History of PC computer video gaming
Home computer games (late 1970s–early 1980s)
While the fruit of retail development in early video games appeared mainly in video arcades and home consoles, home computers began appearing in the late 1970s and were rapidly evolving in the 80s, allowing their owners to program simple games. Hobbyist groups for the new computers soon formed and personal computer game software followed.
Soon many of these games—at first clones of mainframe classics such as Star Trek, and then later ports or clones of popular arcade games such as Space Invaders, Frogger,[37] Pac-Man (see Pac-Man clones)[38] and Donkey Kong[39]—were being distributed through a variety of channels, such as printing the game’s source code in books (such as David Ahl’s BASIC Computer Games), magazines (Creative Computing), and newsletters, which allowed users to type in the code for themselves. Early game designers like Crowther, Daglow and Yob would find the computer code for their games—which they had never thought to copyright—published in books and magazines, with their names removed from the listings. Early home computers from Apple, Commodore, Tandy and others had many games that people typed in.
Games were also distributed by the physical mailing and selling of floppy disks, cassette tapes, and ROM cartridges. Soon a small cottage industry was formed, with amateur programmers selling disks in plastic bags put on the shelves of local shops or sent through the mail. Richard Garriott distributed several copies of his 1980 computer role-playing game Akalabeth: World of Doom in plastic bags before the game was published.
1980s in video gaming
The computer gaming industry experienced its first major growing pains in the early 1980s as publishing houses appeared, with many honest businesses—occasionally surviving at least 20 years, such as Electronic Arts—alongside fly-by-night operations that cheated the games’ developers. While some early ’80s games were simple clones of existing arcade titles, the relatively low publishing costs for personal computer games allowed for bold, unique games.
The golden age of video arcade games reached its zenith in the 1980s. The age brought with it many technically innovative and genre-defining games developed and released in the first few years of the decade, including:
Action adventure game: The Legend of Zelda (1986) helped establish the action-adventure genre, combining elements from different genres to create a compelling hybrid, including exploration, transport puzzles, adventure-style inventory puzzles, an action component, a monetary system, and simplified RPG-style level building without the experience points.[40] The game was also an early example of open world, nonlinear gameplay, and introduced innovations like battery backup saving.[41]
Action role-playing games: Dragon Slayer II: Xanadu (1985) is considered the first full-fledged action role-playing game, with character stats and a large quest, with its action-based combat setting it apart from other RPGs. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987), developed by Shigeru Miyamoto, further defined and popularized the emerging action RPG genre.
Zork
Adventure games: Zork (1980) further popularized text adventure games in home computers and established developer Infocom’s dominance in the field. As these early computers often lacked graphical capabilities, text adventures proved successful. Mystery House (1980), Roberta Williams’s game for the Apple II, was the first graphic adventure game on home computers. Graphics consisted entirely of static monochrome drawings, and the interface still used the typed commands of text adventures. It proved very popular at the time, and she and husband Ken went on to found Sierra On-Line, a major producer of adventure games. King’s Quest (1984) was created by Sierra, laying the groundwork for the modern adventure game. It featured color graphics and a third-person perspective. An on-screen player character could be moved behind and in front of objects on a 2D background drawn in perspective, creating the illusion of pseudo-3D space. Commands were still entered via text. Maniac Mansion (1987) removed text entry from adventure games. LucasArts built the SCUMM system to allow a point-and-click interface. Sierra and other game companies quickly followed with their own mouse-driven games.
Beat ‘em up: Karateka (1984), with its pioneering rotoscoped animation, and Kung-Fu Master (1984), a Hong Kong cinema-inspired action game, laid the foundations for side-scrolling beat ‘em ups with simple gameplay and multiple enemies.[42] Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (1986), also released as Renegade, deviated from the martial arts themes of earlier game, introducing street brawling to the genre,[43] and set the standard for future beat ‘em up games as it introduced the ability to move both horizontally and vertically.[44]
Cinematic platformer: Prince of Persia (1989) was the first cinematic platformer.
Computer role-playing games: Akalabeth (1980) was created in the same year as Rogue (1980); Akalabeth led to the creation of its spiritual sequel Ultima (1981). Its sequels were the inspiration for some of the first Japanese console role-playing games, alongside Wizardry (1981). The Bard’s Tale (1985) by Interplay Entertainment is considered the first computer role-playing game to appeal to a wide audience that was not matched until Blizzard Entertainment’s Diablo.[45]
Console role-playing games: Dragon Warrior (1986), developed by Yuji Horii, was one of the earliest console role-playing games. With its anime-style graphics by Akira Toriyama (of Dragon Ball fame), Dragon Quest set itself apart from computer role-playing games. It spawned the Dragon Warrior {and later renamed Dragon Quest} franchise and served as the blueprint for the emerging console RPG genre,[46] inspiring the likes of Sega’s Phantasy Star (1987) and Square’s Final Fantasy (1987), which spawned its own successful Final Fantasy franchise and introduced the side-view turn-based battle system, with the player characters on the right and the enemies on the left, imitated by numerous later RPGs.[47] Megami Tensei (1987) and Phantasy Star (1987) broke with tradition, abandoning the medieval setting and sword and sorcery themes common in most RPGs, in favour of modern/futuristic settings and science fiction themes.
Fighting games: Karate Champ (1984), Data East’s action game, is credited with establishing and popularizing the one-on-one fighting game genre, and went on to influence Yie Ar Kung-Fu.[48] Konami’s Yie Ar Kung Fu (1985), which expanded on Karate Champ by pitting the player against a variety of opponents, each with a unique appearance and fighting style.[48][49] Street Fighter (1987), developed by Capcom, introduced the use of special moves that could only be discovered by experimenting with the game controls.[50]
Hack and slash: Golden Axe (1988) was acclaimed for its visceral hack and slash action and cooperative mode and was influential through its selection of multiple protagonists with distinct fighting styles.[51]
Interactive movies: Astron Belt (1983), an early first-person shooter, was the first Laserdisc video game in development, featuring live-action FMV footage over which the player/enemy ships and laser fire are superimposed.[52] Dragon’s Lair (1983) was the first Laserdisc video game to be released, beating Astron Belt to public release.[52]
Platform games: Space Panic (1980) is sometimes credited as the first platform game,[53] with gameplay centered on climbing ladders between different floors. Donkey Kong (1981), an arcade game created by Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, was the first game that allowed players to jump over obstacles and across gaps, making it the first true platformer.[54] This game also introduced Mario, an icon of the genre. Mario Bros. (1983), developed by Shigeru Miyamoto, offered two-player simultaneous cooperative play and laid the groundwork for two-player cooperative platformers.
Scrolling platformers: Jump Bug (1981), Alpha Denshi’s platform-shooter, was the first platform game to use scrolling graphics.[55] Taito’s Jungle King (1982)[56] featured scrolling jump and run sequences that had players hopping over obstacles. Namco took the scrolling platformer a step further with Pac-Land (1984),[57] which was the first game to feature multi-layered parallax scrolling and closely resembled later scrolling platformers like Super Mario Bros. (1985) and Wonder Boy (1986).[58]
Scrolling shooters: Defender (1980) established the use of side-scrolling in shoot ‘em ups, offering horizontally extended levels. Scramble (1981) was the first side-scroller with multiple, distinct levels.[59] Jump Bug (1981) was a simple platform-shooter where players controlled a bouncing car. It featured levels that scrolled both horizontally and vertically.[60] Vanguard (1981) was both a horizontal and vertical scrolling shooter that allowed the player to shoot in four directions.[61] Xevious (1982) is frequently cited as the first vertical shooter and, although it was preceded by several other games featuring vertical scrolling, it was the most influential.[59] Moon Patrol (1982) introduced the parallax scrolling technique in computer graphics.[62] Gradius (1985) gave the player greater control over the choice of weaponry, thus introducing another element of strategy.[59] The game also introduced the need for the player to memorise levels in order to achieve any measure of success.[63] Thrust (1986) has the player maneuver a spaceship through a series of 2D cavernous landscapes, with the aim of recovering a pendulous pod, while counteracting gravity, inertia and avoiding or destroying enemy turrets.
Isometric platformer: Congo Bongo (1983), developed by Sega, was the first isometric platformer.
Isometric shooter: Zaxxon (1982) was the first game to use isometric projection.[59]
Light gun shooter: The NES Zapper was the first mainstream light gun. The most successful lightgun game was Duck Hunt (1984), which came packaged with the NES.[64]
Maze games: Pac-Man (1980) was the first game to achieve widespread popularity in mainstream culture and the first game character to be popular in his own right. 3D Monster Maze (1981) was the first 3D game for a home computer, while Dungeons of Daggorath (1982) added various weapons and monsters, sophisticated sound effects, and a “heartbeat” health monitor.
Platform-adventure games: Metroid (1986) was the earliest game to fuse platform game fundamentals with elements of action-adventure games, alongside elements of RPGs. These elements include the ability to explore an area freely, with access to new areas controlled by either the gaining of new abilities or through the use of inventory items.[65] Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (1987) and Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest (1987) are two other early examples of platform-adventure games.
Racing games: Turbo (1981), by Sega, was the first racing game with a third-person perspective, rear-view format. Pole Position (1982), by Namco, used sprite-based, pseudo-3D graphics when it refined the “rear-view racer format” where the player’s view is behind and above the vehicle, looking forward along the road with the horizon in sight. The style would remain in wide use even after true 3D graphics became standard for racing games.
Rail shooter: Astron Belt (1983) was an early first-person rail shooter, in addition to being a Laserdisc video game. It featured live-action FMV footage over which the player/enemy ships and laser fire are superimposed.[52] Space Harrier (1985) was an early rail shooter that broke new ground graphically and its wide variety of settings across multiple levels gave players more to aim for than high scores.[66][67] It was also an early example of a third-person shooter.[68]
Real-time strategy: Herzog Zwei (1989) is considered to be the first real-time strategy game, predating the genre-popularizing Dune II; unlike its 1988 predecessor (Herzog), it features outposts that can be used to gain additional revenue; making it a strategic game as well as a tactical one.[69][70][71] It is the earliest example of a game with a feature set that falls under the contemporary definition of modern RTS.[72][73]
Run & gun shooters: Hover Attack (1984) for the Sharp X1 was an early run & gun shooter that freely scrolled in all directions and allowed the player to shoot diagonally as well as straight ahead. The following year saw the release of Thexder (1985), a breakthrough title for run & gun shooters.[74] Commando (1985) was the first influential example of a shooter featuring characters on foot rather than in vehicles.[75]
Rhythm game: Dance Aerobics was released in 1987, and allowed players to create music by stepping on Nintendo’s Power Pad peripheral. It has been called the first rhythm-action game in retrospect.[76]
Stealth games: 005 (1981), an arcade game by Sega, was the earliest example of a stealth-based game.[77][78][79] Metal Gear (1987), developed by Hideo Kojima, was the first stealth game in an action-adventure framework, and became the first commercially successful stealth game, spawning the Metal Gear series.
Survival horror: Haunted House (1981) introduced elements of horror fiction into video games. Sweet Home (1989) introduced many of the modern staples of the survival horror genre. Gameplay involved battling horrifying creatures and solving puzzles. Developed by Capcom, the game would become an influence upon their later release Resident Evil (1996), making use of its design concepts such as the mansion setting and “opening door” load screen.[80]
Vehicle simulation games: Battlezone (1980) used wireframe vector graphics to create the first true three-dimensional game world. Elite (1984), designed by David Braben and Ian Bell, ushered in the age of modern style 3D graphics. The game contains convincing vector worlds, full 6 degree freedom of movement, and thousands of visitable planetary systems. It is considered a pioneer of the space flight simulator game genre.
Visual novels: Portopia Renzoku Satsujin Jiken (1983), developed by Yuji Horii (of Dragon Quest fame), was the first visual novel and one of the earliest Japanese graphic adventure games. It is viewed in a first-person perspective, follows a first-person narrative, and was the first Japanese adventure game to feature colour graphics. It inspired Hideo Kojima (of Metal Gear fame) to enter the video game industry and later produce his own classic graphic adventure, Snatcher (1988).
Gaming computers
Following the success of the Apple II and Commodore PET in the late 1970s a series of cheaper and incompatible rivals emerged in the early 1980s. This second batch included the Commodore Vic 20 and 64; Sinclair ZX80, ZX81 and ZX Spectrum; NEC PC-8000, PC-6001, PC-88 and PC-98; Sharp X1 and X68000; and Atari 8-bit family, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, and MSX series. These rivals helped to catalyze both the Home Computer and Games markets, by raising awareness of computing and gaming through their competing advertising campaigns.
The Sinclair, Acorn and Amstrad offerings were generally only known in Europe and Africa, the NEC and Sharp offerings were generally only known in Asia, and the MSX had a base in North and South America, Europe, and Asia, whilst the US based Apple, Commodore and Atari offerings were sold in both the USA and Europe.
In 1984, the computer gaming market took over from the console market following the crash of that year; computers offered equal gaming ability and since their simple design allowed games to take complete command of the hardware after power-on, they were nearly as simple to start playing with as consoles.
The Commodore 64 system
The Commodore 64 was released to the public in August 1982. It found initial success because it was marketed and priced aggressively. It had a BASIC programming environment and advanced graphic and sound capabilities for its time, similar to the ColecoVision console. It also utilized the same game controller ports popularized by the Atari 2600, allowing gamers to use their old joysticks with the system. It would become the most popular home computer of its day in the USA and many other countries and the best-selling single computer model of all time internationally.
At around the same time, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was released in the United Kingdom and quickly became the most popular home computer in many areas of Western Europe—and later the Eastern Bloc—due to the ease with which clones could be produced.
The IBM PC compatible computer became a technically competitive gaming platform with IBM’s PC/AT in 1984. The primitive 4-color CGA graphics of previous models had limited the PC’s appeal to the business segment, as its graphics failed to compete with the C64 or Apple II. The new 16-color EGA display standard allowed its graphics to approach the quality seen in popular home computers like the Commodore 64. The sound capabilities of the AT, however, were still limited to the PC speaker, which was substandard compared to the built-in sound chips used in many home computers. Also, the relatively high cost of the PC compatible systems severely limited their popularity in gaming.
The Apple Macintosh also arrived at this time. It lacked the color capabilities of the earlier Apple II, instead preferring a much higher pixel resolution, but the operating system support for the GUI attracted developers of some interesting games (e.g. Lode Runner) even before color returned in 1987 with the Mac II.
The arrival of the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga in 1985 was the beginning of a new era of 16-bit machines. For many users they were too expensive until later on in the decade, at which point advances in the IBM PC’s open platform had caused the IBM PC compatibles to become comparably powerful at a lower cost than their competitors. The VGA standard developed for IBM’s new PS/2 line in 1987 gave the PC the potential for 256-color graphics. This was a big jump ahead of most 8-bit home computers but still lagging behind platforms with built-in sound and graphics hardware like the Amiga. This caused an odd trend around ’89-91 towards developing to a seemingly inferior machine. Thus while both the ST and Amiga were host to many technically excellent games, their time of prominence proved to be shorter than that of the 8-bit machines, which saw new ports well into the 80s and even the 90s.
The Yamaha YM3812 sound chip.
Dedicated sound cards started to address the issue of poor sound capabilities in IBM PC compatibles in the late 1980s. Ad Lib set an early de facto standard for sound cards in 1987, with its card based on the Yamaha YM3812 sound chip. This would last until the introduction of Creative Labs’ Sound Blaster in 1989, which took the chip and added new features while remaining compatible with Ad Lib cards, and creating a new de facto standard. However, many games would still support these and rarer things like the Roland MT-32 and Disney Sound Source into the early 90s. The initial high cost of sound cards meant they would not find widespread use until the 1990s.
Shareware gaming first appeared in the mid 1980s, but its big successes came in the 1990s.[citation needed]
Early online gaming
Dial-up bulletin board systems were popular in the 1980s, and sometimes used for online game playing. The earliest such systems were in the late 1970s and early 1980s and had a crude plain-text interface. Later systems made use of terminal-control codes (the so-called ANSI art, which included the use of IBM-PC-specific characters not part of an ANSI standard) to get a pseudo-graphical interface. Some BBSs offered access to various games which were playable through such an interface, ranging from text adventures to gambling games like blackjack (generally played for “points” rather than real money). On some multiuser BBSs (where more than one person could be online at once), there were games allowing users to interact with one another.
SuperSet Software created Snipes, a text-mode networked computer game in 1983 to test a new IBM Personal Computer based computer network and demonstrate its capabilities. Snipes is officially credited as being the original inspiration for Novell NetWare. It is believed to be the first network game ever written for a commercial personal computer and is recognized alongside 1974’s Maze War (a networked multiplayer maze game for several research machines) and Spasim (a 3D multiplayer space simulation for time shared mainframes) as the precursor to multiplayer games such as 1987′s MIDI Maze, and Doom in 1993. Commercial online services also arose during this decade.
The first user interfaces were plain-text—similar to BBSs— but they operated on large mainframe computers, permitting larger numbers of users to be online at once. By the end of the decade, inline services had fully graphical environments using software specific to each personal computer platform. Popular text-based services included CompuServe, The Source, and GEnie, while platform-specific graphical services included PlayNET and Quantum Link for the Commodore 64, AppleLink for the Apple II and Macintosh, and PC Link for the IBM PC—all of which were run by the company which eventually became America Online—and a competing service, Prodigy. Interactive games were a feature of these services, though until 1987 they used text-based displays, not graphics.
Early pioneers of online gaming were O2 ISP (formally BT), http://www.o2.co.uk/ helped promote online gaming on the PC through sponsorship and aggressive bandwidth expansion
The 1990s were a decade of marked innovation in video gaming. It was a decade of transition from raster graphics to 3D graphics and gave rise to several genres of video games including first-person shooter, real-time strategy, and MMO. Handheld gaming began to become more popular throughout the decade, thanks in part to the release of the Game Boy in 1989.[83] Arcade games, although still relatively popular in the early 1990s, begin a decline as home consoles become more common.
The video game industry matured into a mainstream form of entertainment in the 1990s. Major developments of the 1990s included the beginning of a larger consolidation of publishers, higher budget games, increased size of production teams and collaborations with both the music and motion picture industries. Examples of this would be Mark Hamill’s involvement with Wing Commander III or Quincy Jones’ introduction of QSound.
Doom
The increasing computing power and decreasing cost of processors as the Intel 80386, Intel 80486, and the Motorola 68030, caused the rise of 3D graphics, as well as “multimedia” capabilities through sound cards and CD-ROMs. Early 3D games began with flat-shaded graphics (Elite, Starglider 2 or Alpha Waves[84]), and then simple forms of texture mapping (Wolfenstein 3D).
1989 and the early 1990s saw the release and spread of the MUD codebases DikuMUD and LPMud, leading to a tremendous increase in the proliferation and popularity of MUDs. Before the end of the decade, the evolution of the genre continued through “graphical MUDs” into the first MMORPGs (Massively multiplayer online role-playing games), such as Ultima Online and EverQuest, which freed users from the limited number of simultaneous players in other games and brought persistent worlds to the mass market. A prime example of an MMORPG MUD is the game Runescape created by Jagex.
In the early 1990s, shareware distribution was a popular method of publishing games for smaller developers, including then-fledgling companies such as Apogee (now 3D Realms), Epic Megagames (now Epic Games), and id Software. It gave consumers the chance to try a trial portion of the game, usually restricted to the game’s complete first section or “episode”, before purchasing the rest of the adventure. Racks of games on single 5 1/4″ and later 3.5″ floppy disks were common in many stores, often only costing a few dollars each. Since the shareware versions were essentially free, the cost only needed to cover the disk and minimal packaging. As the increasing size of games in the mid-90s made them impractical to fit on floppies, and retail publishers and developers began to earnestly mimic the practice, shareware games were replaced by shorter game demos (often only one or two levels), distributed free on CDs with gaming magazines and over the Internet
In 1991, Sonic the Hedgehog was introduced. The game gave Sega’s Mega Drive console mainstream popularity, and rivaled Nintendo’s Mario franchise. Its namesake character became the mascot of Sega and one of the most recognizable video game characters.
In 1992 the game Dune II was released. It was by no means the first in the genre (several other games can be called the very first real-time strategy game, see the History of RTS), but it set the standard game mechanics for later blockbuster RTS games such as Warcraft: Orcs & Humans, Command & Conquer, and StarCraft. The RTS is characterized by an overhead view, a “mini-map”, and the control of both the economic and military aspects of an army. The rivalry between the two styles of RTS play—Warcraft style, which used GUIs accessed once a building was selected, and C&C style, which allowed construction of any unit from within a permanently visible menu—continued into the start of the next millennium.
Alone in the Dark (1992),
while not the first survival horror game, planted the seeds of what would become known as the survival horror genre today. It took the action-adventure style and retooled it to de-emphasize combat and focus on investigation. An early attempt to simulate 3D scenarios by mixing polygons with 2D background images, it established the formula that would later flourish on CD-ROM based consoles, with games such as Resident Evil which coined the name “survival horror” and popularized the genre, and Silent Hill.
Adventure games continued to evolve, with Sierra Entertainment’s King’s Quest series, and LucasFilms’/LucasArts’ Monkey Island series bringing graphical interaction and the creation of the concept of “point-and-click” gaming. Myst and its sequels inspired a new style of puzzle-based adventure games. Published in 1993, Myst itself was one of the first computer games to make full use of the new high-capacity CD-ROM storage format. Despite Myst’s mainstream success, the increased popularity of action-based and real-time games led adventure games and simulation video games, both mainstays of computer games in earlier decades, to begin to fade into obscurity.
It was in the 1990s that Maxis began publishing its successful line of “Sim” games, beginning with SimCity, and continuing with a variety of titles, such as SimEarth, SimCity 2000, SimAnt, SimTower, and the best-selling PC game in history, The Sims, in early 2000.
3DFX
In 1996, 3dfx Interactive released the Voodoo chipset, leading to the first affordable 3D accelerator cards for personal computers. These devoted 3D rendering daughter cards performed a portion of the computations required for more-detailed three-dimensional graphics (mainly texture filtering), allowing for more-detailed graphics than would be possible if the CPU were required to handle both game logic and all the graphical tasks. First-person shooter games (notably Quake) were among the first to take advantage of this new technology. While other games would also make use of it, the FPS would become the chief driving force behind the development of new 3D hardware, as well as the yardstick by which its performance would be measured, usually quantified as the number of frames per second rendered for a particular scene in a particular game.
Several other, less-mainstream, genres were created in this decade. Looking Glass Studios’ Thief: The Dark Project and its sequel were the first to coin the term “first person sneaker”, although it is questionable whether they are the first “first person stealth” games. Turn-based strategy progressed further, with the Heroes of Might and Magic (HOMM) series (from The 3DO Company) luring many mainstream gamers into this complex genre.
Id Software’s 1996 game Quake pioneered play over the Internet in first-person shooters. Internet multiplayer capability became a de facto requirement in almost all FPS games. Other genres also began to offer online play, including RTS games like Microsoft Game Studios’ Age of Empires, Blizzard’s Warcraft and StarCraft series, and turn-based games such as Heroes of Might and Magic. Developments in web browser plug-ins like Java and Adobe Flash allowed for simple browser-based games. These are small single player or multiplayer games that can be quickly downloaded and played from within a web browser without installation. Their most popular use is for puzzle games, side-scrollers, classic arcade games, and multiplayer card and board games.
Few new genres have been created since the advent of the FPS and RTS, with the possible exception of the third-person shooter. Games such as Grand Theft Auto III, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell, Enter the Matrix, and Hitman all use a third-person camera perspective, but are otherwise very similar to their first-person counterparts.
1998 marked another great advance, which came in the form of Descent: FreeSpace – The Great War, by Volition Inc. It was one of the better 3D games which was a space flight simulation (Sci-Fi) and it was followed up by FreeSpace_2 in 1999, which had many more graphical updates and even more innovations included.
