Video Games Day

Video Games Day is September 12th

The increasingly growing video game industry is to be celebrated all-year long, but it is during the month of July and September that events are made in their honor. See also Video Game Day on July 8th. 

Video game history goes back at least into the 1950s and have become one of the biggest forms of entertainment if not the biggest, grossing over $100 billion a year, with the numbers increasing annually. The gaming culture celebrates its diversity in entertainment, having something for all ages and types of interests. It’s the perfect excuse to set a date to play video games with friends and loved ones.

What Game Came First

There is great debate over what is the very first video game. It is mostly attributed to Pong, a game designed by Atari, which paved the way for the gaming industry movement that began back in the 70s, making it the most influential. Its one of the first arcade games that basically consisted of table tennis with two-dimensional graphics. Another of the earliest games is called “Computer Space”, which was released in 1971 by Nutting Associates, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, who later found Atari. The game consisted of controlling a spaceship and firing at flying saucers. Later, Atari became a household name in America, and remains widely known till this date.

An important attribution goes to William Higinbotham, a physicist who helped create the nuclear bomb and inventor of one of the earliest games ever. On October 1958, the Brookhaven National Laboratory had an exhibition into the workings of the lab. During the exhibition they presented Tennis for Two (early version of Pong), becoming one of the first games in the history of video games to be displayed. Shortly after, the parts were dismantled and used for other projects.

However, Ralph Baer is known as the father of video games. During 1966, while working as an engineer for defense contractor Sanders Associates (now BAE systems), he wrote a four-page description for a “game box” to play on a television set. He was given $2,500 to start developing his idea alongside Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch. They created several video game units till landing the “Brown Box”. The Brown Box was licensed to Magnavox and went on sale as the Odyssey in 1972, known as the world’s first commercial video game system. The Magnavox Odyssey sold 100,000 units in its first year and 300,000 by 1975.

The company ended up being involved in many lawsuits of all types for copyright infringement, including the game Pong, which was released months after the Magnavox Odyssey. This case settled for $700,000, and Atari ended up becoming an Odyssey licensee.
 

Uniting people

The world of gaming unites communities with entertainment, discussion and innovation. It raises a competitive culture that thrives to gain recognition, satisfaction and the thrill of adrenaline from discovering a new world. Gaming inspires creativity, patience and teamwork and despite common belief, it provides addition social encounters. The gaming industry has something for everyone, making them a market hard to beat. The online community expands interactions with gamers all over the world, uniting people through fun activities and competition. Not to mention, all the tournaments where competitors gather and interact with each other, competing to be the best. It is a way to spread joy, through a common interest.