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Basic History on Video Games

Video games date back all the way to the 1950s. "Tennis for Two," is one of the earliest games created, dating back to 1958. The games was created by physicist William Higinbotham to entertain visitors at a Brookhaven National Laboratory open house. This simple game displayed a rudimentary representation of tennis on an oscilloscope. The real breakthrough came in 1972 with the release of "Pong," an arcade game created by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell. "Pong" popularized gaming and laid a massive groundwork for the gaming industry. The late 1970s and early 1980s saw the introduction of home consoles, such as the Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), and SEGA Genesis, which brought gaming into homes. This era was marked by a rapid expansion of the industry, but it was also a time of turmoil, culminating in the video game crash of 1983, primarily due to market saturation and poor-quality titles.

The revival of the video game industry came in the mid-1980s with the rise of Nintendo and the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in 1983 in Japan and 1986 in America. Nintendo revitalized the industry by making bigger and higher quality games, most notably "Super Mario Bros.," which became a cultural icon. The 1990s introduced a new waves of technology to play games with 3D graphics and with more sophisticated gameplay, highlighted by systems like the Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64. This period saw a change with iconic franchises such as "Final Fantasy 7," "The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time," and "Super Mario 64." when the early 2000s came, online gaming grew massively, allowing players to connect globally through games like, "World of Warcraft," "Counter Strike," and "Runescape," and on various console platforms. Today, video games are a dominant form of entertainment, encompassing diverse genres, advanced graphics, and expansive narratives. The industry's growth has fostered a global community of players and developers, positioning video games as a significant cultural and economic force in contemporary society.