History of Games 1980-1990

In the 1980s the little games industry started to grow, with many businesses and production houses popping up, and some coming and going rather quickly. Among those that are still around today is EA. Gaming computers specifically for entertainment such as the Commodore64 and ZX Spectrum emerged around this time also. More specifically, 1982.
The 1980’s was the ‘Golden age of arcade’, and a time in which game genres started to settle. The game ‘Pole Position’ brought on the rear view mirror, a feature that has been used in most racing games ever since, and the legendary Pac-man made his debut. Pac-man was the first popular game character known for just being Pac-man!
Online communication was quite popular in the 1980s, users communicating via dialup bulletin boards. The dialup was also used for playing games ANSI art later on. A variety of these simple text interface games were available, such as gambling games (for points) and where multiple users were possible, the concept of the MMORPG was born through ‘Multi User Dungeons’.
Unfortunately after all the excitement came what is considered the games industry’s worst crash (For it is certainly not close to crashing in the present day!) The main reason for the crash is seen to be the mass amount of poor games that were produced around that time. To me it’s understandable that perhaps when something does so well people perhaps think they can get away with making any-old thing. Thus there was too much choice for consumers and clearly each business wouldn’t have been able to make enough money.
I remember wanting a ps1 before it was released, but like many others I couldn’t have one immediately!! However I remember playing someone else’s. My first ps1 game was final fantasy 7. I did not complete it, I played it whenever at the friend’s house who owned it. I loved the art style and the detail, and being able to move about in 3d space, and I always wanted to play it when I visited, but was always scared to ask. Then for my 8-10th birthday (I think 10th), I was given a second hand ps1 with lots of games. The one I played all the time was crash bandicoot. I loved the brightness and the craziness of it all. Later on I started playing Tekken 3 and test drive 5. I discovered a cheat that unlocked all cars, and loved the fact that the tracks went on forever through cities, past landmarks, and that it was possible to reach ridiculous heights with the car should you go over a hill. Tekken three I enjoyed so much I went and bought Tekken 2, and my obsession with it hasn’t died. I also fell in love with the T-rex on the DEMO 1 Disc, (as dinosaurs were my childhood obsession) loved the music and loved messing about with it! I still own all of my ps2 discs today.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computer_and_video_games
http://www.jesperjuul.net/thesis/2-historyofthecomputergame.html
http://archive.gamespy.com/legacy/articles/devweek_j.shtm