They thrive, and in times of isolation even more so: games for computers, cell phones or consoles are popular with hundreds of millions of people around the world. In addition, game broadcasts rack up tens or hundreds of millions of hours of viewing per month. Games are played by young children, teenagers and even adults. Although at first glance playing seems like a pointless activity, there is entertainment, recreation, creativity, and, to some extent, a learning process behind it. Babies begin to feel, children build towers, move into different roles, and later learn to follow the rules. By the way, by playing together, they learn how life together works.
Play has always been an important part of human development, but the way we play is increasingly changing. Even toddlers are playing with flashing and talking bears, and older children are driving electric cars.
The beginning of the era of computer games
Scientists in the U.S. were already working on the first computer simulations in the 1940s. In 1952, Alexander Douglas (Alexander Shafto “Sandy” Douglas) developed a simple game of tic-tac-toe (Noughts And Crosses) called OXO in Cambridge as part of his doctoral dissertation on the interaction of man and a computer.
The first known two-player computer game called Spacewar! (Spacewar!) was created in 1962 by an American student, Steve Russell.
In the 1970s, games became available to a wider audience. Magnavox, under the direction of engineer Ralph Henry Baer, developed the world’s first game console, the Magnavox Odyssey. Total sales of this game console amounted to 330 thousand copies worldwide.
Since the mid-1970s there have been many classic arcade games, such as Space Invaders, which were later developed for consoles as well. Online games, especially text-based adventures and online versions of well-known board games such as chess or checkers, experienced a boom. Since 1984, online games continued to proliferate with the advent of new computers and the move to the Internet. At the same time, the era of Japanese video game makers Nintendo and Sega – including Donkey Kong – began.