1
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Hi, I'm Medium Invader

2
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
from the classic video game Space Invaders,

3
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and I want to tell you a little bit

4
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
about where video games came from.

5
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
A video game is an electronic game

6
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that has an interface designed for human interaction

7
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
on a video device.

8
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Simple.

9
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Video games are used by scientists,

10
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the military,

11
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and people like you,

12
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and their evolution has spread across arcades,

13
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
consoles,

14
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
computers,

15
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
smart phones,

16
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and all kinds of other electronics.

17
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
These days video games are everywhere,

18
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but they were actually made in science labs.

19
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In fact, the earliest U.S. video game patent on record

20
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was in 1948,

21
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and at the time it was referred to

22
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
as a cathode-ray tube amusement device.

23
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
That's a mouthful!

24
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Some of the earliest video games include

25
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the Nimrod computer,

26
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
OXO,

27
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Tennis for Two,

28
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and my personal favorite, Spacewar!

29
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
But none of these early video games

30
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
were ever sold to the public

31
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
because there were either too huge

32
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
or too expensive

33
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to get out of the lab.

34
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
This all changed when a man named Ralph Baer

35
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
looked at his television screen and wondered

36
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
how else it might be used.

37
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In 1972, Baer's idea to get video games

38
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
out of the science lab and into the living room

39
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
led to the release of a game console

40
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
called Odyssey.

41
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Odyssey allowed you to play a game on your TV.

42
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
At about the same time,

43
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
two other people, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney,

44
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
were working on something similar

45
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
in a little company called Atari.

46
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
You might have heard of it,

47
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and even if you haven't,

48
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
I'm sure that your Dad has.

49
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Atari's first major game release was in 1972,

50
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
an arcade game called Pong.

51
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It was an immediate hit,

52
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and it is credited

53
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
as the first commercially successful video game.

54
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Atari then released a home version of Pong in 1974.

55
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
By 1978, competition between Atari

56
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and another game company called Midway

57
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was heating up.

58
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Midway had licensed an arcade game

59
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
for the Japanese company, Taito,

60
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that put them on the map.

61
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The game: Space Invaders.

62
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It featured iconic actors like me,

63
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and it went on to become

64
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the second highest selling arcade game of all time.

65
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Space Invaders also helped kick-off

66
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
what is known as the Golden Age of Arcade Games.

67
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In response, Atari followed

68
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
with the release of the arcade game Asteroids,

69
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
which ranked sixth on the list

70
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
of highest selling arcade games.

71
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It was a good game,

72
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
but it's no Space Invaders.

73
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
By 1980, color came to arcade games,

74
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and this was also the year

75
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
that another video gaming milestone was born.

76
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Pac-Man, created by the Japanese company Namco,

77
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was brought to the U.S. by Midway.

78
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Important to the spread

79
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
of video games into popular culture,

80
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Pac-Man was a character that could be licensed.

81
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It wasn't long before it had a song on the charts,

82
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
a Saturday morning television show,

83
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and all sorts of other products.

84
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In just a year, Pac-Man arcade games

85
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
made over one billion dollars in quarters.

86
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Then, in 1981, a company called Nintendo

87
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
started making waves in the U.S. video game market

88
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
with their release of Donkey Kong.

89
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It was the earliest video game

90
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to have a story line.

91
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
The story went a bit like this:

92
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Donkey Kong is the pet

93
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
of a carpenter called Jumpman.

94
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Jumpman mistreats his pet ape,

95
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
so the ape steals his girlfriend,

96
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
leaving the game player to assume the role

97
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
of Jumpman and rescue the girl.

98
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Jumpman was eventually renamed to Mario.

99
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Other iconic arcade games from the early 80s include

100
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Frogger,

101
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Dragon's Lair,

102
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and Mario Brothers.

103
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
Perhaps the last iconic game considered

104
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to be part of the Golden Age of Arcade Games

105
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
is Double Dragon.

106
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
It was the first really successful example

107
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
of the beat-them-up genre.

108
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
In was released in 1987,

109
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and, like Donkey Kong,

110
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
it featured a damsel in distress storyline,

111
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
a storyline common in many video games.

112
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
By the mid-90s, the Golden Age of Arcade Games

113
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was coming to an end,

114
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and the home game console

115
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
was gaining in popularity.

116
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
While arcade games continued

117
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
to decline in sales over the years,

118
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
the popularity of video games was merely beginning,

119
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
and we'll talk about that

120
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
a lot more in part two

121
99:59:59,999 --> 99:59:59,999
of a brief history of video games.