The Golden Age of Video Games: The Birth of a Multibillion Dollar Industry

Front Cover
CRC Press, Apr 19, 2016 - Computers - 218 pages
This book focuses on the history of video games, consoles, and home computers from the very beginning until the mid-nineties, which started a new era in digital entertainment. The text features the most innovative games and introduces the pioneers who developed them. It offers brief analyses of the most relevant games from each time period. An epilogue covers the events and systems that followed this golden age while the appendices include a history of handheld games and an overview of the retro-gaming scene.
 

Contents

The Beginning
2
The First Commercial Game and the First Home Console
8
Atari Pong and the Jackals
14
Pong Goes Home
21
Home Consoles
25
Meanwhile in Japan
40
Computers Go Home Too
47
Games That Pushed Boundaries I
56
The Beginning of a New Era
116
New Generations with Some of the Same Old Problems
120
Sony and Nintendo?
130
The PC Becomes Gaming Mature
132
Games That Pushed Boundaries III
136
Epilogue
149
Game Over
150
Press Start to Continue
153

Part II
69
The Crash
70
Computers Computers Computers
79
from Here Where?
92
the NES ROB and Super Mario
95
the Sega Master System
98
Games That Pushed Boundaries II
100
Part III
115
Appendix A
162
Appendix B
167
Bibliography
171
Photo Credits
173
About the Author
183
Back cover
193
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