and a catalyst for this quickening of the pace.The more things change, the more they stay the same. We seem to be finding myriads of new and better ways to satisfy our age old needs. How will dinner get to my table? Will water flow where it ought to? Will I be getting laid? If all of the above go well for you tonight, chances are that modern technology had a part to play somewhere.Then perhaps it should be of no surprise that we also use our new arsenal of ideas to satisfy another long-held disposition of ours: we are bent to compete.Computers, increasingly powerful and dynamic, are but the latest theater of war for the human mind. Video games seem like the perfect arena in which to compete and the speed with which we began competing on the medium reflects that.At the very least, competitive gaming can trace its near progenitors back to pinball, slot machines and novelty games in the arcades. Think of a pistol game which you might now see at an old amusement park. Coin operated games predate video games and were big business long before pixels and power ups were involved.With a bit more ambition, we can also bring games such as chess into the conversation about competitive gaming’s roots. After all, in the early 1950s, chess became one of the first interactive games programmed onto a “regular” computer of the time as opposed to a machine dedicated entirely to playing chess which dates back to the early 1920s. Major computer scientists of the time such as Alan Turing and Claude Shannon believed that having a computer beat a human at chess would signal a milestone in computing, the ultimate goal being artificial intelligence.Following were games such as Nim (a math-heavy parlor game developed in Britain on the aptly named NIMROD computer in 1951) and OXO (that’s Tic-Tac-Toe or Noughts and Crosses, written in Cambridge in 1952).They impressed. Nim was called “the electric brain”. Although the games were functional (albeit the player only competes against the computer, i.e. the designers) and fun, their popularity was limited by the fact that they could not be played except on their enormous, unwieldy machines of origin. These games were to be found in no homes, only universities, labs and select technical work spaces.Nim and OXO were created as a means to an end. Nim, because of its math-heavy play, was used to illustrate the NIMROD’s mathematical prowess and practical applications. OXO conveyed the power of the first computer (EDSAC) to use RAM (“memory which users could read, add or remove information from,” wrote Tristan Donovan in Replay).Both games were viewed at the time as mostly unimportant in and of themselves, only tools of research and then conveyance of their machine’s power.In 1958, American physicist William Higinbotham developed Tennis for Two, a simple two-player tennis game. Unlike its predecessors, Tennis for Two was created specifically to entertain, to cure the boredom of visitors to the Brookhaven National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility in Long Island, New York where Higinbotham worked. Higinbotham died regretting that he’d be remembered for his invention of a game rather than for his work in the nuclear nonproliferation movement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PG2mdU_i8k



Unlike the much later Pong, Tennis for Two used a side perspective instead of a top-down one. It had a net and was able to recognize the velocity-decreasing effect that net had when the ball hit it. The lights of the ball, net and court pulsed an eerie bright white, characteristic of the game’s display monitor dubbed the oscilloscope, a tool which observes signal voltages and was normally used to maintain electronics and assist in laboratory work.



Tennis for Two, a milestone in that it allowed direct competition between two players, faded forgotten into the background for decades. The game was played only twice in its original run, on two consecutive Visitor’s Days at the lab to cure the lucky tourist’s boredom. On those days, it was reported that hundreds of curious would-be gamers lined up for a chance to hit the ball back and forth, back and forth.



In 1960, computers began to speed forward. Simultaneously, they became more powerful, smaller, able to store more data, do it more efficiently and display it all more clearly than ever before.



The world spun into the 1960s unaware that in the early years of the decade, the computing universe would be caught in the considerable gravity of a particularly dense star in the middle of the screen on their PDP-1 computers.



Caught in the gravity with them were two spaceships at war, fighting to the death along with the enthralled players who controlled them.

Unlike the much later Pong, Tennis for Two used a side perspective instead of a top-down one. It had a net and was able to recognize the velocity-decreasing effect that net had when the ball hit it. The lights of the ball, net and court pulsed an eerie bright white, characteristic of the game’s display monitor dubbed the oscilloscope, a tool which observes signal voltages and was normally used to maintain electronics and assist in laboratory work.Tennis for Two, a milestone in that it allowed direct competition between two players, faded forgotten into the background for decades. The game was played only twice in its original run, on two consecutive Visitor’s Days at the lab to cure the lucky tourist’s boredom. On those days, it was reported that hundreds of curious would-be gamers lined up for a chance to hit the ball back and forth, back and forth.In 1960, computers began to speed forward. Simultaneously, they became more powerful, smaller, able to store more data, do it more efficiently and display it all more clearly than ever before.The world spun into the 1960s unaware that in the early years of the decade, the computing universe would be caught in the considerable gravity of a particularly dense star in the middle of the screen on their PDP-1 computers.Caught in the gravity with them were two spaceships at war, fighting to the death along with the enthralled players who controlled them.

+

Spacewar! (1962)



In 1962, the first shooter burst into existence.



Spacewar! was created at MIT by a team of four (led by Steve Russell, one of the great patriarchs of video games) from the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC), one of the earliest hot spots of hacker culture.



In 1962, the first shooter burst into existence.Spacewar! was created at MIT by a team of four (led by Steve Russell, one of the great patriarchs of video games) from the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC), one of the earliest hot spots of hacker culture. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmvb4Hktv7U



Here’s how Steward Brand of Rolling Stone described the game in 1972: “Rudimentary Spacewar consists of two humans, two sets of control buttons or joysticks, one TV-like display and one computer. Two spaceships are displayed in motion on the screen, controllable for thrust, yaw, pitch and the firing of torpedoes. Whenever a spaceship and torpedo meet, they disappear in an attractive explosion.”



The 1up.com staff summed the game’s significance up in this way: “A far cry from Pong's primitive take on ping-pong, Spacewar was complex and detailed, and had much more in common with Asteroids and even Descent than with Pong. Granted, it was a monochromatic space adventure with stark graphics and no sound -- a mere shadow of the detailed 3D worlds of contemporary first-person shooters -- but it introduced concepts which guide the game developers and fans alike even 40 years later. For such an early foray into interactive gaming, it was an amazing feat.”



The game featured an accurate star map in the background, a “realistic physics model governed by gravity and inertia,” wrote the 1up team, and responsive units which made the player’s tactical decisions and quick reflexes truly important.



The game was a considerable technical achievement.



Also impressive were its cultural firsts. Spacewar was an active collaboration, continuously being updated and improved by anyone with the will and know how to do so. It was the world’s first open source game.



Eventually, it was included as a diagnostic in every PDP-1 computer, a relatively prolific machine about the size of a car. Spacewar, which pioneered deathmatch gameplay (a term not coined until the 90s with Doom) as well as free-for-alls (FFA) and team play as the game expanded, was found in front of the smiling faces of hundreds and thousands of players, mainly students, computer scientists, technicians and gamers of similarly specialized occupations.



In labs across the country, such as Standford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1972, Spacewar competitions were organized. The Spacewar Olympics, a mixed competition (including five player FFAs, 2v2s and 1v1s) was chronicled in Rolling Stone. There were no particularly grand prizes here, only pride and pizza, besting your rival and beer. Oh, and a year’s subscription to Rolling Stone in its heyday. Not bad.



These gamers, mostly brilliant computer heads unknowingly leading the way toward modernity, were doing something as old as games themselves: bonding over competition, not to mention profound innovation.



Reporting on the International Spacewar Olympics Brand continued in Rolling Stone, "Reliably, at any time moment (i.e. non-business hours) in North America hundreds of computer technicians are effectively out of their bodies, locked in life or death space combat computer projected onto cathode ray tube display screens, for hours at a time, ruining their eyes, numbing their fingers in frenzied mashing of control buttons, joyously slaying their friend and wasting their employers valuable computer time."



Continued the article: “The hackers are the technicians of this science - ‘It's a term of derision and also the ultimate compliment.’ They are the ones who translate human demands into code that the machines can understand and act on. They are legion. Fanatics with a potent new toy. A mobile new-found elite, with its own apparat, language and character, its own legends and humor. Those magnificent men with their flying machines, scouting a leading edge of technology which has an odd softness to it; outlaw country, where rules are not decree or routine so much as the starker demands of what's possible.”



Although computers remained the domain of government, academics and industry for most of Spacewar’s natural lifespan, the game became exceedingly popular wherever it went. Spacewar spread to other academic research centers within weeks. Other schools began to put their own twists on the game such as score keeping, anchored invisibility, team games and much more. Meanwhile, MIT kept updating their baby as well.



The game appeared in a college coffee shop for .25 cents per play under the name Galaxy Game and then elsewhere as Computer Space. It was the first coin-operated video game thus beginning the story which would lead to the arcade explosion in the coming decades. These games were well received by those familiar with computers but were deemed too complicated for the general public. It showed up on the internet precursor ARPAnet. The first makeshift joysticks were constructed for this game at MIT according to The Dot Eaters, a video game historical website.



Spacewar is one of, if not the single most important video game of all time. It was not the first video game but it was the first which began to resemble its progeny in significant ways. The gameplay, visuals, innovative conceptualization, a multiplayer experience with depth and replayability, open culture and every bit in between marks this as a milestone in video games, esports, technology and science. Big picture or small, Spacewar is monumentally significant.



As soon as the opportunity to compete was there, gamers played deep into the night. The game was intermittently banned at various university research centers and major companies such as IBM before inevitably being allowed reentry. Things were dull without it. Complaints from workers pushed management to allow play. Official work was not being done while the game was played but minds were at work nonetheless.

Here’s how Steward Brand of Rolling Stone described the game in 1972: “Rudimentary Spacewar consists of two humans, two sets of control buttons or joysticks, one TV-like display and one computer. Two spaceships are displayed in motion on the screen, controllable for thrust, yaw, pitch and the firing of torpedoes. Whenever a spaceship and torpedo meet, they disappear in an attractive explosion.”The 1up.com staff summed the game’s significance up in this way: “A far cry from Pong's primitive take on ping-pong, Spacewar was complex and detailed, and had much more in common with Asteroids and even Descent than with Pong. Granted, it was a monochromatic space adventure with stark graphics and no sound -- a mere shadow of the detailed 3D worlds of contemporary first-person shooters -- but it introduced concepts which guide the game developers and fans alike even 40 years later. For such an early foray into interactive gaming, it was an amazing feat.”The game featured an accurate star map in the background, a “realistic physics model governed by gravity and inertia,” wrote the 1up team, and responsive units which made the player’s tactical decisions and quick reflexes truly important.The game was a considerable technical achievement.Also impressive were its cultural firsts. Spacewar was an active collaboration, continuously being updated and improved by anyone with the will and know how to do so. It was the world’s first open source game.Eventually, it was included as a diagnostic in every PDP-1 computer, a relatively prolific machine about the size of a car. Spacewar, which pioneered deathmatch gameplay (a term not coined until the 90s with Doom) as well as free-for-alls (FFA) and team play as the game expanded, was found in front of the smiling faces of hundreds and thousands of players, mainly students, computer scientists, technicians and gamers of similarly specialized occupations.In labs across the country, such as Standford’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1972, Spacewar competitions were organized. The Spacewar Olympics, a mixed competition (including five player FFAs, 2v2s and 1v1s) was chronicled in Rolling Stone. There were no particularly grand prizes here, only pride and pizza, besting your rival and beer. Oh, and a year’s subscription to Rolling Stone in its heyday. Not bad.These gamers, mostly brilliant computer heads unknowingly leading the way toward modernity, were doing something as old as games themselves: bonding over competition, not to mention profound innovation.Reporting on the International Spacewar Olympics Brand continued in Rolling Stone, "Reliably, at any time moment (i.e. non-business hours) in North America hundreds of computer technicians are effectively out of their bodies, locked in life or death space combat computer projected onto cathode ray tube display screens, for hours at a time, ruining their eyes, numbing their fingers in frenzied mashing of control buttons, joyously slaying their friend and wasting their employers valuable computer time."Continued the article: “The hackers are the technicians of this science - ‘It's a term of derision and also the ultimate compliment.’ They are the ones who translate human demands into code that the machines can understand and act on. They are legion. Fanatics with a potent new toy. A mobile new-found elite, with its own apparat, language and character, its own legends and humor. Those magnificent men with their flying machines, scouting a leading edge of technology which has an odd softness to it; outlaw country, where rules are not decree or routine so much as the starker demands of what's possible.”Although computers remained the domain of government, academics and industry for most of Spacewar’s natural lifespan, the game became exceedingly popular wherever it went. Spacewar spread to other academic research centers within weeks. Other schools began to put their own twists on the game such as score keeping, anchored invisibility, team games and much more. Meanwhile, MIT kept updating their baby as well.The game appeared in a college coffee shop for .25 cents per play under the name Galaxy Game and then elsewhere as Computer Space. It was the first coin-operated video game thus beginning the story which would lead to the arcade explosion in the coming decades. These games were well received by those familiar with computers but were deemed too complicated for the general public. It showed up on the internet precursor ARPAnet. The first makeshift joysticks were constructed for this game at MIT according to The Dot Eaters, a video game historical website.Spacewar is one of, if not the single most important video game of all time. It was not the first video game but it was the first which began to resemble its progeny in significant ways. The gameplay, visuals, innovative conceptualization, a multiplayer experience with depth and replayability, open culture and every bit in between marks this as a milestone in video games, esports, technology and science. Big picture or small, Spacewar is monumentally significant.As soon as the opportunity to compete was there, gamers played deep into the night. The game was intermittently banned at various university research centers and major companies such as IBM before inevitably being allowed reentry. Things were dull without it. Complaints from workers pushed management to allow play. Official work was not being done while the game was played but minds were at work nonetheless.

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Ralph Baer, The Father of Video Games (1972)



In May 1972, the first home video game console was released: The Magnavox Odyssey. Ralph Baer, called “the father of video games” by IGN, designed the console by starting from a solid idea he had had as early as 1951 while working with televisions. He realized that user interactivity with the machine was possible, desirable and marketable.



The Odyssey sold approximately 330,000 units before it was discontinued in 1975, an end generally credited to somewhat poor and confusing marketing of the system and its capabilities as well as prohibitively high prices. However, the Odyssey continued to make money for Magnavox as it won court cases and settlements against major companies such as Nintendo, Mattell, Activision and, most famously, Atari for their creation of Pong.





Baer with his Pong before Pong Baer with his Pong before Pong



David Winter at Pong-Story.com explains: “After founding Atari on 27th June 1972, [Nolan] Bushnell [the President of Atari] and Alan Alcorn (his first employee) designed the famous prototype of their PONG arcade machine. Once finished a couple months later, it was placed on trial in a local bar called Andy Capp's Cavern in Sunnyvale [California]. Later in 1974, the arcade video game business having flourished, Magnavox filed a lawsuit for patent infringement against Seeburg, Bally-Midway and Atari. Although Bushnell insisted that he didn't copy the Ping-Pong (Tennis) game of the Odyssey, Federal District Court judge John F. Grady was not convinced that Bushnell had designed PONG before attending the [public] Odyssey demonstration [much earlier].”



The Odyssey’s ping pong game led directly to the release of Pong, one of the most influential and famous games of all time.

In May 1972, the first home video game console was released: The Magnavox Odyssey. Ralph Baer, called “the father of video games” by IGN, designed the console by starting from a solid idea he had had as early as 1951 while working with televisions. He realized that user interactivity with the machine was possible, desirable and marketable.The Odyssey sold approximately 330,000 units before it was discontinued in 1975, an end generally credited to somewhat poor and confusing marketing of the system and its capabilities as well as prohibitively high prices. However, the Odyssey continued to make money for Magnavox as it won court cases and settlements against major companies such as Nintendo, Mattell, Activision and, most famously, Atari for their creation of Pong.David Winter at Pong-Story.com explains: “After founding Atari on 27th June 1972, [Nolan] Bushnell [the President of Atari] and Alan Alcorn (his first employee) designed the famous prototype of their PONG arcade machine. Once finished a couple months later, it was placed on trial in a local bar called Andy Capp's Cavern in Sunnyvale [California]. Later in 1974, the arcade video game business having flourished, Magnavox filed a lawsuit for patent infringement against Seeburg, Bally-Midway and Atari. Although Bushnell insisted that he didn't copy the Ping-Pong (Tennis) game of the Odyssey, Federal District Court judge John F. Grady was not convinced that Bushnell had designed PONG before attending the [public] Odyssey demonstration [much earlier].”The Odyssey’s ping pong game led directly to the release of Pong, one of the most influential and famous games of all time.

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Pong (1972)



Computer Space was the world’s first commercially sold coin-operated video game. Galaxy Game, offering essentially the same experience, was never commercially sold, appearing only at Stanford University. Computer Space played a version of the massively influential Spacewar but was deemed a failure by its designer, Nolan Bushnell, because “it was a little too complicated for the guy with the beer in the bar.”



In 1972, Bushnell created Atari. The company’s first project was ostensibly a warm up project to get programmer Alan Alcorn used to working with video games. It was profoundly simple. Two paddles (divided into subsections allowing a player to change the ball’s angle of return), a ball (whose speed increased with every rally) and an inconsequential line symbolizing but not acting as a net were all the parts required to create the world’s first blockbuster video game: Pong.



Computer Space was the world’s first commercially sold coin-operated video game. Galaxy Game, offering essentially the same experience, was never commercially sold, appearing only at Stanford University. Computer Space played a version of the massively influential Spacewar but was deemed a failure by its designer, Nolan Bushnell, because “it was a little too complicated for the guy with the beer in the bar.”In 1972, Bushnell created Atari. The company’s first project was ostensibly a warm up project to get programmer Alan Alcorn used to working with video games. It was profoundly simple. Two paddles (divided into subsections allowing a player to change the ball’s angle of return), a ball (whose speed increased with every rally) and an inconsequential line symbolizing but not acting as a net were all the parts required to create the world’s first blockbuster video game: Pong. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDrRnJOCKZc



Pong’s success was immediate. At a local bar, the first machine malfunctioned a week and a half after it was installed due to an overflow of quarters. Pong spread throughout the country as a pay-to-play machine. Magnavox’s Ralph Baer took Atari to court for essentially cloning his game. Baer won a settlement but all sources point to the payout (a one time licensing fee of $700,000 according to Replay by Tristan Donovan) being minuscule in the face of Atari’s dramatic growth into a multibillion dollar business shortly thereafter. On top of that, the settlement stipulated that Atari then held exclusive rights to the game. Bushnell had completed a coup.



Pong’s popularity exploded. As it swept the nation in bars and other public spaces, Atari machines accounted for only a fraction of all Pong machines (various sources report between 10% and 30%). For want of skilled labor, Atari could not keep up with growing demand or stop competitors from releasing clones. They found themselves raiding local unemployment offices and hiring everyone in sight, paying unskilled laborers almost minimum wage. Upper management and the rank and file alike became notorious for the company’s disorganized atmosphere complete with drug use, constant parties and theft.

Many companies, most notably Apple and Nintendo, would in the future simply make clones of the game and take a piece of the fast growing video game pie for themselves over the next decade. After Atari’s success, Magnavox fought vigorously in court against many of the companies producing knock-offs. The Odyssey had its best year ever as Pong’s success spread.



As Atari seemed incapable of producing enough machines to fulfill demand and had no interest in numerous lengthy and less than certain legal battles, Bushnell and Atari instead created a new market.



“We tried to be fast and out-innovate the competition,” said Bushnell in The Ultimate History of Video Games.



The console version, Home Pong, was built and distributed in 1975. Marketed and priced brilliantly, it is essentially wholly responsible for the home console market that survives and thrives to this day. While it took the Magnavox Odyssey years to sell 100,000 units, Home Pong sold 150,000 units in a single season according to The Ultimate History of Video Games.



Pong is almost solely responsible for introducing America to video games, to the idea of playing and directly competing via games on a screen. It is an incredibly simple game, very probably ripped right from Magnavox’s Tennis game released only months prior, but Bushnell’s prowess allowed his creation, his company and his empire to succeed where others had failed.



Arcades and consoles alike can trace their ancestry right back to Pong. Truth be told, the entire video game industry owes the ugly little box called Home Pong a debt of gratitude. The simple but infectious game was where it all took off. It was the beginning of an era.

Pong’s success was immediate. At a local bar, the first machine malfunctioned a week and a half after it was installed due to an overflow of quarters. Pong spread throughout the country as a pay-to-play machine. Magnavox’s Ralph Baer took Atari to court for essentially cloning his game. Baer won a settlement but all sources point to the payout (a one time licensing fee of $700,000 according to Replay by Tristan Donovan) being minuscule in the face of Atari’s dramatic growth into a multibillion dollar business shortly thereafter. On top of that, the settlement stipulated that Atari then held exclusive rights to the game. Bushnell had completed a coup.Pong’s popularity exploded. As it swept the nation in bars and other public spaces, Atari machines accounted for only a fraction of all Pong machines (various sources report between 10% and 30%). For want of skilled labor, Atari could not keep up with growing demand or stop competitors from releasing clones. They found themselves raiding local unemployment offices and hiring everyone in sight, paying unskilled laborers almost minimum wage. Upper management and the rank and file alike became notorious for the company’s disorganized atmosphere complete with drug use, constant parties and theft.Many companies, most notably Apple and Nintendo, would in the future simply make clones of the game and take a piece of the fast growing video game pie for themselves over the next decade. After Atari’s success, Magnavox fought vigorously in court against many of the companies producing knock-offs. The Odyssey had its best year ever as Pong’s success spread.As Atari seemed incapable of producing enough machines to fulfill demand and had no interest in numerous lengthy and less than certain legal battles, Bushnell and Atari instead created a new market.“We tried to be fast and out-innovate the competition,” said Bushnell in The Ultimate History of Video Games.The console version, Home Pong, was built and distributed in 1975. Marketed and priced brilliantly, it is essentially wholly responsible for the home console market that survives and thrives to this day. While it took the Magnavox Odyssey years to sell 100,000 units, Home Pong sold 150,000 units in a single season according to The Ultimate History of Video Games.Pong is almost solely responsible for introducing America to video games, to the idea of playing and directly competing via games on a screen. It is an incredibly simple game, very probably ripped right from Magnavox’s Tennis game released only months prior, but Bushnell’s prowess allowed his creation, his company and his empire to succeed where others had failed.Arcades and consoles alike can trace their ancestry right back to Pong. Truth be told, the entire video game industry owes the ugly little box called Home Pong a debt of gratitude. The simple but infectious game was where it all took off. It was the beginning of an era.

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Atari’s Prolific Peak (1972)



Pong (released in 1972) spawned an industry. “By September 1974, 100,000 coin-operated video games were in operation around the US, raking in $250 million a year,” wrote Tristan Donovan in Replay.



Meanwhile, Atari, which would become the fastest growing company in American history up to that point, attempted to move beyond it to other games. Although they continued to pump out Pong clones like the rest of the industry, Atari also created a maze game called Gotcha (which inspired Pac-Man), a racing game called Trak 10 and numerous other unsung games which often invented genres and were then unceremoniously forgotten by the public at large for a time.



As the video game industry grew, competition within the industry intensified. Competition within games followed shortly thereafter.



In 1974, an Atari subsidiary dubbed Kee Games produced Tank. It was simple: a player controlled a tank and fought his opponent while avoiding walls and mines. The visuals were unadorned, the gameplay was clean and quick. It was a hit.



Pong (released in 1972) spawned an industry. “By September 1974, 100,000 coin-operated video games were in operation around the US, raking in $250 million a year,” wrote Tristan Donovan in Replay.Meanwhile, Atari, which would become the fastest growing company in American history up to that point, attempted to move beyond it to other games. Although they continued to pump out Pong clones like the rest of the industry, Atari also created a maze game called Gotcha (which inspired Pac-Man), a racing game called Trak 10 and numerous other unsung games which often invented genres and were then unceremoniously forgotten by the public at large for a time.As the video game industry grew, competition within the industry intensified. Competition within games followed shortly thereafter.In 1974, an Atari subsidiary dubbed Kee Games produced Tank. It was simple: a player controlled a tank and fought his opponent while avoiding walls and mines. The visuals were unadorned, the gameplay was clean and quick. It was a hit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OsBUzYBJgU



The last game Bushnell would create at Atari was called Breakout, a single player remix of Pong: twist one paddle 90 degrees to the bottom of the screen, replace the other with a wall of colorful bricks and let the ball break out of the wall. Voilà: another hit.







Steve Jobs, an employee at Atari who was already hard at work developing the Apple II with Steve Wozniak by this point, played an integral role by bringing Wozniak in to attempt to minimize the cost of the hardware for the new game.



As the medium moved forward, ground breaking ideas were passing nearly unnoticed by the world.

The last game Bushnell would create at Atari was called Breakout, a single player remix of Pong: twist one paddle 90 degrees to the bottom of the screen, replace the other with a wall of colorful bricks and let the ball break out of the wall. Voilà: another hit.Steve Jobs, an employee at Atari who was already hard at work developing the Apple II with Steve Wozniak by this point, played an integral role by bringing Wozniak in to attempt to minimize the cost of the hardware for the new game.As the medium moved forward, ground breaking ideas were passing nearly unnoticed by the world.

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The First Person Shooter (1974)



MIT’s Tech Model Railroad Club was home to 1962’s landmark video game Spacewar! on the PDP-1 computer. This game is but one important step in the tradition of home computing.



While arcade manufacturers dealt with the often cutthroat market reality, those in academia had the liberty to imagine and develop freely without actively worrying about the bottom line.



The 70s saw a number of experiments in computer gaming, some of no consequence and some advancing the medium permanently.



Text simulations such as Eliza (a 1966 game that simulated a conversation with a psychiatrist), Adventure (a 1976 text based adventure game) and, famously, Zork (a 1977 fantasy adventure) advanced ‘natural language’, the computer’s ability to use and communicate in language understandable by the layman.



In 1974, the first steps were taken toward first-person shooters (FPS). The FPS is a genre that has come to represent some of the most financially, critically and competitively successful titles of all time.



The advent of the genre came with two 1974 titles: Maze War and Spasim.

Maze War allowed one or multiple players (represented by floating eyes and connected via Ethernet) to travel through a large maze and attempt to find and kill opponents.

Spasim (short for space simulation) was a 32-player flight simulator played over the PLATO Network at several American universities.



MIT’s Tech Model Railroad Club was home to 1962’s landmark video game Spacewar! on the PDP-1 computer. This game is but one important step in the tradition of home computing.While arcade manufacturers dealt with the often cutthroat market reality, those in academia had the liberty to imagine and develop freely without actively worrying about the bottom line.The 70s saw a number of experiments in computer gaming, some of no consequence and some advancing the medium permanently.Text simulations such as Eliza (a 1966 game that simulated a conversation with a psychiatrist), Adventure (a 1976 text based adventure game) and, famously, Zork (a 1977 fantasy adventure) advanced ‘natural language’, the computer’s ability to use and communicate in language understandable by the layman.In 1974, the first steps were taken toward first-person shooters (FPS). The FPS is a genre that has come to represent some of the most financially, critically and competitively successful titles of all time.The advent of the genre came with two 1974 titles: Maze War and Spasim.Maze War allowed one or multiple players (represented by floating eyes and connected via Ethernet) to travel through a large maze and attempt to find and kill opponents.Spasim (short for space simulation) was a 32-player flight simulator played over the PLATO Network at several American universities. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7chDIySXK2Q



These games represent pioneering efforts in video games as well as computer networking. Both were chiefly academic rather than commercial pursuits. Young interns wrote Maze War at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Spasim was written at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.



Maze War creator Steve Colley described the development of his game:



“In 1973 I was trying to do simple 3D displays on the Imlac PDS-1. The first one I did was a simple rotating cube in which the hidden lines of the wireframe cube were removed. The complexity was in doing the sines and cosines on a slow machine with no multiply or divide.



“A little later I had the idea of doing a maze where you were actually in the maze. To keep it simple, it had an array of 16X16 bits to define the maze. I worked out how to display the halls of the maze with perspective (apparently unchanged to today), and it worked quite fast so you could quickly move around in the maze. There was no way to display an overview of the maze, and you were to simply explore the maze and ‘solve’ it. I had several different maze designs, and it was surprising how quickly you could learn them.



“Maze was popular at first but quickly became boring. Then someone (Howard or Greg) had the idea to put people in the maze. To do this would take more than one Imlac, which at that time were not networked together. So we connected two Imlacs using the serial ports to transmit locations back and forth. This worked great, and soon the idea for shooting each other came along, and the first person shooter was born.”



Kristin Reed at VideoGamesDaily.com wrote this about the two trailblazing games:



“Although their wireframe graphics and slow frame rates make them look extremely primitive even by early videogame [sic] standards, they nevertheless provided a few lucky students with a glimpse into an entertainment future that would engross millions.”



Although the genre’s immediate impact in the gaming industry was limited (NASA did find uses for it), the 1980s saw adoption and experimentation with the idea. It would take almost 20 years for the genre to explode in the 1990s.

These games represent pioneering efforts in video games as well as computer networking. Both were chiefly academic rather than commercial pursuits. Young interns wrote Maze War at NASA’s Ames Research Center. Spasim was written at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.Maze War creator Steve Colley described the development of his game:“In 1973 I was trying to do simple 3D displays on the Imlac PDS-1. The first one I did was a simple rotating cube in which the hidden lines of the wireframe cube were removed. The complexity was in doing the sines and cosines on a slow machine with no multiply or divide.“A little later I had the idea of doing a maze where you were actually in the maze. To keep it simple, it had an array of 16X16 bits to define the maze. I worked out how to display the halls of the maze with perspective (apparently unchanged to today), and it worked quite fast so you could quickly move around in the maze. There was no way to display an overview of the maze, and you were to simply explore the maze and ‘solve’ it. I had several different maze designs, and it was surprising how quickly you could learn them.“Maze was popular at first but quickly became boring. Then someone (Howard or Greg) had the idea to put people in the maze. To do this would take more than one Imlac, which at that time were not networked together. So we connected two Imlacs using the serial ports to transmit locations back and forth. This worked great, and soon the idea for shooting each other came along, and the first person shooter was born.”Kristin Reed at VideoGamesDaily.com wrote this about the two trailblazing games:“Although their wireframe graphics and slow frame rates make them look extremely primitive even by early videogame [sic] standards, they nevertheless provided a few lucky students with a glimpse into an entertainment future that would engross millions.”Although the genre’s immediate impact in the gaming industry was limited (NASA did find uses for it), the 1980s saw adoption and experimentation with the idea. It would take almost 20 years for the genre to explode in the 1990s.

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The Fighter (1976)



In 1976, the fighting game genre began to emerge.



Heavyweight Champ, a black and white arcade title by Sega, is widely credited as the first side-scrolling fighter.







Spanner Spencer at EuroGamer.net wrote this about the game:



“SEGA, at the time, seemed to concentrate more on developing imaginative control systems rather than gameplay (something which has certainly worked for Nintendo recently, it must be said). The black and white boxing game employed two ‘boxing glove’ controllers (one each for the two players) which moved up and down for high and low punches, with an inward movement for striking. While the controllers were a decent enough gimmick, the actual on-screen match wasn't much more than an unresponsive cross between a Punch & Judy performance and a pixellated episode of the Black & White Minstrel Show.”



From here, there was little cause to immediately celebrate in the genre but a few swings and misses. Eventually, the early 1980s would see the growth and evolution of a genre which would rise to primacy in the early 90s.

In 1976, the fighting game genre began to emerge.Heavyweight Champ, a black and white arcade title by Sega, is widely credited as the first side-scrolling fighter.Spanner Spencer at EuroGamer.net wrote this about the game:“SEGA, at the time, seemed to concentrate more on developing imaginative control systems rather than gameplay (something which has certainly worked for Nintendo recently, it must be said). The black and white boxing game employed two ‘boxing glove’ controllers (one each for the two players) which moved up and down for high and low punches, with an inward movement for striking. While the controllers were a decent enough gimmick, the actual on-screen match wasn't much more than an unresponsive cross between a Punch & Judy performance and a pixellated episode of the Black & White Minstrel Show.”From here, there was little cause to immediately celebrate in the genre but a few swings and misses. Eventually, the early 1980s would see the growth and evolution of a genre which would rise to primacy in the early 90s.

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Consoles (1976)



In 1976, Coleco released the Telstar console and sold over $100 million worth of units according to The Ultimate History of Video Games. Fourteen different models of the Telstar were manufactured, each coming with its own set of games, all of which were knock offs of prior hits such as Pong and Tank. Pong itself warranted almost two dozen variants.



In August 1976, the oft forgotten Fairfield Channel F was released. The Channel F was the first console that used game cartridges thus allowing gamers access to a much wider variety of games on a single console, an innovation that would leave an indelible mark on the industry. All the major players in the industry aimed to match the achievement in the next generation of releases.



This point marks a period of some stagnation in the video game industry. Coin-operated profits were falling and interest in home consoles (or “TV games”) seemed to slow. Steve Jobs, soon to be a much bigger player, left Atari to start Apple. The stock market and the American economy slowed in a big way. The future of the industry and of the medium itself was unsure. Would video games last?



Atari was sold to Warner Communications for $28 million while keeping Bushnell and the rest of the team on board. In 1977, the company was developing the Atari Video Computer System (the VCS, retroactively named the Atari 2600). Electronics company RCA released Studio II and Magnavox’s Odyssey 2 hit the market in September. Bally and Allied Leisure announced their own entries into the race.



In October, the VCS hit the American public. With it, the gaming joystick hit home consoles and the idea of varying difficulty levels made its debut. Despite these innovations, sales were lackluster around the entire industry during that holiday season. Over the course of the next year, Bushnell repeatedly clashed with and was then dismissed by Warner leadership.

In 1976, Coleco released the Telstar console and sold over $100 million worth of units according to The Ultimate History of Video Games. Fourteen different models of the Telstar were manufactured, each coming with its own set of games, all of which were knock offs of prior hits such as Pong and Tank. Pong itself warranted almost two dozen variants.In August 1976, the oft forgotten Fairfield Channel F was released. The Channel F was the first console that used game cartridges thus allowing gamers access to a much wider variety of games on a single console, an innovation that would leave an indelible mark on the industry. All the major players in the industry aimed to match the achievement in the next generation of releases.This point marks a period of some stagnation in the video game industry. Coin-operated profits were falling and interest in home consoles (or “TV games”) seemed to slow. Steve Jobs, soon to be a much bigger player, left Atari to start Apple. The stock market and the American economy slowed in a big way. The future of the industry and of the medium itself was unsure. Would video games last?Atari was sold to Warner Communications for $28 million while keeping Bushnell and the rest of the team on board. In 1977, the company was developing the Atari Video Computer System (the VCS, retroactively named the Atari 2600). Electronics company RCA released Studio II and Magnavox’s Odyssey 2 hit the market in September. Bally and Allied Leisure announced their own entries into the race.In October, the VCS hit the American public. With it, the gaming joystick hit home consoles and the idea of varying difficulty levels made its debut. Despite these innovations, sales were lackluster around the entire industry during that holiday season. Over the course of the next year, Bushnell repeatedly clashed with and was then dismissed by Warner leadership.

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Space Invaders (1978)



Over the next few years, however, the VCS became increasingly popular and would become a multibillion-dollar business for Atari. One key catalyst for the system’s success was the game Space Invaders.



Space Invaders began as a 1978 arcade game in Japan. The strange but true story goes like this: although the game caught on slowly, by the time Space Invaders truly became huge in Japan (with over 100,000 machines in operation), the government mint had to increase coin production because of a national shortage credited in large part to the arcade phenomenon.



Over the next few years, however, the VCS became increasingly popular and would become a multibillion-dollar business for Atari. One key catalyst for the system’s success was the game Space Invaders.Space Invaders began as a 1978 arcade game in Japan. The strange but true story goes like this: although the game caught on slowly, by the time Space Invaders truly became huge in Japan (with over 100,000 machines in operation), the government mint had to increase coin production because of a national shortage credited in large part to the arcade phenomenon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=437Ld_rKM2s



It was the first blockbuster to originate in Japan, a country which would eventually and for some time take a leading role in the video game explosion. When the game came to America, it enjoyed more success.



Space Invaders is a no-win, single player game. Its gameplay and graphics are simple. In many ways, it differs deeply from the major esports titles of today. But in the golden age of arcades (the first half of the 1980s), this set the stage for the competitive gaming of the era. The personal struggles for high scores, which would be chronicled by organizations like Twin Galaxies and shown to the world in movies such as King of Kong, began with this game.



This is a title that inspired countless remakes, sequels and knock-offs. Gaming royalty such as Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind icons such as Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Star Fox and more, credit Space Invaders with first interesting him in video games.

“Space Invaders played the biggest role in revitalizing the coin-operated business,” wrote Steve Kent in the Ultimate History of Video Games.



It also marked the start of the meteoric rise of arcade games.



The years 1978 (the year Space Invaders was released), 1979 (Asteroids, Galaxian) and 1980 (Pac-Man, Defender, Rally-X) saw the arcade business blossom into a multibillion-dollar industry.

It was the first blockbuster to originate in Japan, a country which would eventually and for some time take a leading role in the video game explosion. When the game came to America, it enjoyed more success.Space Invaders is a no-win, single player game. Its gameplay and graphics are simple. In many ways, it differs deeply from the major esports titles of today. But in the golden age of arcades (the first half of the 1980s), this set the stage for the competitive gaming of the era. The personal struggles for high scores, which would be chronicled by organizations like Twin Galaxies and shown to the world in movies such as King of Kong, began with this game.This is a title that inspired countless remakes, sequels and knock-offs. Gaming royalty such as Shigeru Miyamoto, the man behind icons such as Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, Star Fox and more, credit Space Invaders with first interesting him in video games.“Space Invaders played the biggest role in revitalizing the coin-operated business,” wrote Steve Kent in the Ultimate History of Video Games.It also marked the start of the meteoric rise of arcade games.The years 1978 (the year Space Invaders was released), 1979 (Asteroids, Galaxian) and 1980 (Pac-Man, Defender, Rally-X) saw the arcade business blossom into a multibillion-dollar industry.

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Rise of Online Gaming (1970s, 1980s)



As the arcades, hand held games and home consoles caught fire and the gaze of the public in the 1970s, the computer - the machine on which video games were born - advanced steadily if quietly.



The internet, the raison d’etre of modern competitive gaming, has been a computer gaming mainstay for decades.



The roots of the internet extend back into the Cold War world of the 1950s. After the USSR launched Sputnik, the United States responded in several major ways. In addition to the launching of the space race, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later renamed DARPA after adding Defense to the name), an arm of the US military, worked with MIT to network computers in the interest of national defense. This was ARPAnet.



In the 1960s, the PLATO network (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) was launched to aid educators. By the 1970s, games such as the FPS Spasim were using the network for its own purposes.



The game MUD (Multi User Dungeon) came into the world in 1978 in Essex University in England. From the original game, an eponymous genre emerged.



As defined by Wikipedia, a MUD game “is a multiplayer real-time virtual world described primarily in text. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction and online chat.”



The game was connected by the school to ARPAnet in 1980, marking a milestone in online gaming and paving the way for massively multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs.



1977 saw the release of the Apple II, the Commodore PET and the TRS-80. These three products kick started the era of personal computing, ending the previous era in which computers were found almost exclusively in academia, industry or government. As the public adopted personal computing with some zeal, they immediately agreed upon at least one use for the new machine in their homes: gaming.



With the personal computer arriving in homes in droves, the domain of game creation was expanded hugely. No longer was the world of video game creation the exclusive domain of elite schools such as MIT or of private industry. Game design took place in living rooms and basements now. Clever computer-heads were designing games for the Apple II in their rooms instead of doing their high school geometry homework. With will and wit, regular people could become virtual gods, creating great works whose influence can be strongly felt today.



As Tristan Donovan wrote in Replay, “Few of them had any idea they were building an industry.”



While a great number started with relatively modest means and profound business naivete, many of these passionate designers would become legends in the video game world. Of course, some would become quite rich while they were at it.



The 1980s would see the internet and its games advance further down the road toward modernity.



Maze War, the FPS created at NASA’s Ames Research Center, was advancing peer-to-peer gaming.



Bulletin Board System (BBS) gaming was on the rise in 1984. Seminal games such as Trade Wars 2002 allowed players from around the world to dial up and log in to the host for a limited number of turns in order to advance themselves toward goals, whether that be galactic dominance or slaying a dragon.



PCWorld.com named Trade Wars 2002 the number ten best PC game of all time, saying, “For a surprising number of people, Trade Wars 2002 is the greatest PC game they’ve never heard of.”



The magazine continues on to trace a direct lineage to MMO darling EVE Online, saying that it is a modern 3D version of Trade Wars.



Also in 1984, the MAD game (Multi Access Dungeon, in fact a MUD itself) was accessible to anyone with a connection to BITNET, a cooperative network formed by Yale University and the City University of New York in the USA.



In 1984, Time Magazine named the personal computer the “Machine of the Year”, replacing the man of the year and marking the ascent of the PC.







It would not be until the 1990s that the public finally adopted online gaming wholeheartedly. This took place thanks to games such as Doom, Quake and Neverwinter Nights.



The games from the 70s and 80s that preceded those legendary titles are often forgotten but the visionaries who created them laid the foundation for some of the most important technological advancements of our era both inside games and out.

As the arcades, hand held games and home consoles caught fire and the gaze of the public in the 1970s, the computer - the machine on which video games were born - advanced steadily if quietly.The internet, the raison d’etre of modern competitive gaming, has been a computer gaming mainstay for decades.The roots of the internet extend back into the Cold War world of the 1950s. After the USSR launched Sputnik, the United States responded in several major ways. In addition to the launching of the space race, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA, later renamed DARPA after adding Defense to the name), an arm of the US military, worked with MIT to network computers in the interest of national defense. This was ARPAnet.In the 1960s, the PLATO network (Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations) was launched to aid educators. By the 1970s, games such as the FPS Spasim were using the network for its own purposes.The game MUD (Multi User Dungeon) came into the world in 1978 in Essex University in England. From the original game, an eponymous genre emerged.As defined by Wikipedia, a MUD game “is a multiplayer real-time virtual world described primarily in text. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction and online chat.”The game was connected by the school to ARPAnet in 1980, marking a milestone in online gaming and paving the way for massively multiplayer online role-playing games or MMORPGs.1977 saw the release of the Apple II, the Commodore PET and the TRS-80. These three products kick started the era of personal computing, ending the previous era in which computers were found almost exclusively in academia, industry or government. As the public adopted personal computing with some zeal, they immediately agreed upon at least one use for the new machine in their homes: gaming.With the personal computer arriving in homes in droves, the domain of game creation was expanded hugely. No longer was the world of video game creation the exclusive domain of elite schools such as MIT or of private industry. Game design took place in living rooms and basements now. Clever computer-heads were designing games for the Apple II in their rooms instead of doing their high school geometry homework. With will and wit, regular people could become virtual gods, creating great works whose influence can be strongly felt today.As Tristan Donovan wrote in Replay, “Few of them had any idea they were building an industry.”While a great number started with relatively modest means and profound business naivete, many of these passionate designers would become legends in the video game world. Of course, some would become quite rich while they were at it.The 1980s would see the internet and its games advance further down the road toward modernity.Maze War, the FPS created at NASA’s Ames Research Center, was advancing peer-to-peer gaming.Bulletin Board System (BBS) gaming was on the rise in 1984. Seminal games such as Trade Wars 2002 allowed players from around the world to dial up and log in to the host for a limited number of turns in order to advance themselves toward goals, whether that be galactic dominance or slaying a dragon.PCWorld.com named Trade Wars 2002 the number ten best PC game of all time, saying, “For a surprising number of people, Trade Wars 2002 is the greatest PC game they’ve never heard of.”The magazine continues on to trace a direct lineage to MMO darling EVE Online, saying that it is a modern 3D version of Trade Wars.Also in 1984, the MAD game (Multi Access Dungeon, in fact a MUD itself) was accessible to anyone with a connection to BITNET, a cooperative network formed by Yale University and the City University of New York in the USA.In 1984, Time Magazine named the personal computer the “Machine of the Year”, replacing the man of the year and marking the ascent of the PC.It would not be until the 1990s that the public finally adopted online gaming wholeheartedly. This took place thanks to games such as Doom, Quake and Neverwinter Nights.The games from the 70s and 80s that preceded those legendary titles are often forgotten but the visionaries who created them laid the foundation for some of the most important technological advancements of our era both inside games and out.

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The Golden Age of Arcades (1980s)







With the release of several key blockbusters, a “Golden Age” of arcade gaming was in full swing at the beginning of the 1980s.



Arcades were opening by the hundreds and thousands throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Japan. They became places of congregation for youth and sources of growing profit for those in the game business. Arcades were more visible than ever in pop culture, even scoring a Billboard hit with “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner & Garcia that sold over 1 million records.



Tens of thousands of arcades existed in America as the golden age kicked off. According to Play Meter Magazine, over a million machines were operating within the country.



Often dimly lit but for the bright screens and the glowing machines, arcades in the golden age of the 1980s were the electric and neon colored Forum Magnums for the modern adolescent Americans of the day, centers of their teenage lives and everything that came with it: socializing, truancy, a watchful eye from the police, young friendship, community, animosity and, yes, competition.



As arcades and gaming became more popular, the thrill of playing in front of crowds lit a fire under competitors. The race to high scores on a variety of games heated up while game developers and manufacturers took notice.



In 1981, Atari sponsored several major tournaments. In October, a national record for Asteroids was set in Manhattan (118,740 according to vidgame.info) at a sanctioned competition.



Later that month, Atari's ill-conceived Coin-Op $50,000 World Championship in Chicago drew a lackluster 250 competitors (some sources report even lower numbers) when over 10,000 were expected. The poor planning and thoughtless expectation of profit was one of the clearest signs of a bloated company leading the video game industry, the blind leading the blind.



Rumor has it that Atari’s prize checks bounced. It would not be the last time that happened in competitive gaming.



Despite the dud championship event, attempts to kick start competitive gaming continued.



In 1981, Iowan arcade owner Walter Day began his Twin Galaxies scoreboard and became the de facto scorekeeper, rule setter and enforcer for American competitive gaming during the era. With the help of game developers, Day’s fame rose and within a few months of opening up, he was receiving over 50 calls per day about high score claims. By 1983 and 1984, Day was organizing teams, competitions and recording high scores for the Guinness Book of World Records



“The public and media were fascinated by video games,” said Walter Day as quoted in Replay. “The media, in particular, was amazed by players who could actually beat the games. It was this perception of ‘man versus machine’ that made many news stories so intriguing to the public.”



Twin Galaxies became the authority on and the face of competitive gaming in the 1980s. On November 7, 1982, LIFE Magazine took an iconic photo of the best video game players in the world standing atop their games of choice. The photo was taken on a street outside of the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, the self-proclaimed video game capital of the world. Walter Day is quoted as having said, “Having the video game capital here among the hogs has a certain charm.” The picture has come to be seen as the most important video game photo of the era and one of the most important of all time.







The gamers and games included in the photo are Sam Blackburn (Eagle), Jeff Brandt (Donkey Kong, Jr.), Michael Buck (Carnival), Leo Daniels (Tempest), Eric Ginner (Moon Patrol), Ben Gold (Stargate), Jeff Landin (Jungle King), Mike Lepkosky (Ms. Pac-Man), Billy Mitchell (Centipede), Doug Nelson (Pac-Man), Darren Olsen (Centipede), Mark Robichek (Tutankham), Steve Sanders (Donkey Kong), Ned Troid (Defender), Todd Walker (Joust) and Joel West (Bezerk).



Walter Day assisted the American television show That’s Incredible! in organizing the 1983 North American Video Game Challenge, one of the first and certainly the most well-known gaming championship at the time. The competition’s format was a strange approach to a strange problem. Five unrelated single-player games were played, scores were “normalized” and compared. The 1983 television event featured the players running in between games and toward a finish line. The program has since become immortalized in video game history.



With the release of several key blockbusters, a “Golden Age” of arcade gaming was in full swing at the beginning of the 1980s.Arcades were opening by the hundreds and thousands throughout the United States as well as in Europe and Japan. They became places of congregation for youth and sources of growing profit for those in the game business. Arcades were more visible than ever in pop culture, even scoring a Billboard hit with “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner & Garcia that sold over 1 million records.Tens of thousands of arcades existed in America as the golden age kicked off. According to Play Meter Magazine, over a million machines were operating within the country.Often dimly lit but for the bright screens and the glowing machines, arcades in the golden age of the 1980s were the electric and neon colored Forum Magnums for the modern adolescent Americans of the day, centers of their teenage lives and everything that came with it: socializing, truancy, a watchful eye from the police, young friendship, community, animosity and, yes, competition.As arcades and gaming became more popular, the thrill of playing in front of crowds lit a fire under competitors. The race to high scores on a variety of games heated up while game developers and manufacturers took notice.In 1981, Atari sponsored several major tournaments. In October, a national record for Asteroids was set in Manhattan (118,740 according to vidgame.info) at a sanctioned competition.Later that month, Atari's ill-conceived Coin-Op $50,000 World Championship in Chicago drew a lackluster 250 competitors (some sources report even lower numbers) when over 10,000 were expected. The poor planning and thoughtless expectation of profit was one of the clearest signs of a bloated company leading the video game industry, the blind leading the blind.Rumor has it that Atari’s prize checks bounced. It would not be the last time that happened in competitive gaming.Despite the dud championship event, attempts to kick start competitive gaming continued.In 1981, Iowan arcade owner Walter Day began his Twin Galaxies scoreboard and became the de facto scorekeeper, rule setter and enforcer for American competitive gaming during the era. With the help of game developers, Day’s fame rose and within a few months of opening up, he was receiving over 50 calls per day about high score claims. By 1983 and 1984, Day was organizing teams, competitions and recording high scores for the Guinness Book of World Records“The public and media were fascinated by video games,” said Walter Day as quoted in Replay. “The media, in particular, was amazed by players who could actually beat the games. It was this perception of ‘man versus machine’ that made many news stories so intriguing to the public.”Twin Galaxies became the authority on and the face of competitive gaming in the 1980s. On November 7, 1982, LIFE Magazine took an iconic photo of the best video game players in the world standing atop their games of choice. The photo was taken on a street outside of the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, the self-proclaimed video game capital of the world. Walter Day is quoted as having said, “Having the video game capital here among the hogs has a certain charm.” The picture has come to be seen as the most important video game photo of the era and one of the most important of all time.The gamers and games included in the photo are Sam Blackburn (Eagle), Jeff Brandt (Donkey Kong, Jr.), Michael Buck (Carnival), Leo Daniels (Tempest), Eric Ginner (Moon Patrol), Ben Gold (Stargate), Jeff Landin (Jungle King), Mike Lepkosky (Ms. Pac-Man), Billy Mitchell (Centipede), Doug Nelson (Pac-Man), Darren Olsen (Centipede), Mark Robichek (Tutankham), Steve Sanders (Donkey Kong), Ned Troid (Defender), Todd Walker (Joust) and Joel West (Bezerk).Walter Day assisted the American television show That’s Incredible! in organizing the 1983 North American Video Game Challenge, one of the first and certainly the most well-known gaming championship at the time. The competition’s format was a strange approach to a strange problem. Five unrelated single-player games were played, scores were “normalized” and compared. The 1983 television event featured the players running in between games and toward a finish line. The program has since become immortalized in video game history. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO3ctKcI8Kg



In 1983, the U.S. National Video Game Team and the Video Game Masters Tournament were created by Twin Galaxies which was “financially hurting and in need of a PR home run” according to Day. The goal was producing and tracking world records for the Guinness Book of World Records. In a 44’ bus complete with some of the most popular arcade machines on the planet, a set of mattresses stuck wherever they would fit (one of several cost-saving measures taken by the team) and a single driver (that would be Walter Day who described the long bus ride as a “strenuous ordeal”), the American all-star team set out from the crowd gathered to bid them farewell to tour the nation, promoting themselves and their games.



“The idea was alluring,” wrote Day. “Imagine the commotion that would ensue when a professional team of video game players rode into town! We were, essentially, video game drifters, taking Ottumwa’s ‘Dodge City of Video Games’ concept on the road to challenge any players foolish enough to risk their quarters on a game with us.

“Yes, I was excited to be the first person in the world to be the captain of his own professional video game team and tour across the country. A professional video game team would, I hoped, be the draw that would get us all signed to TV contracts – or at least bring in sponsorship monies from the manufacturers.”



The bus broke down early and often. No one on the bus got enough sleep. The team received a crash course by fire in dealing with the media, many representatives of which were curious enough to cover several tour stops.



“Driving across Ohio in daylight, with our U.S. National Video Game Team emblems flapping, was a great high,” wrote Day. “Everybody saw us, kids pointed, cars honked, girls waved. We were gods.”



The bus would eventually die. The replacement car followed it to the grave after a frantically driven 8,000 miles and an unceremonious death in the Arizona desert. Hospital visits and run-ins with the law followed but so too did visits with Sega and with Nintendo of America who consulted with players on the team concerning their games. The team continued playing and promoting up and down the west coast of America.



The team took all comers. According to Walter Day, his kids never lost.



In 1983, the U.S. National Video Game Team and the Video Game Masters Tournament were created by Twin Galaxies which was “financially hurting and in need of a PR home run” according to Day. The goal was producing and tracking world records for the Guinness Book of World Records. In a 44’ bus complete with some of the most popular arcade machines on the planet, a set of mattresses stuck wherever they would fit (one of several cost-saving measures taken by the team) and a single driver (that would be Walter Day who described the long bus ride as a “strenuous ordeal”), the American all-star team set out from the crowd gathered to bid them farewell to tour the nation, promoting themselves and their games.“The idea was alluring,” wrote Day. “Imagine the commotion that would ensue when a professional team of video game players rode into town! We were, essentially, video game drifters, taking Ottumwa’s ‘Dodge City of Video Games’ concept on the road to challenge any players foolish enough to risk their quarters on a game with us.“Yes, I was excited to be the first person in the world to be the captain of his own professional video game team and tour across the country. A professional video game team would, I hoped, be the draw that would get us all signed to TV contracts – or at least bring in sponsorship monies from the manufacturers.”The bus broke down early and often. No one on the bus got enough sleep. The team received a crash course by fire in dealing with the media, many representatives of which were curious enough to cover several tour stops.“Driving across Ohio in daylight, with our U.S. National Video Game Team emblems flapping, was a great high,” wrote Day. “Everybody saw us, kids pointed, cars honked, girls waved. We were gods.”The bus would eventually die. The replacement car followed it to the grave after a frantically driven 8,000 miles and an unceremonious death in the Arizona desert. Hospital visits and run-ins with the law followed but so too did visits with Sega and with Nintendo of America who consulted with players on the team concerning their games. The team continued playing and promoting up and down the west coast of America.The team took all comers. According to Walter Day, his kids never lost. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2SnbcUy2zw



As would become a common theme in competitive gaming even into the present, those involved with the tour have been called hustlers as much as gamers. When one reads about the sleepless nights, the burnt out engines and the exhausted and triumphant group appearing on national television a number of times, it’s easy to see why.



With video games gaining more and more popularity, the group of gamer champions was featured in passing in magazines and television shows, gaining exposure and fame beyond what any of the young men (the oldest being 20 at the time of the photo) had previously achieved.



The clash of egos and personalities that would ensue over the next forty years between individuals in and around this group has been the subject of much curiosity, most notably culminating in two well-received but sometimes controversial documentaries in 2007: “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” and “Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade.”



Despite the significant amount of media attention focused around the group of top arcade gamers, making something close to a living off of video games remained a dream for most involved. It was largely a young man’s adventure: alcohol, groupies, games and attention were in abundant supply for the young group. Money was not.



“The fact is everyone wanted to do it for a living,” said Billy Mitchell in the 2008 Frag documentary, “and the truth is nobody did.”



Tournaments and competitions were ephemeral at best. Even as media personalities discussed and marveled at this new phenomenon of professional video game playing, it would be hard to argue that it actually existed.



At this point, professional gaming was a ghost much talked about but never seen.

As would become a common theme in competitive gaming even into the present, those involved with the tour have been called hustlers as much as gamers. When one reads about the sleepless nights, the burnt out engines and the exhausted and triumphant group appearing on national television a number of times, it’s easy to see why.With video games gaining more and more popularity, the group of gamer champions was featured in passing in magazines and television shows, gaining exposure and fame beyond what any of the young men (the oldest being 20 at the time of the photo) had previously achieved.The clash of egos and personalities that would ensue over the next forty years between individuals in and around this group has been the subject of much curiosity, most notably culminating in two well-received but sometimes controversial documentaries in 2007: “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” and “Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade.”Despite the significant amount of media attention focused around the group of top arcade gamers, making something close to a living off of video games remained a dream for most involved. It was largely a young man’s adventure: alcohol, groupies, games and attention were in abundant supply for the young group. Money was not.“The fact is everyone wanted to do it for a living,” said Billy Mitchell in the 2008 Frag documentary, “and the truth is nobody did.”Tournaments and competitions were ephemeral at best. Even as media personalities discussed and marveled at this new phenomenon of professional video game playing, it would be hard to argue that it actually existed.At this point, professional gaming was a ghost much talked about but never seen.

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Part 2, 1980s-1995



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJoNAIVqTyE

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Battlezone (1980)



1980 saw the release of Battlezone by Atari, a tank warfare game. If Maze Wars and Spasim invented the first-person shooter genre, Battlezone is what brought it to the attention of the American public.



1980 saw the release of Battlezone by Atari, a tank warfare game. If Maze Wars and Spasim invented the first-person shooter genre, Battlezone is what brought it to the attention of the American public. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ctr54kopo8I



1up.com summed it up, writing, “While [Atari Programmer and Battlezone Designer Ed] Rotberg probably can't be credited with creating the [FPS] idea, it was his tank game which set the standard. Battlezone was a case of the right game at the right time: an innovative step forward in game design offered to a public hungry for something new and sophisticated. Early games were in a lot of ways a learning process for gamers as much as for the designers who made them; as arcade-goers mastered basic gameplay concepts, they graduated to more intricate forms of action.”



In introducing admittedly basic 3D FPS gameplay, Battlezone set the stage for the mammoth genre that produced blockbuster after blockbuster in the 1990s and 2000s and would become the premiere esports genre in the Western world for much of that time.



One of the most talked-about anecdotes surrounding the popular game started when retired American generals contacted Atari about creating a version of the game to help train soldiers. The game’s designer, Ed Rotberg, was profoundly displeased with the attention he received from the military.



“You’ve got to remember wh