Who is the Inventor of Video Games

Video games are one of the increasing selling products if entertainment industry of the 21st century. In some markets, it even competed with the sales of conventional music. Video games are described roughly as electronic game with basic form of interaction in terms of player's control on some aspect of the game.

Video games were invented after the invention of computers because a processor is required to make graphics on the screen, tracking player interaction, keeping score and assuming the role of game referee or another player. Computer video games can be very easily run on home PCs. The difference between video games and electronic games is the addition of screen as compared to electronic board games that may produce sounds only.

The first computer video games used oscilloscopes for plotting the movement of dot on a screen or simply displaying a character in a given position. The early games sometimes contained a piece of a clear film positioned over the screen for providing extra information. The very first video game was written at Cambridge on EDSAC computer by Alexander Douglas in 1952. It was a very effective and simple version of tic-tac-toe. According to many historians, this was the first video games but it was not influential as it could not be played at the Cambridge.

A similar type of game was also developed by William Higinbotham at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958. It also used an oscilloscope for displaying the game consisting of a horizontal line, a small vertical line in its middle and a dot that few from one side to the other simulating a tennis game. The dials could be operated by two players for hitting the ball and returning it to the opposite side.

Spacewar was the first game that could be played on more than one machine. It was written by Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen and Steve Russell in 1961 for DEC PDP-1 platform. The source code of the game was openly shared among the academic society and was played on several machines and qualified as the first video game.

The first video game capable of being played on a TV was called Chase and it was written in 1967 by Ralph Baer for a new console being developed by Sanders Associates. It was then licensed to Magnavox and had a sale of more than 100,000 units. It was shipped with other games that were developed by the firm. The patents of Ralph Baer were also licensed to Atari who developed the biggest and successful arcade console of the 1970s.