The Video Game Revolution

In this video, an old man along with video game creators explain the origin of video games. They mention that the average game player is around 29 years old. Video games can now be played anywhere, in computer, game consoles, cellphones, arcades, and also can be played on your own, with friends or with strangers. It has now become a dominant form of entertainment. The first game was created by Rusel deMaria called Spaceboard but it was too expensive. Nolan Bushnell was the genius that created Pong in 1972. Pong was placed in taverns and bars and people would have their beers while playing. Ralph suggested making games in a television set. Odyssey was the first video console in 1974 followed by the home version of pong. Although the most successful console of that time was Atari. It had many games such as Sims2 and Breakout invented by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Atari had its moment until it was sold to Warner Bros. After that came the revolution of Asteroids and Amco or Puckman today known as Pacman. Pinball machines created by Marcus O'Farrell were also a big success. After all this boost in the video game revolution the business started to die. They needed a new idea so this is when they tried to be more family oriented and targeted games that could be played at home. The rise of the Famicom or the family computer home console by Nintendo which had many games such as Don King Kong Jr., Super Mario Brothers,  and Zelda, all created by a japanese man with the name of Shigeru Miyamoto. He was the father of game design. Later in 1989, Nintendo's Gameboy was a boom because it was portable and along with it came the popular game Tetris. Japan was and still is a massive market for video games. In 1992 Mortal Combat arrived, and it received high rankings but also high complaints. Mortal Combat is a violent game and because there was many complaints the gaming industry decided to create their own ratings and warnings. After all that bad taste, in 1994, the revolution of the PlayStation by Sony arrived. Games like Nancy Drew and Tomb Raider became popular and began to target the female audience. Girls are also part of this industry even if boys do not think so. The military and the US army were also an audience to video games. In USC they created games to train them and the more real they were the more effective the training was. In 2000 and 2001, 3 products changed the video game revolution: the PlayStation2, the Gamecube and the Microsoft Xbox. I can still remember when these products came out. I used to have the Gameboy Advance, PlayStation2 and the Gamecube. These last consoles did make a change for video games, the graphics were amazing and they was a variety of games for each one. Lately the consoles have evolved, there is now the PlayStation3, the PlayStationPortable, Xbox live, Wii and more. All of these games are first tested by a group of people to calculate if the audience will or will not like it.  Although this has been a dominant entertainment it has its pros and cons. Games challenges minds and allows the gamer to learn without he/she knowing. The audience likes to learn but doesn't like to be taught as they mentioned in the video. Not all games are violent and many of them are used to teach, but there is also the downside to gaming. Some games are too violent. or can be considered as soft porn which to me should be prohibited to kids under 16. Technology is making today's society to grow so much faster but I think everything has its own time and violent games or movies should not take away a kid's childhood. Even though kids will eventually learn the bad things in life I do agree with that starting anywhere before 16. Addiction and obsession are also things that parents or guardians should watch out for because anything in great quantities can be harmful.