9.2 Listening
Review Opening –
What platforms are popular now?
What were gaming trends in the past?
Notes two key ways we can classify games … type of platform + genre of the game
stats. on games development for platforms: top 3: smartphones, game consoles, personal computers; in order: PC, PlayStation, smartphones or tablets, Xbox small no. games for VR and AR headsets
arcade gaming – 1970s first commercial gaming co. – Atari – v. successful arcade games, e.g., Pong, 1980s – Pac-Man – colour; Donkey Kong – more complex gameplay
home gaming: 1970s – Atari create home gaming platforms – sell millions of units – lower spec. hardware – poorer quality games but huge market
home gaming market drop from over $1bn to low $ms in 1983
main reason growth of PC market (e.g., Apple II) – work use but also play games, standardized platform + people write own games
Why was Nintendo important?
Nintento + mobile gaming – mid-1980s major new platforms NES 8-bit and 16-bit home gaming platforms. ‘Game Boy’ mobile gaming – 120m units – 1989–2003
early mobile gaming – low-quality graphics + purchase whole new device for new game – sold 45 million – 1990. Game Boy – cartridges so higher quality sound + graphics. Shows can still sell games even with poor graphics
What different genres are there?
Summary
• Games classified by platform and genre. Main platforms – smartphones, game consoles, PC • Atari first successful company providing arcade games and home gaming but lost out to PC – standardized platform which could be used by anyone for games development
• Nintendo introduced mobile computing – Game Boy • Genres: casual gaming, first-person shooters, simulation games, sports gaming, augmented reality games
Arcade gaming happened in public places, on a fairly
large device – basically a TV screen in a box, and players would put money in the machine to make it work. The main reason for Pong’s success was its simplicity … it was very easy to understand the rules – the player moved their paddles to stop the ball from leaving the screen – and it could be played by two players at the same time, which made it competitive and exciting. The controls were very simple: moving the paddles up or down the screen. So, during the 1970s, lots of new games emerged, such as Space Invaders – where the player had to shoot down a stream of spaceships appearing from the top of the screen. The controls were a little more sophisticated: a button to move left, a button to move right and a button to fire at the spaceships. The graphics in Space Invaders were very simple. All of the spaceships were identical and the explosions when they were hit were the same. Screens were usually monochrome and there were some limited sound effects. In the 1980s, the computer game market grew rapidly
and games added new features. For example, Pac-Man, a popular arcade game, featured a bright yellow mouth which moved around eating dots and trying to avoid being killed. However, the gameplay became more complex as new games were developed. In Donkey Kong,
a character (who became famous as Super Mario) climbs through different levels using ladders, using a tool to kill monsters or else jumping to avoid them. When the character reached the top of one level without being killed, they then moved on to the next level. Games could have many different levels, increasing the challenge for players. Gameplay in which players worked their way up through different levels became a very common genre. Donkey Kong was also important because it introduced a character in a game. The character didn’t have much detail because the hardware didn’t support it, but it had enough detail to make it possible to create the character again in another game – Mario Bros. – and yet another: Super Mario Bros. At the same time that these arcade games were
developing … Atari, the company behind these, was also creating platforms to enable games to be played in the home. Throughout the 1970s, they developed new models: the 2600, the 5200 and the 7800 and these sold many millions of units. Games were stored on cartridges, which meant that the company made money every time they sold a game and the company could control their distribution. Porting arcade games to home systems with lower specification hardware meant that the quality of the home games was often much poorer.
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casual gaming – e.g., FarmVille – v. simple graphics + gameplay but 10m users in 2 months – e.g., Flappy Bird – similar specs and user growth. Easy access to games increases gaming time
different genres: first-person shooters, simulation games, sports gaming, augmented reality games
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