21st September 2009 - Rise of the Video Game

Rise of the Video Game: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

- Games are an Art form, a type of Culture
- Some of the first games evolved from people's fears
- Games created different connatations linking games to 'pressing the button' as opposed to war
- Tennis for two was the first video game, created using an Osciloscope
- Steve Rush made 'spacewar' on the PDP-1, created a joystick for it
- Ralph Baer is credited for creating the first games console called the 'brown box'
- Games would not exist if not for military funding



- Nolan Bushnell is the first person considered by many to have created an industry from video games. Atari always had a very laid back approach. 1983 was the crash of Atari
- Woman were better at Pong and would play against men to win money by beating them.
- Japan's Technology expanded and evolved very quickly after the cold war 2, especially in the area of electronics.



- Tomohiro Nishikado created Space Invaders, a hugely popular game which impacted greatly on education and socialism



- Pac-man was created on the back the idea that dying eventually in previous games was negative and pac-man was a more placid approach to gaming entertainment. Pac-Man was the first protagonist in the video game industry.



Tetris was created by Alexey Pajitnov in Russia in 1983