The Evolution of Retro Games

Article on Evolution of Retro Video Games​

The evolution of video games is one of the biggest revolutions in terms of entertainment over the last 2-3 decades and its popularity is still rising. Video games are considered as the best way to connect with your family and friends or having fun with the loved ones. The boost of video games started at the early 1990’s after the advancement of technology and industry. Earlier, the most renowned form of video games was computer games which were essentially controlled by computer wherein the major focus was a video-display. But nowadays, the situation has completely changed. Video games have now become an addiction. A majority of kids and even adults spend their time on these games. Many people do it for entertainment purposes and some use them for relaxation of their minds. Today’s much different type of games is available in the market and every game is different from one another. There are many different types of video games like Arcade games, Racing games, Action games, Battle games, Adventure games, Strategy games, Puzzle games etc. Earlier games were quite simple and graphics of games were not so good but still these were popular in that period. Some previous famous games include Sonic, Street Fighter 2, Star Fox, Mega Man X, Super Mario, Super Metroid etc. The Street Fighter 2 game released in 1991 by Yoshiki Okamoto’s and their team which is considered as the revolutionary period of gaming industry. After that, Sega attract the attention in 1993 by the release of Virtua Fighter. The popularity of these games shocked the industry.
With the advancement of technology, the gaming industry has now very much improved. Some of these things that completely changed this industry which are,
Introduction of High Quality Systems:
The improvement in technology completely changes the gaming consoles. Earlier, the first gaming console (prototype) was invented by Ralph H. Baer (considered as the Father of Video Games) in 1922 and the game was introduced in 1967 that consists of simple wooden box with brown color and therefore called them “Brown Box”. The Box connected with any TV-Set and it consists of 6 simple games include, 4 sport games, Ping-Pong, and Light-Gun game. During 1972 the Brown Box licensed to Magnavox and it released first home video games console called Magnavox Odyssey. This console contained no sound but fair graphics. The poor marketing strategy leads to discontinuity of Magnavox consoles. After this large breakdown, Sega and Taito introduced the concept of Arcade gaming in the market during the period of 1966-1967. They released different type of games like Periscope and Soccer game. The gaming industry again boosted up in 1972 by Atari (whose founder is Nolan Bushnell) considered as video gaming godfather. Atari created a whole industry and perfectly market their product. During 1973 their merchandising was at $1095 and they sell their first arcade game Pong all around the world. After this biggest invention, during the period of 1972-83, 15 companies started developing their video games for the expansion of gaming industry. In 1977, Atari introduced Atari VCS (Called Atari 2600) but its sell was little bit slowly around 0.2 million in 1st year and it became doubled in next year. Multiple new consoles were released in the market by different gaming companies but they achieved little success. After the invention of Color TV, Nintendo made an entry in the evolution of gaming. They released their first gaming console in between 1977 to 1979. Their consoles were designed on the basics of Atari video gaming and got a lot of popularity. The 1980’s period was one of the golden periods in gaming industry. Many famous games were introduced such as Pac-man (1980), Mario (1983), Final Fantasy (1987), etc. Gradually technology advances and new features were introduced like multiple players option after mobile phones were invented. After that from 90’s to onwards PlayStations, Xbox, Virtual Reality and Wii games were released that further rise up gaming industry. Now a lot of games are available in the market that completely changes the concept of earlier ways of video gaming.
Improvement in Game Graphics:
For the early 1950’s, the graphics of video games has changed enormously from simple white and black 8-bit pixels to 3 dimensional graphics with the inventions of high quality processing units. When the formation of video games was started, there were no visuals features involved in it. The games were very easy and straightforward. In 1972, Atari introduced ‘Pong game’ which is basically a 2-dimentional table tennis game is one of the biggest achievement in video gaming industry. Because of its high interest rate different advanced systems were invented that contained more bits and have colors. Within one year first colored video game was released named Color Gotcha in 1973. The game’s tag was quite similar in which one player is chaser and the other one is being chased. The interface of game was very simple and easy. Initially, the game was launched in black and white color and, it switches into color after the invention of color TV. The game consists of some moving and solid walls that create discrimination in between 2-players. In the period of 80’s, the game developers increase the difficulty level and introduce the levels of games to engage the public for higher scores. Some popular games like Mario Bros, Duck Hunter and others, they started out with simple interface but after time passes the games became speed up and more difficult. During the period of 1985, Sega released Hang-On game that blew gaming world away. They used 3-dimensional view with improved frame rate that based on pixel art. This was the first 16-bit game. After that animations concept came out which is based on Rotoscoping. In 1990’s, SuperFX co-processor with cards were invented that allowed Polygonal 3-dimensional graphics were released. After few years, Call of Duty WWII that used browning concept which is basically an art style that uses dark colors to make it more realistic and portrayed. In this era of gaming, people starting spending their time in gaming, trying to keep them busy and entertaining. From 2000’s to onwards, a lot of advanced video gaming graphic cards were invented like Nvidia, Amd etc. that further increases the complexity and smoothness in high quality games.
Display Resolution Quality:
The display resolution quality has changed much after the invention of TV. It also increases the standard of video gaming. Earlier, the games were designed on 2-dimensional basis like Atari games, but Sega completely changes this concept and introduced games in polygon 3D. The higher display resolution increases the credibility of gaming industry. 3D games are based on perfect graphics. Because of these high definition display resolutions, gaming world get more and more popularity and now it is considered as one of the renowned business in the world.
Processors:
The advancement in processor quality boosted a lot since 30 years. The earlier games were based on TV, but after the invention of PC’s, television games switched towards computers. In 1971’s, first microprocessor were invented be Intel named 4004 with the help of Ted Hoff that contained 2300 transistors, 640 bytes of addressed memory and its cost was around $200. Within 5-months, Intel released another improved processor named 8008. Gradually as the video gaming industry rises, new advanced gaming processors were invented for the improvement of video gaming network. Some microprocessors with their designed years are, Intel 8080 (1974), 8085 and 8086 (1976), Motorola 68000 by Apple Macintosh and Amiga computers (1979), SPARC by Sun (1987), AM386 by AMD (1991), Cx5x86 by Cyrix (1995), Pentium 1,2,3,M (1996,1997,1999 and 2003) etc. Today, we are using Intel’s Core i5,i7,i9 processors are using with different generations that help us in playing high quality games like COD, Pubg, Fortnite, Wild Hunt etc.
Game Controllers:
The game controllers have changed so much after the invention of Magnavox Odyssey 100 which is the first digital video game console. It consists of one dial that control left-right movement and other one for up-down movement, later they added Shooting Gallery in it to make it better. After that Atari introduced its home video game console in which players can slide their pong and paddle in up and down motion with the rotation of single dial. Earlier consoles were wired based but now majority of consoles are working on wireless network. Today in 2000’s, we have dual sense PlayStation 5 that contain multiple features like option of joystick and 360 degree motion.
Concept of Online Gaming:
Earlier, there was no concept of online gaming but after the evolution in IT industry and especially as the internet came out, the public moved towards online gaming. Online gaming is a type of video gaming that we can play directly through internet without downloading them. Today many games are available and we can access them easily. These games are pervasive on different modern video gaming platforms such as, Mobile Phones, PC’s etc. In 2019, the world gets revenue of $16.9 billion in online gaming which is one of the biggest achievements of gaming industry.