The history of video games spans a period of time between the invention of the first electronic games and today, covering a long period of invention and changes. Video gaming would not reach mainstream popularity until the 1970s and 1980s, when arcade video games, gaming consoles and home computer games were introduced to the general public. Since then, video gaming has become a popular form of entertainment and a part of modern culture in most parts of the world. The early history of video games, therefore, covers the games released in the period of time between the first interactiveelectronic game with an electronic display in 1947 and the first true video games in the early 1950s, and the rise of early arcade video games in the 1970s (Pong and the beginning of the first generation of video game consoles with the Magnavox Odyssey, both in 1972). During this time there were a wide range of devices and inventions corresponding with large advances in computing technology, and the actual first video game is dependent on the definition of "video game" used.
It's long been annoying to me that the articles on the early history of video games and the foundational games therein were in pretty awful shape, and starting this past November I decided to do something about it. 6 months, several books, countless web searches and 12 articles later, I present to you a completed good topic on the early history of video games, covering the time span from the initial protogames of 1947-51 through to the first spark of commercial video games in 1971, ending just before 1972 when Pong showed that the commercial arcade game was a real thing, and the Magnavox Odyssey showed that playing games on your TV was a possible and profitable idea. Included in this topic is every article we have on a 1971 or earlier video game, with the from-scratch early mainframe games scooping up some of the smaller ones. It's a little-known area of video game history—most books breeze past the whole 25 year period on their way to the better-documented 1972—but an important starting point for a ton of game developers in the 70s and 80s. Special thanks to Indrian, who GA reviewed all but one of these, holding my feet to the fire on being clear and precise in my language when trying to simplify complex development histories and pointing me at great resources when the easy sources contradicted each other. --PresN 03:40, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Once again, a topic pulled from total obscurity and shined to beautiful Green plus signs by @PresN:. Strong support for articles all of us video game readers and those interested in history should learn from. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 18:22, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Don't know if my GA reviews preclude me from voting, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to express my admiration for all PresN has done to turn Wikipedia into perhaps the best source for early video game history not just on the Web, but in any media format. Indrian (talk) 22:12, 15 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
:Really nice topic but I would like to clarify the delimitation of the topic a bit since it seems a bit fuzzy.
Why not put Pong and MO in this topic?
while 1st gen consoles is a well defined term, "early history" is a bit vague. Would the main article and this topic work better as "pre-console history of VG"? Or "History of first video games"?
I think this topic might benefit from a list/table of all game entries before 1972.
Early mainframe games seems to suffer from the same name/table issues.
The earlier in the history of video games you go, the fuzzier the borders get, but if you were going to put a marker and say "this is the start of the commercial video game industry", you'd say that Pong (landmark title, spawned tons of imitators, clones, home versions, etc., widely regarded as the first video game that the general public knew about) and the Odyssey (the first commercial home video game system, same time period, first time the majority of players had ever seen a video game) would be it (especially as they were released only a couple months apart). This is everything before that, so Pong and MO wouldn't fit.
Consoles are great and all, but it does a disservice to the medium to pretend that computer/arcade/mainframe video games don't exist, and that they weren't at times the dominant form of the medium- including the entire time period covered here. There isn't an easy term for "before the explosive start of the commercial video game industry in 1972", but "early history" works pretty well without using a neologism like "protohistory" or something.
Are you talking about the actual "early history" article, or the topic? Regardless, pretty much impossible- we're talking about a time period that covers when the global community of <1000 programmers might have one undergrad throw together a game over the course of a few weeks, physically mail off a letter with the plain-text source code to a volunteer-run newsletter that may have one issue still archived anywhere (50 years later), and have it be one of the most-played games of the year solely because only a few dozen text-based games were "released" that year. Such a table would be unsourcable, and either pointless or include hundreds of entries with nothing more than a name to demark them.
To reiterate, none of these game were sold. Or really "published". You're asking for a table of hobby projects that were shared with other niche enthusiasts with access to computer systems that often cost more than US$1 million in 1960s money, 50 years after the fact. The data doesn't exist.
Context would be helpful when talking about a 12-article topic, but I found what you meant. I don't think so- it's fuzzy, but you don't italicize the titles of software projects; you do italicize games as stand-alone releases, but an academic chess proof-of-concept that happens to be the first such academic project that covered a game isn't the same thing as Halo. --PresN 05:24, 16 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I still thing "Early history" is an unnecessarily vague term. Why don't you think the topic and article should be "history of first VGs"? With the latter, Pong should be included as the first well known VG (Odyssey I guess also). Also, the topic is not clearly defined in an obvious way (if somebody sees the template they have no idea what say OXO could possibly be and how is it related to the topic), so try to cover in the intro para how all the entries are linked/ perhaps my mentioning some years too.
I've tweaked the wording a bit, but I feel that talking about the time period covered as defined by the games produced on either end, and then having a list of games as sub-articles, pretty clearly indicates that it's the games released in the "early history of video games". A topic on an album doesn't list out what each song is in the lead paragraph. I also disagree with "history of first video games" - that doesn't actually mean anything, or cover what you say it does- the first games that could be called "video games"? The first video games that could be said to be the "first" of something? The topic is about the time period in video game history prior to the rise of the commercial video game industry; it doesn't make much sense to me to rename it to something that includes games that were the start of the commercial video game industry, because that's no longer "prior" to. I agree that the term "early history" doesn't explicitly tell you what that means- which is why there's an introductory paragraph. And an article on the subject. Sometimes articles (like, say, "List of nearest exoplanets") have to define what the terms like "nearest" or "early" mean, because titles can only be so long. --PresN 04:54, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with @PresN: on the need for broadness in the articles title because the subject itself is interpretive. What exactly is a video game, and what was considered the "first video game"? It is this kind of thing that is so hard to pin down, and to which there is no right answer. The subject as to the exact time period of games pre-Pong is delineated in the first article, and can't be explained in a an title without unnecessary complication. What constitutes early should be gone over in the article space, not the title. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 20:18, 19 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The quivalent would be "History of the earliest VG", but I am happy to support the topic in the current format. Just reported the entries in the template a bit to be more balanced.
Included the navbox above, which helps break down the contents better than the featured topic box. As acknowledged, this "early history" as a nebulous scope and it's tough to draw scope boundaries, though I echo Indrian that PresN has done a fine job of doing so. As far as I know, we don't have a singular source that delineates the most important individual projects from this era, so I can't speak to "completeness" of the topic—for instance, is our coverage American-centric? Are we missing any major projects from the UK, Russia, or non-Western cultures? Does "early history" really span the pre-American arcade period, or what about primitive electronic games as other regions began to develop an industry? I'm comfortable with the scope as is and congratulate PresN on the accomplishment. I originally had a few of these on my list and am glad to see them finished (and which such alacrity!) I'd be happy to collaborate on cleanup for featured nominations. Support. czar 22:57, 20 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@
microcomputers became a thing at the same time and opened up computer programming to an exponentially increasing number of people worldwide, dedicated consoles proliferated, especially in Europe... Anyways, yeah, I'd love to take these to FAC, though there's one source that I'm not sure on, and likely more books that I'd need to hunt down; if I do I'll hit you up, or if one catches your eye just let me know. --PresN 00:25, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply
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I meant more that "early history" shifts between cultures. So countries that received mainframe computers after the United States might have also had an early history of video games (pre-arcade) but possibly during a different span of years, depending on whether we know about it. (This is also the main criticism of the "console generations" model Wikipedia helped to proliferate—it's based around the console war mentality and single-timeframe histories. For example, where does the British home computer timeline intersect with the Americanized console timeline.) Anyway, I think it's safe to say that these articles reflect the most prominent sources on the topic. I can help find/scan sources too—just let me know what you're thinking czar 00:34, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support - I think the delineation is proper, given what I came to read up on whenI worked on the Ralph Baer article last year after his death, who is credited with the Magnavox Odyssey. Both that and Pong are the first clearly-established home and arcade game, so all titles before that can easily be classified as "early video games". --MASEM (t) 16:41, 21 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved comments from Thibbs (talk) 18:30, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
*Comment - Commendable work by PresN. Like Czar I have had some of these articles on my watchlist and have been delighted to witness their much-needed refurbishments in real time. The time-span (pre-1972) is well selected and my only reservations for the topic are definition-related (on both the "video" and the "game" parts of "video game"). Nearly a decade ago (water under the bridge now) I had the great honor of heatedly arguing animatedly discussing the definition of "video" with
Lunar Lander (and earlier orbital simulators). I recognize that a lack of available RSes imposes certain practical limitations on which articles can in fact attain GA/FA status, but should those limitations be taken into account in considering the "comprehensive" leg of a Featured Topic? I'm concerned that the inherently fuzzy definition of "video game", together with a historically expansive use of the term "game", impairs our ability to come up with "a well-defined topical scope" that has "no obvious gaps". Without a firm definition for "video game" that goes beyond "I know it when I see it", the gaps are in the eye of the beholder. Closer please note: this ramble should not be regarded as an "Oppose". -Thibbs (talk) 13:30, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply
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I had a rambly response, but let me distill it down a bit.
"Video" - the classic definition needs a continuously-updating CRT monitor. That cuts off a lot of things that are protogames or use a different type of visual output device like modern display screens, so as the early history article says, that article and this topic goes with "any game played on hardware built with electronic logic circuits that incorporates an element of interactivity and outputs the results of the player's actions to a display". The common definition of a "video" game no longer matches the 1980s definition, in other words, and frankly that definition was limiting even then.
"Game" - Note that the term "game" means something different in academic research settings than in common parlance- see Game theory, etc. ELIZA and Conway's Game of Life were "games" in the sense that they were "academic simulations" of something, not in the sense that they were an activity or program meant for entertainment like football or Spacewar. OXO and 1940's chess programs, of course, straddle the line, (and so are included) but programs like ELIZA are on the far side of it. The Early history article does mention the progress of non-game games during the 50s, but by the late 60s "modern" entertainment-focused video games existed, so the history of computer-mediated research simulations is not in scope as they no longer were forming the historical basis of what would become video games, so those programs are not mentioned. (Do note, though: Lunar Lander is in early mainframe games, as it was entertainment-focused, despite being heavily math/text based). --PresN 14:55, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't call Conway's automaton a research simulation. It's an example of recreational mathematics which is intended to be entertainment-focused and not really academic. And as you suggested above, the reverse side of the coin is that games like OXO were really more of a proof of concept than frankly entertainment-oriented software. The old room-sized vacuum tube computers were expensive to run and (I'm probably generalizing a bit here but) nobody over 5 years old is entertained by noughts and crosses. The reality is that a lot more people in 1970 played Conway's sandboxyGame of Life for the pure recreational pleasure of it than played OXO for those reasons in the 50s, and in the modern day people still "play" Conway's game for fun but only academics and historians play OXO. I'm not really arguing that we must include Conway's game or that we must exclude OXO from the list, but it's fuzzy at best. Early chatterbots like ELIZA are also hard to categorize. The program was definitely included in either BASIC Computer Games or More BASIC Computer Games (I'd have to unearth my copies to find out which, but both are game- and not academic-oriented), and I seriously doubt it was ever used in a psychologist's office. From personal experience of having typed it up and played through back in the 80s, I would agree that calling it a "game" is a bit of a stretch, but from what I understand it had a definite influence on later games. I notice this is an unsourced section, but see ELIZA#Influence on games. This is kind of kicking the can down the road I guess, but maybe the best way to cure this problem is to directly address the definition of "video game" in the body of the video game article (which is linked in the description of the topic) and just allow the wikilink to serve as definition for the topic for now. There are some decent sources (e.g. 1) that could be used for such a subsection of the "video game" article. I had researched the concept of a definition for video games all those years ago while talking with Wgungfu, and I think I still have notes on it somewhere, so I'll see what I can dredge back up to add to the "video game" article. -Thibbs (talk) 16:54, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ah I just noticed this subsection which I'd skipped over previously. Perhaps that is good enough for now. And anyway the more I think about it the more I doubt that this that much of a problem. The goal is to avoid any "obvious gaps" and most of the gaps I see are just arguable gaps. In general these kinds of topics shouldn't be subject to much change in coverage (except, e.g., new games in a franchise topic), and perhaps this topic will have a little bit more discussion about inclusion in the future but I don't think it will be seriously disruptive and ultimately whatever gaps may exist are probably not "obvious" ones. I'm interested in this idea of a definition of "video game", though. If I get more time I'll look into it more deeply. -Thibbs (talk) 18:30, 22 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Support I'm happy that these articles cover the topic of early video games, and I've been following these for quite a while. Amazing work! JAGUAR 11:45, 23 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Closed with a consensus to promote to Good Topic. - GamerPro64 23:16, 22 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
