Week 3 assignment

The development of games throughout the 80's and 90's shows to me why gaming has become as popular as it is today. Whereas in the beginning gaming was more simple with games that incorporated little graphics and were quite repeatative. However the strong point about these earlier games is that they wasn't necessarily attempting to imitate real situations as at this time the majority of popular games where situated around spacecraft or missles apart from the exception of pong. I can see how development of games at this period was slow at first because there is plenty of other interactive activities that may have been more challenging and exciting, all that this industry needed was for companies to realize the potential for gaming.

However gaming eventually developed to the point of creating characters in game which still at this point used basic graphics, but still these designers had created a player-character relationship rather than just being an object. This development then went further especially during the 90's as this saw the rise of iconic characters like Mario and Sonic, which i feel helped to promote console games during this era.

Throughout this period of the gaming industry saw other new creations like the introduction of different varieties of games that hadn't been seen before. Gamimg was getting more complex and saw the existance of RPG, RTS as well as shoot em up games. Which now meant that there are games that suites the players tastes, as not everyone enjoys the same type of game.

Games like RPG were then developed further to create MMORPGs, which then opened a new window of oppertunity for gamers as now they could socialise within games bringing a whole new aspect to gaming. Online gaming was a huge incentive for me when i swapped from console to PC gaming as i could regular play with friends and opponents that weren't stupid like making gameplay more challenging. Online gaming was also another method of meeting new people, for instance i now have friends in different parts of the world like Sweden and Germany!

Another reason as to why games are so successful to date is because the industry created games on various different platforms. Whereas in the past games were produced on computers, in the 80's and 90's games saw the transfer onto television sets via consoles and eventually onto handheld game consoles. This meant that gaming was now easily accessable as you could even take games with you where ever you travel, Which helps explain the reason for the decrease of arcades.

With these reasons in mind as well as the increase of graphics and realism in games shows just how gaming has expanded to this stage, as even though the principles may be similar in the past as it is now like for example achieving a goal. i think that gaming had evolved alot as gaming is now a more competitive and social interaction. Especially when considering co-op and online gaming.