The history of video games only dates back to the early 1970’s. Since then, the technology has become an integrated part of young American culture. The industry has experienced great success and become a ten billion dollar a year market, thanks to lower production costs and greater accessibility by middle class America. Meanwhile, the technology has continued to develop quickly. The realism of the games has increased, as has the interactivity, recently causing concern by psychologists and sociologists. The effects have only recently been studied, and the jury is still out on the severity of these effects.
The first video game was created in 1958 by William A. Higinbotham, a nuclear physicist. At the time, computers were primarily used by the military to track trajectories of launched missiles. He worked at a U.S. nuclear research lab in Upton, NY. The Brookhaven National Laboratory would hold annual open houses to promote positive public relations with curious nearby residents. Higinbotham noticed the boredom of visitors and decided to create an interactive experience. He and colleague Robert Dvorak create “Tennis for Two”, a monochrome game in which players control the trajectory of a ball over a net.
The game is extremely basic and could be considered simple, innocent fun. In fact the computer doesn’t even tabulate scores, diminishing aggressive competition. However it was a huge success with the visitors to the exhibit, “There are people in line for hours to play it” (Hunter, 1). The game is never marketed by Higinbotham and Dvorak, but their game was the predecessor of Atari’s Pong, and it demonstrated the popularity and success that the industry would experience in coming decades.
Over the next decade, computers became smaller and more accessible to the public than the military supercomputers of the Cold War Era. The first home video games, hitting homes in the late 70’s, were one dimensiona...