"What are the impacts of video games and how do they affect Essay

"What are the impacts of video games and how do they affect contemporary society" - Essay Example The history of video gaming can be traced back to 1940 when Edward U. Condon designed a computer that played a traditional game known as Nim in which players try to avoid picking up the last matchstick (Kent 2001). Many people play the game, but the computer wins most of the time. In 1947, Thomas T. Goldsmith and Estle Ray Mann made a cathode ray amusement tube hooked to an oscilloscope. It challenged players to fir a gun at a certain target. In 1950, Claude Shannon together with other Englishmen created chess programs. The breakthrough came in 1952 when A. S. Douglass created OXO. This game was known as Noughta and Crosses in the UK and tic-to in the USA. Douglass created the game as part of research on human-computer interactions for his doctoral dissertation. In 1958, Engineer William A. Higginbotham who had previously helped build the first atomic bomb invented an interactive computer game, Tennis for two to entertain visitors at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. This led to the anticipation of later video games such as Pong. In 1959, students at MIT created mouse in the maze. In this game, users drew a maze with a light pen and then a mouse navigates the labyrinth in search of cheese (Kent, 2001). In 1962, Steven Russell in MIT created Space war. This was the first computer based video game. In this, game two spaceships battled to the death in space. This game spread quickly to other universities and research centers. In 1963, the US department of defense completed a game showing their victory in the battle field (Bower 2014).This was followed by a creed by Dartmouth â€Å"everyone is a programmer† by creating a computer time-share system and basic programming language. The program made it easy for students to experiment and create their games. As a result, many other video games were developed. In 1965, a Dartmouth student created the first computer football game. In 1966, Ralph conceived the idea of playing a