Com Tech Timeline

 

There are multiple different people considered to be the first person to make a video game. One example is in 1952 with a British professor named A.S Douglas basically making a digital version of tic-tac-to. Then there is Steve Russell, who in MIT made Spacewar! a game for the computers at the time that where mostly only in universities. Then finally, there is the man who is considered the main creator of what we think of as video games Ralph Baer. He made the first multi game console called the Brown box or The Odyssey. There is no real way to nail down why video games were made. Some of these people made games to simply help with boredom or test the limits of the technology of the time or to try to market them and make money. This continues in today’s video games with many large companies making huge Triple A games. These are marketed out and sold in the thousands to small indie games made by small groups of people just trying to make a fun game and send it out for people to enjoy. These large companies and the craze around video games are thanks to many other games of the time like arcade and bord games catching the eyes of the people. They then get turned into video games that they could easily take home and play with ether friends or family without having to go out and spend money in public spaces.

 

When it comes to video games its hard to say that they really solved a lot of problems due them mainly being a new form of entertainment. The best I could say that they helped with, was create a new market for people to join in. This also helped with many college kids starting up their own small companies that made games. They could either then join or became huge name brand titles. It also helped create multiple side projects that grew important thanks to games like Twitch and Discord. These gained large followings when they started focusing on video games and the communities around them.

 

Communication has always been a part of video games with everything from going out with friends to arcades to hanging out with friends and play games at home or online. The biggest revolution revolving around video games and communication was with the Xbox 360 by Microsoft and the advent of online gaming. Online games and the Xbox live feature gave people the ability to talk and play with people all around the world and opened a new world of communications around video games.

 

Some of the biggest drawbacks of video games came about in the last 10 to 12 years thanks to mostly the online environment and the risks that always follow it. These risks mainly come from the anonymity that comes from online gaming, such as allowing more cyber bullying, racism, online predators/grooming, and or threats to your life from hackers. Then there is a more recent negative effect that I have found from games with a simple mechanic loot boxes. The thing about loot boxes is that they are basically gambling and more and more games that are being marketed to kids involve this mechanic.