Unit One: A (Very Brief) History of Video Games
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Introduction
Although I’m sure at this point we are all aware of the video game craze, I still feel it is a necessary diversion from the crux of this module to explore the origins of the video game to provide a cultural and social backdrop for the medium.
Before we dive into this mini-lecture, I recommend watching the following video. It provides a concise overview of the history of video games as a whole while the following lecture will focus on the home computer side of gaming. Be sure to pay attention to the titles used in the video as your first assignment will involve taking three of those games listed, researching them, and writing a short paper on how educational you feel they could be in a classroom.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoyGlyrYb9c
The Early Days
What is generally considered to be the first modern video game is Spacewar!, a 1961 creation by Harvard and MIT employees Martin Graetz, Steven Russel, and Wayne Wiitanen (Smith, 2014). It was a very simple multiplayer video game that had two players engage in a simulated dogfight between two spaceships set against a generated starfield. The creators also created what is widely considered to be the first detachable gamepad for use by the second player due to the constraints of two players viewing the same screen. This game became the progenitor of other projects, especially as operating systems became more advanced and word of mouth began to spread among the various institutions involved in computer research, resulting in the creation of the game Computer Space, designed by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, considered the first commercially successful video game (Donovan, 2010, pp. 14-26)
The Split
From this point forward, we see a schism in the development of video games. Before Computer Space, games were written exclusively as academic exercises by specific groups of individuals in academia for specific equipment. With Computer Space, developers begin to split between computer-based gaming, console-based gaming, and arcade-based video games. Although academia never stopped developing hardware and software exercises, these tended to be waylaid by the profit motive. This is the era where you see the development of Pong, Space Invaders, the Atari 2600, and the Apple II, all creations of the early technological development cycle in computing ability. Of the four things listed, however, only the Apple II was not intended exclusively for entertainment. It had the basic functions of computers at the time such as word processing and spreadsheets but was also capable of running basic video games. Alongside the Apple II were computers like the Commodore 64, the Atari 800, and the ZX Spectrum.
From Hardware to Software
What started as a revolution in hardware quickly became a hardware in software to match the hardware. This switch came about through the development of DOS, the first major operating system not built for a set of specific hardware like the systems used in the Apple II, the Commodore 64, and other computer systems. From this liberation of software, developers could more easily create software for the operating system. Before, a program that ran on a Commodore 64, for instance, could not be directly ran by an Apple II without an effort to port the software to the system. Indeed, we still see the remnants of this time with the inability of OSx (the Apple operating system) to run many programs that Windows can run, although this differentiation is nowhere near the level of inability we saw in the 1980s. With the proliferation of a general operating system we begin to see a deluge of software of all types, educational, entertainment, and productivity-based.
The Modern Gaming Environment
In today's gaming environment we are beginning to see a switch from physical media (5.25in. and 3.5in. floppy discs and CD-Roms) to a digital delivery model through services like Steam, Origin, and GOG. We also see the prevalence of gaming on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets and the proliferation of games meant explicitly for that market. In a sense, gaming is more widespread than ever at the same time that learning is more spread out. The focus on immersive virtual worlds comes at a time when educational materials are seeking to be more immersive and provide a deeper understanding for the students that use them. I feel, ultimately, that video games could be used in a tool to foster this sort of immersive lesson.
Assignment
For your first assignment, choose any three of the games named in the video at the start of this unit and provide your opinion on whether you feel they would be of use to you in your classroom. Be sure to perform a modicum of research on the title and how the game is played. YouTube can be your friend here as "let's play" videos tend to be very popular. Do not be afraid to be as scathing as possible though bear in mind the games you choose will be used in later assignments. Upload your document to the Google Drive link below using the following title:
Your_Name_Unit_One
You will be able to revisit this link to receive feedback on your work which will follow your writing:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B4oQAucj9o4lemR6czdCR2h1Snc?usp=sharing
Conclusion and Citations
From this short foray into the history of video games, we can continue into the other portion of this module: the use of games in the classroom. The next module will focus on the use of traditional games in the classroom as well as provide the argumentative basis for the second half of this mini-course. It is during this module that I hope to convince you, the participant, of the validity of commercial video games in the educational environment.
Citations
Donovan, T. (2010). Replay: The history of video games. Yellow Ant.
Frmorrison. The pong prototype that was used in the tavern. 2016. Mountain View, CA. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pong_prototype.jpg
Ito, Joi. Spacewar! running on the computer history museum's pdp-1. 2007. Mountain View, CA. Retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/35034362831@N01/494431001/
Rama. Apple II computer. 2010. Lausanne, Switzerland. Retrieved from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_II_IMG_4218-black.jpg
Smith, A. (2014). One, two, three, four, I declare a spacewar. Retrieved from https://videogamehistorian.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/one-two-three-four-i-declare-a-space-war/
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