Though the technology had been around since the 1950s, the ‘Me’ Decade of the 1970s finally saw video game consoles introduced to American households, and Generation X – those born between 1965 and 1980 – had found an addictive new pastime, much to their parents’ chagrin.
The precursors to video games were created in the 1950s by British inventors – the very first game, called OXO, was simply a game of tic-tac-toe, played on an analog computer and oscilloscope screen. Professor A.S. Douglas created the game for his doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge.
In the early 1960s, the evolution of video games moved to space as the Cold War’s space race between the U.S. and Russia heated up. Again, an academic made the next great contribution to the relatively new invention – a professor at MIT developed Spacewar, a space-combat game developed for the PDP (Programmed-Data-Processor), a computer used mostly at colleges.
It would be nearly several years later that the smaller, multi-player game consoles that we recognize today hit stores. Technology developer Ralph Baer of Sanders Associates licensed his own version, referred to simply as “the Brown Box” and later as “The Odyssey,” to Magnavox in 1967. Baer is often referred to as “the Father of Video Games,” according to History.com.
The first electronic game company name you’re likely to recognize – Atari – took its inspiration for its classic game Pong (which hit store shelves in 1975) from one of Magnavox’s original 28 games. The electronics giant took Atari to court for copyright infringement. Atari eventually settled out of court, while Magnavox would go on to file many more similar lawsuits over the course of the next two decades.
None of this mattered to video game enthusiasts of the 1970s, however, as Pong became a pop culture icon and the Atari brand enjoyed a great deal of growth throughout the mid- and late 1970s. For older members of Generation X, the Atari consoles would mark their first foray into the escapist world of video games.
“I was born at the perfect time to grow up as games grew up,” writes blogger Carolyn Petit of Game Spot, “and (Atari) is where my love of gaming began.”
At the same time, the industry in general marked many milestones in the invention and release of games and products recognizable even to younger players today. Those include the release of Space Invaders, Donkey Kong (released by Nintendo), and the U.S. release of the popular Japanese game Pac-Man.
The oversaturation of video games led to a major North American market crash in the early; 1980s, leading to several video game companies filing for bankruptcy. The crash lasted only until 1985, when Japan’s Nintendo Entertain-ment System (NES) came to the U.S., offering improved sound, colors and graphics.
The original NES console was an immediate hit and remains so, Petit writes.
“Even those who aren’t old enough to remember these games from their heyday understand what Nintendo is, since it’s a force that has continued to loom large in gaming in the decades since,” she writes.
