Online Games – The Evolution

Now we see thousands of people playing online games such as tetris, ping pong, mario bros, super mario etc for free but despite its history dating back to 1970s, for most people online gaming began with the explosion of Internet in 1993 and with the advent of Doom and Warcraft sometime in 1994 or 1995. This got further boost with publishers starting to add Internet connectivity to computer games in 1994-95.

The media, in fact, have themselves been ignorant
about online games history. As far as they are
concerned, online gaming just coincidentally happened
when their advertisers started producing Internet-
capable games. But it isn’t so…

Early Years of development

In early 1950’s a college student created a game much like Tic-Tac-Toe for a class project to be played on dinosaur computers of those days complete with cathode ray tubes for the screen display. The 1960’s had MIT students programming a game called “Space war” that could be played with two people over a primitive network. The late 1960’s brought the first “real” video games like table tennis and shooter games.

The 70s – the game begins

Serious online gaming began with the first interactive
online game called ADVENT. In fact networked gaming
got conceptualized with ADVENT. Networked gaming
had users playing against each other within an online
fantasy world. The first networked game was called
Mazewar, a game which involved networked players
traveling through a maze and attempting to kill one
another.

Next came the interpersonal interaction in a multi-player environment. The first such game was called DUNGEN. DUNGEN had players competing against one another to complete a series of quests. DUNGEN provided with new settings and players each time the user logged on.

The late 1970’s saw the start of video game craze with more and more households getting computer savvy. As a natural corollary, people started writing their own games for the home computers. These programming hobbyists traded and sold these home-grown games in local markets.

Other changes in the 1970’s were home gaming
consoles which used game cartridges. That meant
the people could collect games cartridges for one
base unit instead of having bulky game console
systems.

The 80s – some pause before the storm

1980’s saw growing craze for the video and computer game craze, but online gaming wasn’t on the horizon yet. New games with better sound and graphics were introduced and gained popularity. Pole Position and Pac-man were two that achieved big popularity. It was during 1980’s when Nintendo introduced its first gaming system.


The 21st Century – world is just a playground

Early years of the 21st century were dominated by the DVD-CD-ROM. It has changed the way online games are played. The latest gaming systems such as Sony’s play station and Microsoft’s X-box have networking capabilities to enable people play with each other in real time from all over the world. Exponentially growing broadband internet services have made playing these online games possible in true sense of the word.

The only drawback to the constantly evolving technology for online games is that what you buy today might become obsolete by the next year. Luckily, for the serious gamers, the resale industry for these online games is huge. This resale industry is just another element to the ever-changing history of online game.

About The Author

Susie is a game developer advocating to play online games free. Visit www.Play-Online-Games-Free.com to play tetris online for free.