Blogpost #1 Video Games: The Beginning and The Growth

                 Here is the deal, I have been a gamer and also huge nerd when it comes to video games. I usually play FPS games on either my gaming pc, xbox 360 or ps3. I am also a huge fan of the Elder Scroll Series. Just recently, new consoles are set to arrive the gaming world and a new gaming era or generation is coming once again. With all this new innovations to the world of gaming, sometimes I wonder when or how it all began. I want to know how gaming was before all this awesome new changes in the gaming world. With all my curiosity building up, I decided to research the beginning of video games and how it rolled over into modern time.

                         

                I read an article or a timeline written by Ms. Amanda Kudler entitled: Timeline: Video Games. I found it on Infoplease.com.

                So I read the timeline and I am only gonna put up the most iconic events in video game history according to my own judgement because I don't want to put up everything in this blog post.

                So lets begin, the first video game was a tennis-like game and was played on an oscilloscope in  1958. After that, things just rolled and rolled to innovation. The first home video game system was then created by Atari in 1972 and then released it to the public later that year. The first game they made was Pong. In the year 1981, Arnie Katz and Bill Kunkel created " Electronic Games ", the first video game magazine. After four years, one of the most iconic games was created by a Russian programmer named Alex Pajitnov. The name of the game was Tetris. Years following that, some new consoles were introduced in the US market like the Nintendo NES, the Sega Master System and the Atari 7800. And then we get to the point where a person actually reacted to the violence in video games. In 1993, Senator Lieberman and Kohl launched a senate investigation on video game violence hoping to ban violent games.

The results of the investigations were released in 1994 and thus the Entertainment Software Rating Board was created. On the same year, the Sony PlayStation made their debut. After a year, Nintendo 64 was released. In the year of 1996, another iconic game was released in japan. The game was ''tamagotchi''. The year 2000, the PlayStation 2 was released and one of the most famous games was also released. The game was ''The Sims''. In 2001, Xbox was released and the GameBoy Advance was released by Nintendo. In 2004, the Nintendo DS was released which was a portable and touch screen console. In 2005, The PSP was released and the Xbox 360 was finally unveiled to the public. In 2006, The Wii And PlayStation 3 arrived to the market. And in 2008, GTA IV breaks sales records after selling 6 million copies for its first week.

I will not include here the events after the last date I included because our current video game generation is moving on to a new one but it is not actually over so let us put the present and the future in a corner for a while.

     With all the events I have read and included in this blog post, I felt very happy because I was able to know how it was before. It was exciting to know that even if technology was not that advanced in the past, video games still found a way to be a source of electronic entertainment. Video games did evolve with technology and that is what I observed on what I read.

       In the timeline, there were many things I read that I really want to talk about. The first one was about the tetris game which I was really surprised it was a Russian who made the game. Then again, Russians are awesome based on my perspective and I can really see how the game tetris lasted for so many generations up to now. The next one was the investigations of 1994. So about the investigation, based on my stock knowledge I think that a few examples of the games were Mortal Kombat and Doom. Even though I liked those games when I tried it out, you got to admit that those games were actually violent. I could relate why ESRB was formed because we really needed it in the gaming world. The next one is the invasion of the new consoles. When Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii arrived, I became really happy because for me, they were marks of a new gaming generation. The reason why I think they were marks because there successors like the upcoming Xbox One and PS4 are also marks for the new gaming generation. Last one is the GTA IV topic. I really can't blame people why they really enjoyed GTA IV because even I got addicted playing that game. GTA IV deserved its achievement and I am happy to have bought that game.

       I wish I could have found an actual article on the history of video games but I couldn't so I can't actually post a quote that I might deeply explain and relate to. Instead, Im gonna post a quote that I will explain and the quotes is also about video games.

 What are Video Games?

 What are video games?  Well, video games are what you want them to be.  What other medium allows you to escape into your own reality by playing an immersive game as a single player, or promote teamwork in cooperative play, and yet allow for the merciless pounding of someone into submission in competitive play?

            So the quote I showed above is from "School Newspaper Article#2; What are Video Games ?". It was written by Michael Nunez and it is form IGN.com

               As a gamer, we all know that whether we are from the past generation or present, video games will always have that meaning presented in the quote. We have been introduced in to so many perspectives in video games that we did not actually expect. We entered the life of a soldier, a knight , as the Dragonborn , as an assassin and many more. We found friends through multiplayer and learned to build our abilities as a team. Most importantly, the sense of achievement we get when we dominate our enemies in PVP matches. Video games will always be like that to us and it will stay like that as long as we, gamers, choose it to be like that. If you're curious of my other definition of gaming, here it is. "Video Games are a safe haven where Matzki100 , my usual username in almost all of my games, can live a life however he wants it to be and be free of realities problems".

             Now that I shared a quote and my reaction to it, Lets get back to the final part of this blog which is about the timeline or history of video games I presented. I sure do feel nostalgia when I was reading the timelines because I was able to play some of the old video game consoles in the past. Gamers should actually read more about history of video games because you can appreciate the gaming world more. You will realize that video games try its best in order for us to enjoy them more. Who knows? Maybe when you read it just like me, you'll feel a little bit of nostalgia and a tickle in your gamer spirit. With that in mind, I would also like people to remember what the quote stated, Video games are what you want them to be. The past, present and future video games will always be the same for every gamer.