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Electronic Games for programmers and by programmers
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Electronic Games for programmers and by programmers

49 min read

Simple40 min100 Player one, get ready

Electronic games (they would become arcade, video and computer games much later) did not appear in cozy living rooms or even in noisy gaming clubs. The first games were born in completely different places - in research laboratories, universities and military bases of someone’s Ministry of Defense, where the military was looking for new ways to use technology to make more rationalization proposals per soldier unit. At the Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe, soldiers were offered electromechanical games back in 1949. To distract the young men from grueling training and strict discipline, in the echoing barracks, recruits spent hours intently twirling knobs and pressing buttons, trying to forget the hardships and deprivations for a while, while the authorities frantically solved the problem of a shortage of bromine in the unit.

Meanwhile, in the quiet of the university buildings, among the humming racks and piles of punch cards, sleepy and overloaded with studying students, future luminaries of programming and proposers of new standards were turning huge expensive mainframes into primitive game consoles. Instead of finishing off complex mathematical calculations or models for scientific papers with punch cards, these people were writing code for the first games. I can’t blame them for this, because in the late 90s I myself would sneak into the room where my father’s computer was and secretly launch SimCity or Caesar, or try to scribble down a sea battle in BASIC using the source code printed in some magazine and praying that the creaking of the hard drive and the beeping of the beeper would not be heard by my parents.

Thus, in the shadow of science and military technology, out of curiosity, fatigue and the desire to play, one of the most powerful entertainment industries of our time was born - video games. A small respite for some, soon became a cultural phenomenon of the masses and changed the world of entertainment.

Two very different but equally important segments of the video game industry began to develop in parallel back in the 1950s. One grew out of the clatter of coins in bars and arcades, the other out of the dim glow of mainframe screens tucked away in university labs.

Games for coins

In 1951, entrepreneur Marty Bromley , who ran gaming halls on military bases in Hawaii, noticed that soldiers were willing to spend their free time, and more importantly, their hard-earned shekels, on electromechanical games and machines. Thus, the company was born _Service Games_, which over time became one of the giants of the gaming industry, known today as **SEGA**.

The new market segment quickly began to gain momentum: coin-operated slot machines with simple games began to appear in bars, shopping centers and game rooms. And in the 1970s, a real arcade boom began, with arcades, as they say, shooting up all over the States. It was there that what we now call consoles and arcade game consoles began. Versions of popular arcade games later migrated to home game consoles, allowing players to continue competing at home in front of a TV, but many did not have one, which, of course, did not particularly upset Marty and his comrades, for whom arcades were a priority. Otherwise, we would have had something more interesting instead of video games with Stallone films.

Games for programmers and by programmers

Meanwhile, in another part of gaming history, university students were also beginning to embrace new technologies, not for the public’s entertainment, but for their own pleasure and in an attempt to outdo their classmates. The first computer games (or should we call them mainframe games?) were born during the night shifts, when the labs were empty and the computing power of the university’s monsters could be used for more than just complex mathematical calculations.

One such game, Spacewar!, created at MIT, became so popular among students that it was ported to arcade machines. But it was only with the availability of personal computers that games really reached the masses—the massive mainframe was designed for a different layer of developers. That was when a new era began—the time of computer games that no longer required arcades or bulky cabinets.

The two video game industries - arcade machines and computer games - developed independently of each other and eventually became the two pillars of a colossus of an industry that today brings in billions of dollars and unites, according to various estimates, more than two billion players, i.e., with a high degree of probability, the person sitting across from you plays games.

Who are all these people?

Many companies and developers have made a huge contribution to the creation of games, perhaps you have encountered their creations more than once - played cult titles and heard the names of studios that changed the idea of ​​interactive entertainment, without knowing who was behind their creation. Their works not only determined the path of development of the industry, but also continue to inspire modern studios, pushing them to search for new solutions, mechanics and ways of interaction with players. It is a pity that the history of the development of the computer games industry is not taught at the university, it tells a lot of good stories of how NOT to do it, these are stories not just about games, these are practices of managing a team, a product, a company in the end. And all this is tied to specific cultural characteristics of the country and the time period of development: a boring enterprise with 328 Java and ten-year-old ships, will not even think that this can happen.

It’s all video games

The term “video game” first appeared in relation to arcade games, over time this word migrated to our homes, becoming a synonym for home consoles. There was also a clear division, games on personal computers, my classmate with an important look called them “computer”, and “console”, but for some reason he went to play “counter” at my place. Although today this border has practically disappeared, all the big consoles, and most mobile platforms, have merged in a fit of unification, and game engines have coated it all with a thick layer of universality. Smartphones, VR helmets, cloud platforms - now you can call “video game” everything that beeps with a speaker, has a couple of buttons on the screen or controller and allows you to draw at least something on the screen!

And in a couple of years, you see, we will figure out how to attach rendering on neural networks - and we will be surprised how it was possible to live without it! This evolution of the word itself not only reflects technical progress, but also symbolizes the transition from arcades and clubs with their indescribable atmosphere to home and mobile games at arm’s length.

Several companies stepped on heads at the dawn of electronic games, creating a digital Wild West! Others started with anything but games (selling rice or military technology), others tried and are trying to capture all niches of the gaming market. Some remained only in the memories of players, and some, like a phoenix, rise from the ashes time and again and bring a second “golden age” to the industry, some companies still “haven’t left the game” - their logos glow on consoles. Are you ready to find out how Space Invaders was born from… a “laser gun”, and “Pac-Man” almost became pizza?

Before video games, the most popular arcade entertainment was the electromechanical pinball machines of various types, shapes, and colors. They were often located in amusement parks, attracting people of all ages who would hold pinball competitions as part of weekend get-togethers. There were even separate pinball clubs and their own championship, with the advent of arcade machines, such parks and clubs became even more popular. They were usually located near schools and residential areas, so on their way home from school, kids would take a few quarters from their breakfast to Donkey and Diddy’s hideout, and stay there until evening, forgetting to eat and do their homework.

In 1956, David Rosen of Rosen Enterprises began importing coin-operated arcade machines and became the largest amusement company in Japan. In 1964, Rosen Enterprises merged with SEGA to form Sega Enterprises, which released the first Japanese export product, Periscope, in the U.S. The high shipping costs of the machines and U.S. duties forced American arcade owners to charge 25 cents per game, which is equivalent to about 250-300 rubles today per game. Each imported arcade machine was subject to a 25% duty, and the machine owner also had to pay land rent to the government if he was going to put it in a public place, all of which raised the price of one instance to 1,500-2,000 USD. Depending on the model and configuration, this would be about 10-20k in today’s money. For example, the price of a regular pinball machine rarely exceeded $300. However, the quarter quickly became the standard for arcade machines. In 1969, Sega was acquired by Gulf & Western, but in 1984, David Rosen and partner Isao Okawa bought it back. The deal cost $38 million.

Some games were real technological breakthroughs for their time and despite technical limitations, opening up new horizons in genres, gameplay and development methods that had not even been thought of before. Others became so popular that they were able to win a wide audience and remain playable to this day, and sometimes they are taken out of a dusty closet and re-released for consoles, computers and mobile phones under different sauces.

Computer Space

In 1961, MIT student Steve Russell created a real sensation - **Spacewar!**True, sensations were only for students, that same MIT. On the university’s mainframe, he brought to life the first interactive computer game, which instantly gained many fans among his classmates. I don’t know how Steve managed to do it, but all attempts to launch unaccounted software, be it games or a calculator, on ordinary university machines that stood in ITMO classrooms, were harshly punished by administrators and usually ended with a trip to the dean’s office, although of course there were still craftsmen.

How Space Invaders Was Born From… A “Laser Gun” (Fable)

But the real breakthrough came when Nolan Bushnell, the future founder of Atari, saw Spacewar!and realized that this elite game, in the sense that it was only available to a narrow circle of scientists and students, could be transformed into something that would ignite the unquenchable fire of gaming in the hearts of ordinary people. The phrase was pompous, of course, and he could earn a few shekels. Thus, the idea was born to adapt it Spacewar!into a stand-alone arcade machine that could be installed in public places.

Bushnell named his version **Computer Space**and sold the idea to the company Nutting Associatesin 1971. The game featured simple but action-packed gameplay: the player tried to shoot down a flying saucer in a virtual space duel. Although the concept seems primitive by today’s standards, at the time no one had anything like it. CS was the first step in turning the closed world of university experiments into an arcade revolution.

Despite Computer Space’s modest sales, it was Bushnell who laid the foundation for an era. In 1978, as technology took a giant leap forward, the company Cinematronics released **Space Wars**a new, more advanced arcade interpretation of the original game.

New graphics and sound effects of Space Wars have revived interest in the ideas laid down by Steve Russell. Every couple of years on different devices of the years flashes another remake of that very first game, now it will really be a hundred years at lunchtime soon, or rather 70 with a tail.

Atari

Bushnell then **Computer Space**founded the company with partner Ted Dabney **Atari**- derived from the word for the Japanese board game Go and meaning roughly, “Careful! My next move could be dangerous for you” - similar to “check”. After a lengthy legal battle with Magnavox over the rights to the first successful video game **Pong**, and who would receive royalties, Atari became the most prolific company in the arcade business, releasing arcade games such as Asteroids , which became a video game hit and forever made the Atari name synonymous with arcade machines.

What does Pong have to do with it?

In 1978, Nolan Bushnell left the company for personal reasons with a golden parachute of about $15 million in compensation, a huge sum at the time, and began several new projects, including creating new startups and expanding into other areas of the business. Warner Bros. **Atari**was acquired by a major media giant **Warner Communications**, and marked a new era for the company, which began to focus much more on the commercial aspects of game development, such as marketing and business development, rather than the games themselves. Under Warner’s management, the emphasis began to be on expanding the business through console systems, which put arcade development on the back burner.

With the growth of the home video game console and personal computer industry, the industry Atari shifted from arcade machines to consoles such as the VCS/2600 , which became one of the first mass-market home video game systems. The console gained immense popularity and recognition, but by the late 1970s, Atari it was already facing a new challenge - a sharp increase in competition in the console market and the migration of gamers to PCs.

In 1984 Atari, or rather its part that was responsible for consumer electronics, including R&D and consoles, was sold Tramiel Group(the group headed by Jack Tramel, the founder of Commodore), due to deteriorating financial performance and growing debt load. Warner itself remains profitable, still Atari Gameswith developers and rights to games. Later, the first Atari will be renamed to Atari Corporation but, a few years later, in 1996, it will be sold again. This time to the company **JTS**, a manufacturer of disk drives, but soon it again finds itself in a strong minus and drags JTS along with it. In order not to go to the bottom, JTS he conducts bankruptcy Atariin 1999 and closes it, leaving behind the developments, patents and copyrights. Which a little later go to Hasbro, and appears Atari Interactive.

Hasbrowill try to revive the brand, but in 2000 they buy it themselves. **Infogrames**, a French game development and distribution company, completes the merger with **Hasbro**and in 2008 completely completes the acquisition process Atari, returning it to the market as an independent brand, under the name Atari SA, from which later Atari Token, Atari Casinoand buds off Аtari LLС, the first is clear why, the second is engaged in inconvenient gambling, the third sells licenses for old games. For weight, the company calls Nolan Bushnell back, offering him a golden chair on the board. In April 2010, he returns and becomes an observer on the board of directors, hoping to return Atarito the pedestal that she once built herself, and to help the brand adapt to the new realities of the gaming industry.

In the early twenties, Atari buys out Atari Token, which managed to mine some bitcoins and buy out a part of itself from the parent company and start making some games, and merges it with  Atari LLС, which is now called Atari Blockchain, but has nothing to do with bitcoins and continues to profit from olds, i.e., trade licenses for old games. They take away the gaming division, simultaneously buy up several studios and become Atari Gaming. Some kind of Santa Barbara, honestly.

And where did Ethan go in the end? And Ethan, i.e. Nolan, leaves the golden chair in ‘22, gets a parachute of the same color and now goes around American universities, telling the story of the successful success of the entire Atari brood named after him.

Asteroids

Although Space Invaders (1978) was the first arcade game to record high scores, Asteroids (1979) took it a step further by allowing players to record their initials on a high score table. Designed by Ed Logg, the game used monochrome vector graphics, which allowed fast-moving objects such as asteroids and spaceships to be displayed with a clarity and detailed linework that was not seen in other pixel-based games of the time. This made Asteroids unique, giving the game a high-tech, dynamic feel. Interestingly, the vector graphics used in Asteroids later evolved into polygons, which became the basis for 3D graphics in games.

I didn’t play the original versions of Asteroids, as original as they could be in the late nineties, but there was something similar on one of the discs I bought at a computer junker. Later I saw and played it on the original machine at one of the gaming exhibitions. Well, what can I say, it’s much more interesting and exciting to play on the machine, and I understand why people chose the game on arcades instead of home consoles.

Galaxian

Another pioneer in the arcade industry was Bally/Midway, which was released Space Invadersin 1978. It had several things that were seen in other games, but not all at once. Firstly, it had color graphics, not just lines, dots and circles, but drawn by an artist and transferred to the technical capabilities of the time. It already had gameplay, meaningful and showing some kind of story, a high score system that allowed players to compete for leadership. A choice of game modes and animation. It is not surprising that the game climbed to the top of the charts within a couple of months, and did not leave there for a very long time. Thanks to the huge success of Space Invaders, its clones, followers and sequels, arcades had a 2 to 1 ratio of this game to others, and the game itself became an icon of its era.

Released in 1979, the game was a continuation of the technological changes in the industry, greatly expanding the capabilities of arcade side-scrolling shooters and becoming the basis for a number of sequels. Look, we’re starting to see subgenres here.

Galaga, released in 1981, was the most famous sequel, continuing the concept Galaxian and adding some new mechanics. Players could now save their ships, and if their ship was shot down, it could return to the game and become even more powerful. Unfortunately, I only got to play the game on the console and never saw a live arcade irl, I don’t know why, but exhibitions can bring Galaxian, but they forget about sequels.

Later games, such as Galplus, Galaga '88 и Galaxian 3, improved the graphics and added new levels of difficulty and various elements. Each of these games continued the tradition of Galaxian, but also made its own unique changes. It can be said that Galagait became the first sequel or even series of games in the industry.

Pac-Man

In 1980, Namco released Pac-Man, a game that was a real breakthrough in the arcade industry, attracting a much wider audience than traditional games of the time. One of the reasons for its success was that Pac-Man abandoned the standard “shooting” theme and focused on exploring mazes, which significantly expanded the range of players. The game was created with a female audience in mind, something that was almost unheard of in arcade games of the time.

A story about Pac-Man, I can’t vouch for its veracity

Pac-Man’s controller was simple: a multi-button joystick that allowed the character to move in four directions. Unlike many other games, where the main goal was to destroy enemies, in Pac-Man the character, by consuming pills, gained the ability to temporarily devour ghosts. The game also featured large colored energy pills that allowed the character to “intercept” his pursuers for a short time.

The game’s development began in 1979, and 18 months of work by Toru Iwatani and his team paid off. The developers wanted to create a game that would be intuitive for everyone and would not include violence, well, well, Pac-Man muttered through clenched teeth, eating the last ghost. But most people remember Pac-Man not only for its gameplay, but also for its iconic music.

The game became a real phenomenon and at the time of its popularity surpassed all possible records. In 1981, more than 300,000 arcade machines were sold worldwide, and Pac-Man became the most popular arcade game of all time. In 1982, a sequel to the game, Ms. Pac-Man, was released, where the main character was a “woman”, if this creature without secondary sexual characteristics can be called that, well, except for the bow.

It was an important cultural event, as the game gave a character that many girls could identify with. In Ms. Pac-Man, the developers added new mazes, improvements in game mechanics, and various elements. The sequel brought even more success, but did not even reach the first 100k in sales. But Pac-Man in any case became an important milestone in the history of arcade games and a symbol of the gaming 80s.

Donkey Kong

In 1977, Shigeru Miyamoto was hired as an artist by Nintendo. The company initially assigned him to work on a game **Radarscope**, an underwater game that was simply a button-mashing affair with no real story or characters. Although this was a typical style of games at the time, Miyamoto wanted to create something unique.

The result of Miyamoto’s own ideas was a game that was a cross between King Kong and Beauty and the Beast. A monkey kidnaps his caretaker’s girlfriend and escapes. The player takes on the role of the caretaker (Mario), who becomes the hero of the story, trying to save his girlfriend (Paulie) from the clutches of the beast.

Donkey Kong’s seemingly simple plot propels Nintendo to the top of the American gaming charts. The game was one of the first to use complex mechanics with multiple levels and unique characters. It wasn’t just a platformer, but a story with a written plot that evolved as you progressed through the levels.

Mario, who at that time was only Jumpman, was the first significant game character of the company, and it was his appearance that became the starting point for the creation of the entire Nintendo universe. As you probably all know, Mario was inspired by the image of an Italian plumber, in some interviews Miyamoto later admitted that Mario was also created after consultations with child psychologists, in order to be easily recognizable and accessible primarily to children, thanks to his bright image with a red cap and blue mustache, as the most contrasting combination for children and adolescents.

The story about Donkey Kong is not true, of course.

Following the success of Donkey Kong, Miyamoto and his team created several sequels and reimaginings of the story, including Donkey Kong Junior, where players were offered to switch to the role of the opposite hero. The evil Mario brothers steal daddy Kong and the son has to stand in for his father. This was one of the first attempts to create an unconventional sequel, where the usual roles were swapped, which also influenced the development of the gaming industry and approaches to franchise development. The game did not achieve much success, but it gave the opportunity to appear those same Mario brothers, already as separate characters.

In 1983, the game was released Mario Bros, where Mario and his brother Luigi became full-fledged characters, playing a central role in the adventure story. The plumbers fought an endless stream of enemies in the form of various creatures. The game is considered a possible precursor to multiplayer platform games, where players were given the opportunity to play two players at the same time, which was a real innovation at the time.

With the advent of the NES consoles in 1985, Super Mario Brosit became a flagship project. The game set the standard for new platformers for several years, defining not only the mechanics, but also the visual style. Thanks in part to new technologies, Super Mario Bros. offered solutions such as an animation buffer, which made them smoother, dynamic loading of levels, and a huge number of secrets. Secrets had been in games before, but here Aunt Sonya, i.e. Nina, made them one of the central elements of the game itself.

Miyamoto didn’t stop with just the series, either Mario. With each new console system, he continued to release games that became important parts of the platform’s ecosystem. All projects, including franchises like The Legend of Zelda, Star Fox, Pikmin, и Metroid Prime, were extensions of his ideas, developing new game worlds and expanding the capabilities of the games themselves, including the use of 3D graphics, more complex storylines, and characters that players could identify with. But it’s also thanks to this man that we can only enjoy Ninja games on her consoles.

Not only Mario’s dad, but also the keeper of the foundations

The Birth of Console Gaming

Although Magnavox Odysseythe first home video game console was released back in 1972, it failed to make a significant impact on the mass market. Firstly, Odysseyit simply came out at the wrong time. It was a rather primitive console with a limited selection of games, and it could only be connected to a TV. It was also quite expensive and the middle class could not always afford it, and those who could were not interested in buying it. Despite this, it became a milestone in the industry, demonstrating that video games could go beyond arcades and become part of home leisure.

The real boom of video games, which began in the late 1970s, when arcade games became widely popular and relatively quickly recouped their costs, which allowed to buy new machines and recoup them even faster. But this market was not bottomless, a couple of clubs were enough for a quarter. And then consoles began to transform into more affordable systems, and the transition to a business-to-consumer business model rather than clubs (business-to-business) gave new opportunities for manufacturers. Home consoles began to actively develop when manufacturers realized that there was great potential in selling gaming devices directly to people, even if the price of the console was not very high or profitable, then due to volumes it would be possible to reduce the cost of the console itself and make a good profit.

When selling a slot machine with a cost price of 150-300 bucks, you could get 500-700 profit, but such a machine served conditionally up to 100 people. When selling to the same people directly, you can get 100 * 100 $ = 10k, and even if the cost of the console is 80%, the profit will already be 2k $, instead of the conditional seven hundred. But with large-scale mass production, the cost of hardware rarely rose above 25%, the rest went to marketing and related expenses. As of 2021, the estimated cost of the PS5 was about $ 500 with its own production in Japan and about half as much with full-cycle contract manufacturing in China. With the release of large assembly volumes, the cost could be further reduced by another 20 percent, due to the effect of large orders

Unlike arcade machines, which were only available to professional operators, home consoles with the ability to connect to a TV opened up gaming to anyone who could afford one. Game consoles began to grow in popularity because they were relatively inexpensive and brought gaming to the home. The market began to fill with machines like the Atari 2600 (released in 1977), and gradually other major players began to emerge, eventually leading to the Big Three, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, who would later play a decisive role in the industry. But they were still 20 years away on foot, and in the meantime, the transition from expensive arcade machines to affordable home consoles was the moment that laid the foundations for the industry we have today.

Atari 2600

When the Atari VCS (later known as the Atari 2600) was released in 1977, it introduced cartridge technology, which allowed games to be changed without changing the platform itself, essentially opening up a huge range of content. Not only did this make the console accessible to a wider audience, but it also set the stage for the entire history of console gaming. The Atari VCS was significantly cheaper than the market, both in arcades and in more expensive computers. Games ranged from simple text adventures to more complex, visually-driven adventures, appealing to a diverse audience. Adventure, one of the first adventure games for the console, incorporated elements of hidden object, exploration, and puzzle solving, and spawned a new genre of adventure games. When Atari adapted Space Invaders for a home console in 1980, it was the first arcade game to be ported to a home platform, proving that consoles could be not only an alternative to arcade machines, but full-fledged competitors to arcade machines at a much lower cost.

Atari continued to release new models, the 5200 and 7800, but they failed to replicate the success of the original 2600. The 5200 and 7800 suffered from both technical and ergonomic problems, such as awkward controllers, and a lack of games limited their appeal, leaving the Atari 2600 as the company’s most successful console and one of the most significant products in video game history.

Atari and the rest

Competitors, seeing how Atari was skimming off the cream of the market, also wanted to bite off their piece of the pie, and two years after the release of the VCS, Mattel introduced its Intellivision console. This gaming device, although more expensive, was superior to Atari in many technical characteristics, offering more powerful hardware, better graphics and sound. Unlike the VCS, which used a standard joystick, the Intellivision was equipped with a controller with a numeric keypad and a control wheel, reminiscent of modern trackpads on laptops. This approach allowed for more complex game mechanics, and for ease of control, each game came with special plastic overlays that were placed on the controller keyboard, helping players navigate the buttons.

Atari, with its revolutionary VCS that paved the way for home gaming consoles to reach the hearts of consumers, faced off not only with Mattel, with its more technologically advanced Intellivision. The battle also took place on store shelves and in office hallways, with the companies actively poaching developers from each other using generous offers, secret negotiations, and even unfair methods.

The gaming industry of the time had no rigid contracts restricting employees from moving between companies. This allowed Atari and Mattel to stage real personnel raids. Several Atari engineers working on the technology for the VCS left or started their own companies. According to former employees, Mattel offered not only higher salaries, but also a certain amount of creative freedom, in contrast to Atari’s rigid corporate structure. In response, Atari took countermeasures, including threats of legal action for disclosing trade secrets.

Mattel, for its part, used informal methods to attract Atari employees. One such example was offering contracts through shell companies to avoid direct legal conflicts. As competition between Atari and Mattel grew, the first serious lawsuits began to emerge. In 1982, Mattel sued several former employees, accusing them of passing trade secrets to Atari. The case never went to trial, but it set a precedent forcing companies to be more careful about personnel changes.

Atari was no exception. In one internal memo leaked to the press, management demanded that the company “stop the talent drain” and develop employee retention measures, including bonus programs and stock options. Many of these transfers took place in strict secrecy. Atari developers were invited to “informal” meetings in cafes or restaurants, where they were offered significantly higher salaries and promised freedom to develop games.

The personnel changes resulted in many unexpected improvements to Atari and Mattel projects. For example, the Intellivoice voice synthesis technology was improved by former Atari engineers, and some of the ideas behind the VCS platform were reworked and used in later Intellivision models.

However, both giants eventually lost the main battle for the consumer. By the mid-80s, the gaming industry had already experienced a serious crisis caused by an overabundance of low-quality games and a decline in consumer confidence. Atari broke up, and Mattel closed its gaming division in 1984. Despite this, the “spy war” between Atari and Mattel left a significant mark on the history of video games. It was during this period that the principles of competition in the gaming industry were laid down and the first anal restrictions were applied to this day - from exclusive contracts to legal prohibitions on the development of similar themes in a new company. Ehh… so many years have passed, but essentially nothing has changed.

Spy War Between Atari and Mattel

Market Crash

There are several theories to explain the decline of the video game industry in the early 1980s. It may have been a temporary crisis caused by a lack of truly revolutionary platforms and games, or it may have been a glut of games: over a hundred companies were releasing game cartridges with ports of the same games, leading to oversupply and a decline in quality. Publishers were trying to make a quick buck on the popularity of video games by releasing cheap, poorly designed games that undermined the already weak consumer trust.

One of the most famous examples was Atari’s infamous “ET the Extra-Terrestrial”, developed in a rush in just a few weeks, I’ve heard of four weeks, who’s shorter? The game was so bad that millions of unsold cartridges were buried in the New Mexico desert.

Due to the oversaturated market, game prices dropped to $5, making the development of new projects unprofitable even for large developers. At the same time, home computers began to gain popularity, offering more possibilities, and developers, fearing a complete collapse of the console industry, began to move into the computer games sector. Newspapers began to publish articles asking whether video games were just a passing fad and not a new form of art.

Aunt Nina Saves Game Devs

But Japan, the birthplace of true samurai and legends of the gaming industry, in the person of Nintendo, leads developers into a brave new world with its console Famicom, later known as NES. After the video game crash of eighty-three, many companies were thrown as a market, in general, every second gaming studio closed, as well as consumer trust. However, Nintendo offered not just another console, they offered a new economic model for promoting games, and an entire ecosystem with strict quality control. Of course, this was the Nintendo ecosystem.

One of the company’s key decisions was the introduction of game licensing through the system **Nintendo Seal of Quality**that is now used by any self-respecting platform holder. This meant that all games underwent a strict “manual” selection before release, excluding low-quality projects and ports, like those that flooded the market in the early 80s. Nintendo also introduced strict restrictions on third-party developers. You could sell no more than five games a year on this platform; there were separate contracts with the big guys, but this sharply reduced the number of slag games.

Nintendo Seal of Quality

And of course, their own games, which not only demonstrated more complex graphics, many games created new genres and game mechanics. **Super Mario Bros.**as a standard platformer, large levels, secrets, history through the presentation of the plot. **The Legend of Zelda**- the concept of an open world and the ability to save, and **Punch-Out**generally opened a new genre of simulators.

… and buries the arcade industry

Cheap consoles and quality games led to a sharp decline in interest in arcade machines. Whereas arcades used to be the only place to play the latest games with cutting-edge graphics, home consoles now began to offer better quality, instant game delivery, and the ability to play in comfortable conditions. Sales of arcade machines began to decline, and by the end of the 1980s, nine out of ten arcades had closed.

In 1991, the company cemented its leadership by releasing **SNES**, offering even more powerful graphics and sound. A little later, it released **Super Mario Bros. 3**, which became the best-selling game on a cartridge. Nintendo not only saved the video game industry, burying a dozen studios and an entire arcade line along the way, but also reshaped the market for itself, setting strict conditions for developers and suppliers. Many companies that had previously freely released games on Atari and other platforms were forced to adapt to the rules of Nintendo. Competitors like Sega tried to impose a fight by releasing Sega Genesis (Mega Drive)and aggressively advertising more “adult” games. However, despite advertising slogans like “ Genesis does what Nintendon’t”, it was Ninka that set the tone for new generations of games.

In the early 1990s, antitrust authorities in the United States and Europe began investigating Nintendo. In 1991, the company was forced to lift restrictions related to exclusivity and strict price controls.

… and also buries unwanted studios

Atari Games (not to be confused with Atari, Inc., destroyed by lawsuits). Created a division Tengento release NES games without a Nintendo license. To do this, they bypassed the NES’s security and began selling unlicensed cartridges. Nintendo filed numerous lawsuits, accusing them Tengen of copyright infringement and illegal copying of the security code.

How they buried

Acclaim Entertainment (bankrupt) has produced major titles including Mortal Kombat, Turok and NBA Jam. However, Nintendo’s strict requirements (exclusivity and censorship) made collaboration difficult

How it was destroyed

Data East (could not withstand the fight with censorship, closed) created cult games such as Double Dragon, Joe & Mac, Karate Champ.

How they wiped it off the face of the earth

Sunsoft (game sales blocked, closed) was one of the first studios that wanted to release games on both the NES and Sega Genesis. But Nintendo wouldn’t let publishers work with competitors as long as they had a contract.

How they were consigned to oblivion

Hudson Soft (bankrupt and acquired) was known for its Bomberman, Adventure Island series and many Japanese games.

How it was brought to closure

Rare (creators of Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007, lost IP) did not close, but was forced to leave Nintendo, leaving the latter with IP for games to pay off debts.

How the cross was erected

THQ (WWE, SpongeBob, Darksiders, closed and lost IP) relied on Nintendo licenses to release games for Game Boy and SNES in the 90s. But Nintendo severely limited the company’s ability to expand.

How they drove into the grave

Ocean Software (Batman, Jurassic Park, RoboCop, bankrupt, lost IP) made games based on Hollywood movies and worked with Nintendo, but went bankrupt while trying to leave Nintendo.

How history was consigned to the dustbin

Factor 5 ( Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Turrican, bankrupt, lost IP) worked with Nintendo for many years, creating exclusive games for the GameCube. Then there was an offer to buy the studio and move under the wing of Nintendo, but the studio refused.

How they left me out of work

Sega

After the successful launch , NES the company brings to the market a number of interesting consoles, including , . SMS was unable to seriously compete with , but left warm memories in the hearts of fans. Although technically superior in characteristics (better graphics, a more powerful sound processor), it was unable to seriously compete with Nintendo in the long term, mainly due to a lack of games. concluded exclusive contracts with game publishers, prohibiting them from releasing their hits on other consoles. But in 1991, they were able to temporarily find their niche by launching - a game about a blue hedgehog in red sneakers, but for a long time, hedgehog could not compete with the plumber from Japan. Nevertheless, it remained famous thanks to several more memorable games: . The console enjoyed comparable success in Europe, and sold better than its competitor in Brazil and Australia, but lost in the USA and Japan. NintendoSega Sega Master SystemGenesis, Saturn и DreamcastNESNES Master SystemNintendo Sonic the HedgehogMaster SystemAlex Kidd in Miracle World, Phantasy Star и Wonder Boy

Sega relied on speed and dynamic gameplay, contrasting it with the slow and methodical superbrothers. This strategy worked: Sega’s share of the 16-bit market reached 55% at some point, and even outpaced SNES sales for a while. The success was short-lived, due to serious mistakes in the strategy of bringing consoles and games to the market. By releasing new platforms too quickly and overloading the market, it was actually competing with itself - by 1995, the company was simultaneously supporting seven incompatible gaming systems:

This policy led to fragmentation of the company’s internal market and confusion among consumers and developers. Instead of focusing on a single ecosystem, the company forced players to choose between incompatible platforms and developers to spend resources adapting games for multiple devices.

**Saturn** was announced in 1994 and was supposed to be a console killer according to **Sega**, in the US its sales began in 1995, several months earlier than many developers planned. This was one of the reasons why the console failed to gain popularity, the studios simply did not have time to not only make new ones, but simply port a sufficient number of games, at the time of the release of Saturn there was a ratio of 1 to 4 games for this console and for others. Plus powerful, but complex hardware, did not allow many to use the full potential of the console, and popular ones went to work on simpler platforms, like **PlayStation** and **Nintendo 64**.

Although **Saturn** it continued to conquer the market in Japan, things were getting worse in the US. As a result, already in 1996, rumors began that it **Sega** might stop producing the console and focus on software development, and even more studios refused not only to develop games for these platforms, but also to work with Sega in general. That was the last straw for Sega’s management , and against the backdrop of financial problems, it predetermined the company’s exit from the hardware market. With the release of the console, **Dreamcast** the company tried to restore its reputation and return, but even the use and the ability to run games from a PC could not restore the trust of players and studios. The console had several outstanding games, such as , but their sales did not cover the cost of development even by half, which finally put an end to this area of ​​the company’s activity. **Windows CESonic Adventure**, **Shenmue** и **Jet Set Radio**

Ultimately, Sega Saturn lost to Sony PlayStation, and the failure of Dreamcast in 1999 put an end to Sega’s console business. The company finally left the hardware market, focusing on releasing games, including the Sonic, Yakuza and Total War series. Well, maybe it’s for the best, SMS often gathered dust on the shelf precisely because there were no games for it. And I only learned about Sega 32X after university.

PC for everyone

In the mid-1980s, the console world was just recovering from the shock of trash games, the buzz of arcades where people spent quarters on Pong and Space Invaders had not yet begun to die down under the pressure of the Japanese. But behind the scenes, the ears of the real king of game development were already visible, although we did not yet understand it. Technologies that were previously available only to university geeks in sweaters with reindeer suddenly became available not only to the owner of a floor with servers, although what servers are there, so a couple of chips by today’s standards. But now anyone could buy a device that physically fit on a table, and play Breakout without leaving home.

Arcades? They were still clinging to life. The malls were still crowded with people at  Pac-Man, but the magic had faded: why spend quarters when you can play on your home Commodore? And not just Pac-Man, but anything that would run, which was true, there were problems with that. Console manufacturers seemed to be Atari nervously smoking on the sidelines - their 8-bit “boxes” suddenly turned out to be toys compared to PCs that could print documents, run games, and do other things you personally needed.

It was then that the world was divided into “before” and “after”. Arcades were dying, the sofa turned into a pilot’s chair in a starship in Elite, and children who played in  Space Invaders, 20 years later will create  Fallout, BG, StarCitizen или Еву.Where some died, others were just starting their journey.

Colossal Cave (also known as  Adventure- not to be confused with the Atari VCS game of the same name) was created by programmer William Krauser, and became a cult classic for a generation of college text adventure developers (second from right).

A former caver, literally transferred into code the real cave system of Kentucky - Mammoth Cave, where he once explored the tunnels. As a result, his daughters (if you believe the stories), missing their father, got the opportunity to “travel” through the digital labyrinth, and only your imagination limited the possible detail of the world: “You are in the forest. The path leads north. Branches crunch under your feet … ”

another developer, was tinkering with code in the AI ​​department. A classmate, whose name has since faded, burst into the lab one day, shouting, “You’ve got to see this!” A mysterious program, Adventure, was flickering on the screen of a Stanford medical center terminal. How had it gotten there? Krauser had created it  **BBN Technologies**outside Boston, but in an era when the Internet was a military luxury and files were transmitted on magnetic tape, that was a miracle. Had someone at BBN smuggled the code to California? Or had it been leaked via ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet?

Woods copied the game onto a PDP-10  (here’s a link to an interesting analysis of the game, I highly recommend it, it’s only half an hour’s worth of reading, but it’s very entertaining) — a monster the size of a refrigerator. Now the machine’s hard drives housed a digital cave with trolls and treasures. But the excitement didn’t last long: the original version of Krauser was just an executable file in Fortran, which Woods, like an archaeologist, tried to “dig up” through a disassembler. He spent hours entering commands like “go north”, and then manually analyzed memory dumps to understand how the game responded to “take the key” or “attack the gnome”. It was a quest within a quest. Woods turned a modest cave simulator into an epic fantasy saga. And all this — through two-word text commands. The simple two-word commands that Krauser originally created so his young daughters could understand the game were forever etched into history by ZIL (Zork Interpretive Language), the language Infocom games were created in.

Imagine Krauser, who worked on ARPANET deep within the Department of Defense, scribbling away at night to make this game so his kids could “travel” through virtual caves while he was away on business trips. Then Woods, a Stanford student, stumbles across this code, adds magic, trolls, and treasure, and the genre that gave us The Witcher and Skyrim was born. A story worthy of a Dan Brown-style adaptation, in my opinion. Without Adventure, there would be no  Skyrim caves or  The Witcher dialogue. In 2019, Krauser and Woods were inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts Hall of Fame as the founding fathers of a genre that proved that words can be more powerful than graphics.

And those same bearded guys who kicked the poor thing around during the day  PDP-10in an attempt to keep the Pentagon from going off, wrote pretty good games, or almost games, in the evenings:

MacHack-6 (1966) - Richard Greenblatt

The world’s first chess program to compete in a tournament against humans and win. Based on Alan Kotok’s design for the IBM 7090 (a room-sized machine that processed punched cards).

The Game of Life (1970) - John Horton Conway

Not a game in the classical sense, but a cellular automaton - a digital “aquarium” where pixel “organisms” are born and die according to given rules. The player only sets the initial conditions (for example, places cells) and watches them evolve into patterns like a “glider” or a “hive”.

Trek (1971) - Don Daglow

A Star Trek-style space strategy game created on a Pomona College mainframe. The player controlled a starship, fought Klingons, and saved the galaxy through a text interface. Later,  a souped-up version with pseudo-graphics Cygnus Software was released  **Star Fleet I** for the IBM PC. A green monitor, commands like “NAVIGATE TO SECTOR 5-3,” and an alarming squeak when enemy ships appeared on the radar.

Hunt the Wumpus (1972) - Gregory Jobe

The world’s first text-based RPG puzzle game, where the player wandered through a dodecahedron-shaped labyrinth to track down a monster called Wumpus. The Wumpus smelled stronger the closer it was to the player. The caves contained pitfalls and super bats that could carry you to a random point on the map. To kill the monster, you had to shoot an arrow through several rooms, otherwise Wumpus would wake up and… eat you. The game is considered the progenitor of the “survival strategy” genre - without it, there would be no Dark Souls or Resident Evil. In the 1980s, “Wumpus Hunt” was ported to  the ZX Spectrum  and  Apple II , adding primitive graphics. But the essence remained the same - text, and meme phrases like: “You smell a stench… Wumpus is near!”

The Oregon Trail - Don Ravitch

An educational game simulating a pioneer’s journey to the Wild West. You had to manage supplies, hunt, and avoid diseases. The phrase  “You have died of dysentery” became a meme long before the Internet. In 1985, it was ported to the Apple II with graphics, but the original version was text-based.

Hamurabi (1968) - Doug Dyment

A text strategy game where the player controlled an ancient city-state: distributed grain, built houses, took into account hunger and riots. The prototype of all simulators like Civilization and SimCity. In 1973, it was reworked into Kingdom, where… corruption appeared. I caught this game on my neighbor’s Spectrum, I don’t know what kind of craftsman ported it, but there was such a version too. It’s a pity that I would have been a kid and would not have understood what kind of miracle I got my hands on. Surprisingly, the browser version also dragged on for a couple of evenings, you can try playing in the browser.

These are just the ones (except chess) that I tried to play, but didn’t like. To do this, you have to really love text games and really dislike company - a game of D&Ds with friends and playful squabbles is much more interesting.

Almost everything

Here I end this story - then begins the era of PC games and big consoles with their cults, deities and legends, which are known to most of us. There were also their Atari/Mattel, division of territories and big setups, but that’s a completely different story.

These games are digital frescoes of the last century, scratched with punch cards on the fossils of rack-mounted iron in mainframe caves. They are a reminder that even with the power of today’s calculators, it was possible to create universes. Before graphics, games relied on text and imagination, which gave birth to all the genres we know today: RPGs, adventure games, strategies, and simulators. Many developers who started with mainframes later went into the big game industry (Atari, Infocom and Sierra On-Line, Nintendo, Sony), and started with text adventures on university computers.