Though common knowledge might place the beginning of video gaming in the 1980s arcade scene, or with the first Pong home editions, the history of video games actually goes back much farther than that. The technical definition of the term “video game” would require the game to have a video signal transmitted through a cathode ray tube – though the current interpretation is more along the lines of “anything on electronic hardware that contains an element of interactivity,” or something along those lines. Using this broad definition, the first video games actually surfaced in the 1950s, using technology created during World War II.

The earliest known written computer game was a chess simulation, developed by none other than Alan Turing (the man behind the cracking of the Enigma Machine and the Turing Test) and David Champernowne (a mathematician and economist at the University of Oxford and later at Cambridge). The game was called Turochamp and the pair completed it in 1948, but it never actually made it to a proper computer.

As far as games that were actually implemented, the earliest one was Bertie the Brain, a tic-tac-toe machine built by Josef Kates for the 1950 Canadian National Exhibition; and Nimrod, built in 1951 by Ferranti for that year’s Festival of Britain, which played the game of Nim. Both Bertie and Nimrod allowed people who attended their respective events to play their games against an artificial intelligence. They were created not so much for the purpose of entertainment, but rather for the purpose of showing off the AI programs that the developers had created.

Tennis for Two, developed at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958, was the first game created for entertainment purposes. It used an analog computer and an oscilloscope to play the game, and was therefore one of the first games to have a proper graphic display. It debuted at an open house on October 18, 1958, and was brought out just once more after that before it was dismantled. It’s generally considered the predecessor to Pong.

A few years later, Spacewar! was programmed by Steve Russell and others at his fictional “Hingham Institute” with the goal of implementing it on computers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Spacewar! pits two players against each other in spaceships as they attempt to destroy one another while also navigating within the gravity well of a star. Each ship has a limited number of missiles as well as limited fuel, and must shoot at the other ship without getting sucked into the star. The first operational version of the game was finished in 1962, but the game wasn’t truly complete until April of that year. The game proved popular in the 1960s and was recreated on other computer systems; it would be ported to many other consoles throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

By the early 1970s, computing had evolved to the point where it was slowly becoming more affordable for companies – though still significantly too expensive for home use, it was at the point where coin-operated video game machines were becoming a reality. When Nolan Bushnell, an engineering graduate from Utah, saw Spacewar!, he sought to create a coin-operated version for the public. Working with fellow engineer Ted Dabney, they created Computer Space in 1971. Computer Space varied the Spacewar! gameplay by pitting a single player against two AI flying saucers. Though it was a commercial failure, Computer Space marks the first commercially-released video game.

Meanwhile, Ralph Baer – who had spent years as an engineer for multiple defense contractors – had been plugging away at a video game system that would operate with a standard television set since the mid-1960s. Baer had been working on technology (diode-transistor logic circuits, mainly) that would generate images on screen that could be controlled by the person playing. By 1971, he had finished work on what would become the Magnavox Odyssey, the very first home video gaming console.

The Magnavox Odyssey released in September 1972, though it was harshly limited game-wise by its finite processing power, which could only render three dots and a line at any given time. The graphics were actually defined by plastic screens attached to the television itself. Though the console (similar to Computer Space before it) didn’t perform well, it managed to influence the birth of the arcade industry, with Baer’s design ideas crossing paths with Bushnell’s business ideas.

Bushnell and Dabney also founded Atari in ’72, and after seeing the Magnavox console, struck out in an attempt to emulate its design. Al Alcorn had been hired that year, and the company charged him with recreating the Magnavox’s games. The result was Pong, which reached the mass market in March 1973 and absolutely ignited the coin-operated game industry. The year it released, it sold about 70,000 units.

For the rest of the 1970s, the coin-operated gaming industry was somewhat up and down. Market saturation impacted sales, and though some companies attempted “cocktail table” variants of the machines, those never really took off. That said, there were some early arcade hits, including Tank and Gran Track 10 from Atari; Midway also emerged during this decade with games like Gun Fight and Wheels.

The rise in popularity of video games – as well as of solid-state pinball machines – helped to solidify arcades as a trendy spot, which in turn increased the number of arcades. The growth of shopping malls during this period of time also included the growth of arcades; parents would often leave their children in the arcade areas while they went elsewhere to shop in the malls. Arcades were a mainstay of the mall scene by the end of the ‘70s.

Console-wise, as mentioned, the Magnavox Odyssey didn’t catch on in the mass market, primarily due to its primitive technology. However, by the middle of the ‘70s, Atari had created a home version of Pong. They released the system through Sears in 1975, and later published it themselves the following year. By 1977 the dedicated Pong systems (and clones of it by other companies) had sold close to 6 million units in the United States.

In the arcades and at home, fast-paced action was the norm, and most popular games involved target shooting or racing of some sort. Meanwhile, home computing systems were on the rise, and they gained their own unique games throughout the 1970s. However, many computers were using teletypes rather than monitors, and even other types of terminals were only able to render character-based graphics. Because of this, most computer games of the period were strategy or puzzle-based. The most significant game of this era was probably Colossal Cave Adventure, released in 1976. The game, also known colloquially as just Adventure, borrowed many elements from the then-newly-released Dungeons and Dragons, and is considered the most notable precursor to the entire roleplaying game genre of video games.

Computer games would become significantly more popular with the arrival of the Commodore 64 in 1982, which had rather advanced graphical and audio capabilities for its time. It also allowed for people to use their Atari 2600 controllers with the system, helping it to become the most popular home computer of its era (and the bestselling single computer model of all time). Apple’s Macintosh also came out, and while it lacked the color of the popular Apple II, it attracted developers due to the better operating system support. Other popular models around this time included the Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga.

The video game scene in the United States was aided greatly by the rise of arcade technology in Japan at this time. Breakout was a huge hit in Japan, and the company Taito helped create tabletop units, which became popular in restaurants and snack bars. Taito was also responsible for Space Invaders (which would be distributed in North America by Midway), a game that helped introduce many basic gaming concepts such as a “life” system, gaining extra lives through points scored, and high score tracking. Space Invaders was also the first game to have background music of any kind, though it was a simple four notes. In Japan, more than 200,000 Space Invader-like games (including knockoffs) were in arcades by the middle of ’79, and in America, 60,000 cabinets were moved. The American arcade scene was also helped with the arrival of Atari’s Asteroids in 1979, which alone moved another 70,000 cabinets.

The competitive nature of high score systems helped draw players away from pinball machines and onto the video game cabinets, and the period of time between 1978 and 1982 is retroactively considered the “Golden Age” of arcades for this reason. Most of the biggest arcade hits were released during this time, such as Defender (1980), Missile Command (1980), Galaga (1981), Tempest (1981), Donkey Kong (1981), and Q*bert (1982). By far and wide the single biggest hit was 1980’s Pac-Man, which sold 96,000 units alone; Pac-Man also was the first of many games to feature an identifiable mascot character, which helped spur many Pac-Man related toys outside the gaming realm.

Revenue jumped spectacularly in the arcades during these four years. In 1978, coin-operated video game revenue was $308 million – by 1982, it was a $8.9 billion dollar industry. The number of arcades in the U.S. also more than doubled, from about 10,000 in ’81 to over 25,000 in ’83.

Though Atari released their Atari 2600 console in 1977, they didn’t really take off in the home console market until the early 1980s. Their breakthrough was when they released a home version of Space Invaders in 1980, which helped their sales explode in ’80 and ’81. The company further released home versions of other popular arcade hits such as Missile Command, Asteroids, and Defender. By 1981, Atari held a commanding 65% share of the home video game market – other companies, such as Mattel, Magnavox and Fairchild, fell far behind. Though Atari released an advanced version of their console, the Atari 5200, in ’82, it failed to perform as well as the 2600. Coleco also released their ColecoVision by the 1982 holiday season, but soon found themselves in a market that would prove unsustainable.

Activision also got started around this time. A group of four Atari programmers sought greater recognition for their games, and struck out in 1979 to form what would be the first third-party game development company. They had a string of hits in the early 1980s that included Kaboom!, River Raid, and Pitfall that helped establish them as a game development force despite not creating any hardware of their own.

Handheld gaming was also available for the first time by the early 1980s, thanks to Milton Bradley’s Microvision and Nintendo’s Game and Watch. The Game and Watch ended up being more successful (and influential) due to more reliable games and better battery life.

However, things came to a screeching halt for video gaming in 1983 when the industry completely crashed in North America. Many companies went bankrupt, while others, such as Magnavox and Coleco, just abandoned the gaming industry entirely. Activision managed to survive thanks to their developing games for the surviving home computer market while game consoles flopped.

There were many factors that caused the industry crash. The rising competition from the home computer market meant that many consumers were simply not interested in making a home console purchase anymore.

The console market itself was also completely oversaturated. At the time of the crash in late ’83, consoles available included the Atari 2600, the Atari 5200, the Bally Astrocade, the ColecoVision, the Coleco Gemini, the Fairchild Channel F System II, the Magnavox Odyssey 2, the Mattel Intellivision and Intellivision II, the various Sears Tele-Games systems, and the Vectrex. The fact that most of these systems had incredibly poor titles – some of them high-profile, such as the 2600 port of Pac-Man and the notoriously bad E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – only added to the problem.

Immediate fallout of the crash included the infamous burial by Atari of many of their over-produced games and consoles in a New Mexico landfill in 1983. Sales also plummeted during this period; home console sales dropped from about $3 billion in ’82 to roughly $100 million in 1985.

However, all was not lost. Japan’s gaming industry was more than stable during this period – it was thriving. Companies such as Nintendo and Sega, both run out of Japan with major success in the arcade and console scenes there, suddenly had plenty of room to move into the North American market. And did they ever. Nintendo released their Family Computer system in the United States as the Nintendo Entertainment System in October 1985 and helped restart the floundering American console market.

By the end of the 1980s, Nintendo sold more than 35 million NES units in the United States, completely dominating the market. The home console market in general reached annual sales figures close to $5 billion, completely exceeding its previous high point in the early ‘80s. Most importantly, Nintendo did everything they could to prevent another crash. They implemented a strict overseeing of third-party development, which helped to avoid the many low-quality console titles that killed the market in the first place.

The 8-bit generation was truly underway at this time. As the 1990s got started, it was a time of incredibly fast technical advancement, which continued throughout the decade. Stay tuned here at Scoop for more on the history of video gaming in the coming weeks.