Post by dragondash on Oct 28, 2005 20:07:26 GMT -5
I made this essay about video games, here's how it goes.
What do you guys think?
Video Games: The fun way of life
Introduction to Video Games
I choose this topic because I’ve always had fun playing video games since Kindergarten to present day. I also choose this topic also because I have quite an understanding for what the Video Game Industry is, how its runned, the politics surrounding the companies and corporations, the economy of the industry. I have also a large extensive knowledge about the history of video games and how they are developed. So basically, this was the first thing in my mind when I thought of the essay.
The somewhat primitive start of Video Games
The first primitive computer and video games were developed in the 1950s and 1960s and ran on platforms such as oscilloscopes, university mainframes and EDSAC computers in the United States and were developed by individuals who programmed them in their spare time. However, the limited accessibility of early computer hardware meant that these games were few and easily ignored.
In 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created a coin-operated arcade version of Spacewar and called it Computer Space. Their associates liked the game, hired Bushnell, and manufactured 1,500 Computer Space machines. The game was not a success because many people found it difficult to play. After the completion of Spacewar, Bushnell and Dabney later created the first successful game Pong, which began the gaming phenomenon that was going to become in generations to come.
Even early on in the history of video games, controversy was developing over the use of gratuitous violence in games, but the controversy was very low-profile at this time, it would not gather nationwide attention until the late 1990s. The early 1980s brought about the improvement of home consoles with the release of the very famous Atari 2600 as well as the ColecoVision, and the Intellivision.
The biggest Crash of them all
In 1983, the nightmare for the video game industry began. There were so many failing, low quality games on the market, that practically no one bought anything that was even video game related. Thus the notorious Video game Crash of 1983 occurred. With a jaw dropping 11.4 billion-dollar loss in sales, that would make Bill Gates squirm. In 1984, the computer gaming market took over from the console market following the crash of that year; computers offered equal gaming ability and since their simple design allowed games to take complete command of the hardware after power-on, they were nearly as simple to start playing with as consoles.
The Revival
In the following year, the North American video game market was revived with Nintendo's release of its "8-bit" console in the United States under the name Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was bundled with "Super Mario Bros." and suddenly became a frenzy success. The NES dominated the North American market until the rise of the next generation of consoles in the early 1990s.
But if the 1980s were about the rise of the industry, the 1990s were about its maturing into a Hollywood-esque landscape of ever-increasing budgets and increasingly consolidated publishers, and the wide variety of games that existed in the 1980s were fading away, with the larger corporations desiring to maximize profitability and lower risk.
The frenzy begins
The North American market was dominated by the Sega Genesis early on after its debut in 1989, with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) proving a strong, roughly equal rival in 1991 due to a wide library of hit games and effective marketing from Sega. But by the end of the 16-bit console wars, the SNES became victor with top worldwide sales.
The 32-bit/64-bit era saw the rise of 3D games, which largely replaced the traditional 2D games. The best example is Super Mario 64; it was the first game released for the Nintendo 64. It helped proved that analog controllers were almost a necessity for 3D games. It was also the first major game to feature expansive 3D computer environments.
This led the market until the early '00s, when the, the X-Box, the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and the Nintendo Gamecube were released. The X-Box, developed and produced by the software developer Microsoft, went head to head against Sony’s PS2. The Nintendo Gamecube failed to beat these two, because it lacked their power but it still had a dedicated fan base and had allowed better, faster development cycles then the two consoles.
The Next Generation ~ What lies ahead?
A third generation being released in 2006 will see the powerful upgrades of the companies’ previous consoles, boasting more powerful graphics. Such as Nintendo, instead going on a different path, instead of simply upgrading the engine and graphics, it had changed the style of gameplay completely and gone for infrared remote technology to differentiate gameplay completely. So what lies ahead? There are people waiting to find-out what will happen next. There will be inventions that let touch an environment with a tap of a finger, there are much more exciting things coming in store for us all, leaving everyone exciting. I know I am.
What impact it had on History/Pop Culture
While video games were becoming the mainstream of entertainment and soon becoming the second largest the entertainment industry in the world, video games became one of the main things representing pop culture. The famous Super Mario Bros. theme is so popular that it is now recognized as a 1980s pop culture song despite sounding so primitive compared to other works. In fact, one cute little known fact is that now Super Mario is more recognized by children then even Mickey Mouse.
Then comes the controversy of censorship in video games, In the United States, the Entertainment Software Rating Board" ratings system was established in 1994 as the video game equivalent to the MPAA film rating system. The ESRB was created as an industry response to criticism from politicians, notably Senator Joe Lieberman, over the easy availability of violent video games such as Mortal Kombat to children, and over the resulting alleged corruption of public morality. At the time, some politicians who lent their voice to this cause threatened legislation relating to video game violence. Any and all video games are now rated with ESRB ratings, which are primarily intended to inform parents about the content of the games that their children have purchased (or want to purchase). Some important retail chains, such as Wal-Mart, have a policy to check the identification of young purchasers of games rated "Mature" to ensure that the purchaser is at least 17 years old, as recommended by the "Mature" rating. Senator Lieberman stated in 2002 that in his opinion, the video game industry's rating system had become the best rating system of any medium, including the film industry. However, many video game players have criticized him, citing his work as too broad and unaware of the industry as a whole.
The popularity of computer and video games, as a whole, has been increasing steadily ever since the Video game crash, and the popularity appears to be continuing to increase. The average age of the video game player is now 29, eliminating the idea that video games are largely a diversion for teenagers. Although this statistic indicates an older and mature audience of a significant size, video games are a very large part of many teens' lives. Majority of teenagers spends as much as three hours a day playing video games.
Unawared facts
I was actually unaware that just getting a game idea or design approved can be a long process, I always thought that you’d just come up with something and you stick with to the end but apparently that’s not that case. If the initial design is rejected, the designer needs to try to figure out why it was rejected and make changes to appease stakeholders. The process of submitting a design, getting rejected, tweaking and resubmitting can take weeks, months or even years. Often, a game design never gets approved and the designer has to attempt a different idea altogether. But when a design finally gets the "green light", it actually isn't over.
And what I didn’t expect the most is “Crunch Time“, or another term for extended periods of consecutive overtime. The extra hours worked during crunch time are often unpaid, although some companies give the time back in the form of extra holiday time. In the short term, crunching can increase the productivity of a team. As crunch time continues, productivity drops. Quality also suffers drastically as tired developers make more mistakes. Extended periods of crunch time also raise health issues such as: stress, fatigue, exhaustion and poor nutrition. Wow. This means that their actually tortured for there work when something not up to company standards.
Introduction to Video Games
I choose this topic because I’ve always had fun playing video games since Kindergarten to present day. I also choose this topic also because I have quite an understanding for what the Video Game Industry is, how its runned, the politics surrounding the companies and corporations, the economy of the industry. I have also a large extensive knowledge about the history of video games and how they are developed. So basically, this was the first thing in my mind when I thought of the essay.
The somewhat primitive start of Video Games
The first primitive computer and video games were developed in the 1950s and 1960s and ran on platforms such as oscilloscopes, university mainframes and EDSAC computers in the United States and were developed by individuals who programmed them in their spare time. However, the limited accessibility of early computer hardware meant that these games were few and easily ignored.
In 1971, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney created a coin-operated arcade version of Spacewar and called it Computer Space. Their associates liked the game, hired Bushnell, and manufactured 1,500 Computer Space machines. The game was not a success because many people found it difficult to play. After the completion of Spacewar, Bushnell and Dabney later created the first successful game Pong, which began the gaming phenomenon that was going to become in generations to come.
Even early on in the history of video games, controversy was developing over the use of gratuitous violence in games, but the controversy was very low-profile at this time, it would not gather nationwide attention until the late 1990s. The early 1980s brought about the improvement of home consoles with the release of the very famous Atari 2600 as well as the ColecoVision, and the Intellivision.
The biggest Crash of them all
In 1983, the nightmare for the video game industry began. There were so many failing, low quality games on the market, that practically no one bought anything that was even video game related. Thus the notorious Video game Crash of 1983 occurred. With a jaw dropping 11.4 billion-dollar loss in sales, that would make Bill Gates squirm. In 1984, the computer gaming market took over from the console market following the crash of that year; computers offered equal gaming ability and since their simple design allowed games to take complete command of the hardware after power-on, they were nearly as simple to start playing with as consoles.
The Revival
In the following year, the North American video game market was revived with Nintendo's release of its "8-bit" console in the United States under the name Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was bundled with "Super Mario Bros." and suddenly became a frenzy success. The NES dominated the North American market until the rise of the next generation of consoles in the early 1990s.
But if the 1980s were about the rise of the industry, the 1990s were about its maturing into a Hollywood-esque landscape of ever-increasing budgets and increasingly consolidated publishers, and the wide variety of games that existed in the 1980s were fading away, with the larger corporations desiring to maximize profitability and lower risk.
The frenzy begins
The North American market was dominated by the Sega Genesis early on after its debut in 1989, with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) proving a strong, roughly equal rival in 1991 due to a wide library of hit games and effective marketing from Sega. But by the end of the 16-bit console wars, the SNES became victor with top worldwide sales.
The 32-bit/64-bit era saw the rise of 3D games, which largely replaced the traditional 2D games. The best example is Super Mario 64; it was the first game released for the Nintendo 64. It helped proved that analog controllers were almost a necessity for 3D games. It was also the first major game to feature expansive 3D computer environments.
This led the market until the early '00s, when the, the X-Box, the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and the Nintendo Gamecube were released. The X-Box, developed and produced by the software developer Microsoft, went head to head against Sony’s PS2. The Nintendo Gamecube failed to beat these two, because it lacked their power but it still had a dedicated fan base and had allowed better, faster development cycles then the two consoles.
The Next Generation ~ What lies ahead?
A third generation being released in 2006 will see the powerful upgrades of the companies’ previous consoles, boasting more powerful graphics. Such as Nintendo, instead going on a different path, instead of simply upgrading the engine and graphics, it had changed the style of gameplay completely and gone for infrared remote technology to differentiate gameplay completely. So what lies ahead? There are people waiting to find-out what will happen next. There will be inventions that let touch an environment with a tap of a finger, there are much more exciting things coming in store for us all, leaving everyone exciting. I know I am.
What impact it had on History/Pop Culture
While video games were becoming the mainstream of entertainment and soon becoming the second largest the entertainment industry in the world, video games became one of the main things representing pop culture. The famous Super Mario Bros. theme is so popular that it is now recognized as a 1980s pop culture song despite sounding so primitive compared to other works. In fact, one cute little known fact is that now Super Mario is more recognized by children then even Mickey Mouse.
Then comes the controversy of censorship in video games, In the United States, the Entertainment Software Rating Board" ratings system was established in 1994 as the video game equivalent to the MPAA film rating system. The ESRB was created as an industry response to criticism from politicians, notably Senator Joe Lieberman, over the easy availability of violent video games such as Mortal Kombat to children, and over the resulting alleged corruption of public morality. At the time, some politicians who lent their voice to this cause threatened legislation relating to video game violence. Any and all video games are now rated with ESRB ratings, which are primarily intended to inform parents about the content of the games that their children have purchased (or want to purchase). Some important retail chains, such as Wal-Mart, have a policy to check the identification of young purchasers of games rated "Mature" to ensure that the purchaser is at least 17 years old, as recommended by the "Mature" rating. Senator Lieberman stated in 2002 that in his opinion, the video game industry's rating system had become the best rating system of any medium, including the film industry. However, many video game players have criticized him, citing his work as too broad and unaware of the industry as a whole.
The popularity of computer and video games, as a whole, has been increasing steadily ever since the Video game crash, and the popularity appears to be continuing to increase. The average age of the video game player is now 29, eliminating the idea that video games are largely a diversion for teenagers. Although this statistic indicates an older and mature audience of a significant size, video games are a very large part of many teens' lives. Majority of teenagers spends as much as three hours a day playing video games.
Unawared facts
I was actually unaware that just getting a game idea or design approved can be a long process, I always thought that you’d just come up with something and you stick with to the end but apparently that’s not that case. If the initial design is rejected, the designer needs to try to figure out why it was rejected and make changes to appease stakeholders. The process of submitting a design, getting rejected, tweaking and resubmitting can take weeks, months or even years. Often, a game design never gets approved and the designer has to attempt a different idea altogether. But when a design finally gets the "green light", it actually isn't over.
And what I didn’t expect the most is “Crunch Time“, or another term for extended periods of consecutive overtime. The extra hours worked during crunch time are often unpaid, although some companies give the time back in the form of extra holiday time. In the short term, crunching can increase the productivity of a team. As crunch time continues, productivity drops. Quality also suffers drastically as tired developers make more mistakes. Extended periods of crunch time also raise health issues such as: stress, fatigue, exhaustion and poor nutrition. Wow. This means that their actually tortured for there work when something not up to company standards.