Key ideas

• modernity defined by contradictions, tensions, conflicts, not linear.
• Cold war as an ideological conflict
• Consumer society
• Nuclear threat
• Video games as a product of the cold war and consumer culture
  • How the rise of games in the past-war connected to these wider historical developments?

At this point in the lecture we were asked to describe the elements of modern ideals that are represented in the following advertisements

1. branding, nuclear family, new appliances, abundance, choice of different brands, white people
2. Full fridges, middle class women to upper class women, luxury, branding, this brand=full fridges and ovens, sophistication
3. Menu which means choice and options, clean, luxury in transport, Implied narrative of the viewer being the man.

How Hamilton’s collage both celebrates and satirises the consumer society.

• No relation and a lot of distance between figures
• Cut outs of objects make it uncanny, as everything fits a different context and their own separate style, illustrated, images, different angles
• Celebrates by showing off and displaying all the best things of the era.
• Satirised by using stereotypical things that wouldn’t commonly be in a house
  • Claustrophobic, escapism, immersive, self- absorbed

The IBM computer

• Technological firsts, brand new magnetic storage, first GUI (mouse pen), first computer network,  ARPANET used for text MMOs, IBM designers were making games in free time, Big developments in cybernetics (communication between people and machines) screens, input, output.

page 61-

• Spacewar! was developed ’61/’62 in MIT, inspired many programmers
• Video games which is relatively new in history, the history of games spans much further back, to ancient Egypt 2686–2613 bc where they played Senet, a game of skill and chance.

page 62-

• Even though ancient Egypt is so foreign we have something in common with this recreational activity.
• Despite todays technology we still play board games which people in Ancient Egypt would learn very easily.
• Other games were also popular around the world during this era such as, the royal game of Ur and the oriental game of Go, these games included dice and had elements of chance, but were used to entertain.
• Olympics also started around this era, which was the idea of turning the most non recreational activities and sports into a game.
• A different version of chess to nowadays was also popular and different derivations were found over many different regions, all with the same idea of having different pieces have different move sets with one all important piece thats crucial to winning, such as the king.
• late 15th century saw the standardisation of chess and the suits in card games.
• In 1824 a strategy game was taking inspiration on real life was developed, this led to 1843, the creation of The mansion of happiness, the first commercially produced board game in the united states.
  • all of these games mentioned are important moments in game history, even the smallest of details such as standardisation of card suits is important to this day as cards are used in countless ways and modern games.

page 63-

• Even though The mansion of happiness was the first commercially produced board game, it lives in the shadow of Monopoly, released in the 1930s and has sold more than 200 million copies worldwide.
• By mid 20th century commercially produced games were established parts of everyones lives and many different cultures.
• Even though pen and paper role playing games got popular in the 1970s, after the creation of video games, they were very influential (the original rpg’s) and after lord of the rings was released, the fantasy genre grew immensely. This lead to fantasy war games which directly inspired the big boy of role playing games, D&D.

page 64-

• The adventures that D&D brought to the gaming community required virtually nothing, the rule book and  sheets in which to document specifications of characters, as well as dice. However these rules were simplified in other role playing games, while maintaining the fantasy, an example of this is Rune quest.
• after D&D role playing games grew like weeds, but weren’t appreciated by parents or media as they were seen as violent.

page 65-

• going based off of sales, computer role playing games have done significantly better than tabletop. Even thought their popularity has gone down, its clear what type of influence they have had on many recent genres of games.
• MUD: multiuser dungeon, a system for virtual roleplaying, usually seen as a chat room focused on role playing.
• Video games have eliminated the need for a dungeon master.
• tabletop games have inspired text adventures and MUDS.

page 66-

• Text adventures developed slowly into MMORPGs.
• The history of games doesn’t really fall into category that easily, so it is documented by decade.
• regardless of the project, history does matter as history does tend to repeat itself and context is important.
• Sometimes history is very obvious, MMORPGs like WoW have a direct history to MUD. including copying the communication interface from this.

page 67-

• It isn’t that clear as to what was the first video game, a question I would look into is what criteria do we use to judge this.
• in 1949 Cambridge, UK, scientists managed to start operating a very early computer (EDSAC) not 3 years later a PHD student managed to run a  single player version of tic tac toe.
• In Brookhaven national laboratory, visitors were very under impressed by the massive mainframes on display. In an effort to impress the public, a game “tennis for two” was made, although electronic, it ran on analogue equipment.

page 68-

• 1961 MIT, three men developed Spacewar! on a user friendly computer of the time to also interest visitors of the lab, as they were un impressed by tic tac toe.
• Although Spacewar! is the first video game, it certainly was not the first step in the process.
• Spacewar! provided inspiration for many game developers, over the next few years it became a commercial success and was given a few updates with new features.
• the only other milestone for video games in the 60s was a television engineer that began the base work for the first at home game console with the idea of playing of television sets.
• Although many simplistic action games were developed, it was not till Magnavox picked up the technology in a deal and included this technology in their tv sets.

page 69-

• the 1970s saw video games grow extensively marking the beginning of the industry.
• Arcade games: games played on dedicated coin operated machines.
• Atari was most important video game producer, a direct copy of Spacewar! that was unsuccessful directly paved the way for pong, which was very successful which also heavily impacted and created a new market within corporate America.
• The Magnavox deal from earlier developed into the Odyssey console.