
We all know the Playstation, the PC, the Xbox, the Gameboy, and all the other myriad examples of gaming devices out there in the world today. Gaming is a pervasive part of our culture, coloring everything from our choices in clothing to our taste in cuisine, there are even themed restaurants thaat are entirely dedicated to gamers and the games they love. Video Games Day is dedicated to recalling this defining part of our culture and sharing it with our fellow gamers, new and old alike. Get your game on!
History of Video Games Day
The history of Video Games Day is really the history of the video game, and that history goes back much farther than most people imagine. The first game ever created is often thought to be Bertie the Brain, an artificial intelligence designed to play Tic-Tac-Toe. Considering that Bertie was a 4 meter high machine built on vacuum tube technology, you can imagine it didn’t get out much, in fact, it was disassembled after the Canadian National Exhibition it was revealed at, and never rebuilt. A year later a computer was built called Nimrod, Nimrod was a computer built and displayed at the Festival of Britain in 1951 and designed to play a game called Nim.
There was, at one time, a United States National Video Game Team, founded on July 25, 1983, in Ottumwa, Iowa, by Walter Day and the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard. The early games used interactive electronic devices with various display formats. Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed the first patent for an interactive electronic device in 1947. It was called the “Cathode ray tube amusement Device”.
Some other early examples include:
- The Nimrod computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain
- 0X0 – a tic-tac-toe computer game by Alexander S. Douglas for the EDSAC in 1952.
- Tennis For Two – 1958 – An electronic interactive game engineered by William Higinbotham.
- 1961 – Spacewar
From these humble beginnings things continued to build, first with Cabinet style games (those are the ones you put quarters in kids) which became hugely popular, and then into the first consoles, home based platforms you could play the games on. In the years that followed development of computers and video games just kept growing exponentially, until they now absolutely permeate our culture. What used to be a luxury item for the rich and elite has now become a standard part of most people’s homes, and a diversion that involves all ages.
How to celebrate Video Games Day
Celebrating Video Games Day is both easy and fun, get together with your friends and play a bunch of video games! Dig out some of your old consoles and play favorites you haven’t touched in ages, and share them with the newest generation of gamers, or friends who just haven’t seen them. If you want to go all out you can even play an event at a local college or hall and have a bunch of people get together with game themed food and costumes, and of course decorations. Video Games Day is an excuse to go down a path of digital reminiscence, do it with a friend.
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