The gaming industry has progressed greatly today and created a massive video games market worth 75 billion USD. There is so much variety in video games, so many platforms to choose from, and such a wide range of hardware and technologies today, that one would have to be hard-pressed to find a game genre that doesn’t exist already.
However, the question is how did it all start? How did we reach where we are today in terms of gaming as an industry?
The Beginning
The origins of video gaming take us back to the year 1940 when physicist Edward Condon created the first video game called Nim, which was a mathematical game of strategy in which two players took turns removing objects from certain heaps. Even though the computer won the game about 90% of the time, people were absolutely amazed and thrilled by it as it was something completely unheard of.
Nim was accessible to only a limited number of people as it was playable by a special computer designed for the same. However, in 1967 Ralph Baer and his team rolled out “Brown Box”, a vacuum tube-circuit, which was the first commercial video game that could be played by the people at their homes.
The Era of the Atari and Nintendo
Most of the gamers that are alive today started gaming with the Atari gaming consoles around the year 1972. Atari was also the first gaming company to take video gaming to the next level with games that had actually had some decent graphics for the time.
By the year 1985 more than 15 companies were developing video games for the market that was growing at an exponential rate.
Of course, we can’t talk about the progression of the gaming industry and not talk about Nintendo.
It was 1977 when Nintendo started developing video games with the Color TV Game systems, which worked with Color TV Game 6- a dedicated console that had 6 Pong-like games.
Another major step for the gaming industry was with the introduction of the 8-bit games. It started with Nintendo developing their first multi-cartridge gaming console in 1983 which they named Famicom. Its introduction led to the development of the all-time gaming classics including Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter 2, etc.
The Next Level of Gaming- Ps2 and Xbox
Until the 2000s the gaming consoles were limited by their hardware and processing power. This changed with the launch of PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Xbox, both of which had an amazing processing power and graphical capabilities. No wonder the former became the best-selling console in the history with over 150 million units sold as of February 2011.
PlayStation and Xbox have since then continued launching newer generations of the gaming consoles and today the majority of AAA-games like GTA V, Forza Motorsport 7, Assassin’s Creed Series, etc. can be found at either or both of these platforms.
Mobile Gaming and Desktop Gaming
Mobile phones have become an integral part of our lives today. Since they are portable, have fairly powerful hardware, and are used by almost everyone they were a natural target for the gaming industry. In fact, the revenue from mobile gaming apps worldwide is projected to grow from 34.8 billion in 2015 to 74.6 billion in 2020.
There are in fact mobile games that are at par with the console games in terms of quality and content. Incorporating the multiplayer or social element to these games is also easy as people use their mobile phones to stay in touch with their friends all the time.
Similarly, while PC games continue to be mainstream, there is a massive growth observed in non-AAA games, especially in the online casino genre. These mainly use the HTML5 technology which is incredibly powerful but at the same time isn’t limited by a specialized hardware or high processing power requirement. All you need is a decent computer, and an Internet connection as these games are typically played on the web browsers.
Karamba, for instance, is offering a slew of creative and interest online casino games, like slot games for instance. Examples include Gonzo’s Quest, Twin Spin Jungle Spirit, etc.
Another reason why online casino games are so popular today is that they allow the players to actually earn money from their gaming skills. Big corporates are also pouring money into the industry for the same reason.
At any rate, no matter what kind of gamer you are- mobile, PC, console, or online casino, what matters is that you are a part of a massive community that just loves to have a good time. That’s the most important thing there is.
