Spacewar!, Computer Space, and the Magnavox Odyssey Launch an Industry

While the the game’s creators didn’t know it at the time, Spacewar! wouldn’t just help the future endeavors of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but also launch an entire industry.

In the 1950s and 60s, the Space Race and the Cold War gave students and researchers at top universities a reason to fight for processing time on the small number of room-sized mainframes in operation at the time. But thanks to the inclusion of a keyboard and a monitor (a luxury for a mainframe at the time), a small group of students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discovered that these machines were perfect for games.

After a lot of trial-and-error, these pioneers wound up with Spacewar!, a ship-battling simulation that combined their fascination with space travel with the computational power available in the mainframe. Completed in 1962, word quickly spread amongst the other students at the university, and Spacewar! became a bonafide blockbuster.

While the the game’s creators didn’t know it at the time, Spacewar! wouldn’t just help the future endeavors of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, but also launch an entire industry.

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A Brief History of Video Games – Half-Life

It’s just another day at work for Gordon Freeman. The well-groomed scientist is running late for an important meeting and he’s forced to board the tram alone as he travels to the secure wing of the Black Mesa Research Facility.

The latest VGC Essay looks at how Half-Life’s opening tram ride changed first person shooters (and may even have created an entirely new genre). Here’s a teaser…

“Good morning and welcome to the Black Mesa Transit System. This automated train is provided for the security and convenience of the Black Mesa Research Facility personnel.”

It’s just another day at work for Gordon Freeman. The well-groomed scientist is running late for an important meeting and he’s forced to board the tram alone as he travels to the secure wing of the Black Mesa Research Facility.

It’s a rather lowkey introduction to one of the most ambitious games ever created, but easing the player into the game’s world was a big part of what made Valve’s Half-Life so ambitious. You’re free to move about the train car as you’re ferried from the facility’s living quarters to the research levels belowground, but for those five minutes, you’re also at the mercy of the developers and how they want you to interact with their game.

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Bite-Sized Game History: RIP Stan Lee, NBA Jam’s Expensive Balls, and a Wii Remote Prototype for the GameCube

In this edition of Bite-Sized Game History, we look back at the first time Stan Lee brought his “carnival barker” enthusiasm to video games, as well as a pair of auctions for some very unique artifacts.

With a pocketful of catchphrases, and hiding behind a giant pair of sunglasses, Stan Lee began to resemble a real-life superhero more and more in his later years. Lee’s bombastic speaking style and boundless energy gave his many cameos a zippiness well into his 90s, and it felt like he would always be with us.

Sadly, Lee passed away yesterday at the age of 95.

Along with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, Stan Lee redefined the very idea of what a “superhero” was, and their work caused ripples throughout all of pop culture. In this edition of Bite-Sized Game History, we look back at the first time Stan Lee brought his “carnival barker” enthusiasm to video games, as well as a pair of auctions for some very unique artifacts.

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Bite-Sized Game History: Exploring the US’s Best-Selling Games from the 1990s to Now

Using data from The NPD Group’s vast archive, Mat Piscatella recently shared some historical data on the best-selling video games from the 1990s to today.

Tracking the weekend box office results has become something of a spectator sport for moviegoers of all stripes since the lists were introduced in the early 1980s. Arguing about the financial merits of Star Wars, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Titanic, and Avatar became just as important as discussing each film’s critical reception.

You won’t find this sort of organized ranking of moneymakers in the video game industry, but the closest analogue would have to be the monthly Best-Seller Lists published by The NPD Group. However, the proprietary nature of this report means that the picture will always be incomplete.

Using data from the analyst firm’s vast archive, Mat Piscatella recently tried to pull back the curtain a little bit by sharing the list of best-selling games on several legacy consoles (the Saturn, the original PlayStation, the Nintendo 64, the Game Boy Color, and the Dreamcast) and a nearly defunct handheld (the Vita). He also examined the best-selling games through September 2018 on two modern consoles (the PS4 and Xbox One) and published a list of the top-selling titles for each year from 1995 to 2017.

It’s a very interesting collection of information, and the lists provide our best window yet into what games were considered popular in the United States in the 1990s and into today.

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Super Mario’s Namesake, Mario Segale, Has Died: How A Chance Meeting Changed Nintendo

Mario Segale died last week at the age of 84, but the Seattle real estate developer and philanthropist is probably best-remembered among gamers as the namesake for Super Mario, Nintendo’s world-famous mascot.

Mario Segale died last week at the age of 84, but the Seattle real estate developer and philanthropist is probably best-remembered among gamers as the namesake for Super Mario, Nintendo’s world-famous mascot.

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Library of Congress Has Ruled Libraries and Museums Can Break DRM to Preserve Older Games

The US Copyright Office and the Library of Congress have ruled that museums and libraries may now disable digital rights management (DRM) software when attempting to preserve video games available for defunct platforms.

The US Copyright Office and the Library of Congress have ruled that museums and libraries may now disable digital rights management (DRM) software when attempting to preserve video games available for defunct platforms.

The rule is officially known as the “Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies,” and a very quick summary is available at Polygon:

This week the Library of Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office revised its list of specific exceptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, also known as the DMCA. Their guidance reaffirms the rights of software preservationists to circumvent digital rights management (DRM) software, in some cases expanding their ability to revive older games. It also opens the door, legally speaking, to do-it-yourselfers and electronics repair outlets to break DRM in pursuit of fixing hardware.

A more thorough analysis of the ruling, specifically detailing how it’ll effect preservationists looking to bring back early versions of MMOs like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, is available at Motherboard:

Today’s news should be good for archivists and museums, who’ve long struggled with the best way to preserve video games such as Everquest or World of Warcraft. Multiplayer games like these require both software that players run on their computers locally, and software running on a company’s server—software that is much harder for historians to get their hands on and run. And when they do manage to get an independent server running, big game companies like Blizzard have taken legal action against people running unauthorized servers.

This is a great day for anyone interested in the history of games, and for all the historians and librarians working to preserve the classics for the next generation.

Mashable Launches “Games To Play Before You Die” Podcast

The staff at Mashable will be exploring some of the greatest games of all time in a brand new podcast known as “Games To Play Before You Die.“

The staff at Mashable will be exploring some of the greatest games of all time in a brand new podcast known as “Games To Play Before You Die“:

Which video games were so far ahead of their time, so much pure fun, that they stand apart? Since we love games we decided to answer this question once and for all in a new podcast series simply named “Games to Play Before You Die.”

Our host Jordan Minor, Senior Editor at Geek.com, breaks down the video games you MUST play before you kick the bucket (or get carpal tunnel). With the help of rotating experts and Mashable Editors, each episode dives into the development and launch of a video game that has impacted our host and guests personally as well as the industry.

Hosted by Geek.com’s Jordan Minor, the first episode of “Games To Play Before You Die” is all about Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog 2. More specifically, the panel discusses, “How is Sonic 2 the only good Sonic game?”

Future episodes of “Games To Play Before You Die” should appear every week (or so), and I’m very interested to see where the series goes from here.


UPDATE (10/29/22): “Games To Play Before You Die” appears to be no more, but you can still watch the video versions of each episode on Mashable’s YouTube channel.

In the end, nine titles were part of the final tally of games featured on the podcast. Here they are for posterity…

Mashable – Games To Play Before You Die

  • Assassin’s Creed II
  • Diablo III
  • Kingdom Hearts III
  • Myst
  • Pokemon Blue/Red/Yellow
  • Red Dead Redemption
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 2
  • Super Smash Bros.
  • Tetris

“The Game Console” Explores the Grisly Innards of 86 Different Consoles in November 2018

No Starch Press has announced that they’re publishing The Game Console: A Photographic History from Atari to Xbox, a new book that depicts the “grisly innards” of all your favorite consoles, on November 6th.

Authored by Evan Amos, and featuring an extensive collection of full-color photos and notes about 86 different consoles, The Game Console might just be the most complete catalog of console hardware ever published:

The Game Console is a tour through the evolution of video game hardware, with gorgeous full-color photos of 86 consoles and their grisly innards. You’ll start your journey with legendary consoles like the Magnavox Odyssey, Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Commodore 64. The visual nostalgia trip continues with systems from the 1990s and 2000s, ending with modern consoles like the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U.

Throughout the book, you’ll also discover many consoles you never knew existed, and get a rare peek at the hardware inside some of history’s most iconic video game systems.

You can find a few preview images from The Game Console at No Starch’s official website, and they certainly do look grisly (and also amazing).

Bite-Sized Game History: The N64’s Analog Stick, Rez’s Prototype, and Early Video Games from 1968

Have you ever wondered how the Nintendo 64’s Analog Stick works? Or what Rez looked like before its wireframe aesthetic was added in? And just what were game developers working on in the early days before Atari?

Have you ever wondered how the Nintendo 64’s Analog Stick works? Or what Rez looked like before its wireframe aesthetic was added in? And just what were game developers working on in the early days before Atari?

Have no fear, we’re able to answer all three of those questions in this edition of Best-Sized Game History…

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Speedruner Completes Nearly Perfect Run of Super Mario Bros. in 4 Minutes and 55.96 Seconds

The speedrunners competing to complete a perfect run in Super Mario Bros. got a little closer this week when KosmicD12 set a new world record of four minutes and 55.96 seconds on Monday.

Thanks to pixel-perfect platforming and a series of glitches (including running through the wall to find the Warp Zone in World 1-2), this “Any Percentage” run is nearly identical to the “Tool Assisted Run” of four minutes and 54.03 seconds.

In a “Tool Assisted Run,” a computer calculates the optimal path through the game using all known glitches, so to see an actual human person nearly match it is rather astounding.

KosmicD12 was rather tongue-tied after his record-setting feat, but he did manage to croak out, “I don’t know what to say.”

A nearly perfect run definitely speaks for itself, so I’m not sure anything else needs to be said. Though I guess congratulations are definitely in order.