Brief History of Video Games

The world of computer games today ranges from arcade-style games emphasizing hand-eye coordination, to role-playing games adding sound and video to the Adventure formula, to simulation games in which players oversee the growth and development of systems ranging from cities to galaxies to alternate life-forms. Computer game publications divide the contemporary field into seven genres: action/arcade, adventure, role-playing adventure, simulation, sports, strategy, and war. Within these categories, of course, there remains much overlap. An empire-building game like Civilization, for example, rests somewhere between a wargame and a simulation, while many adventure games contain arcade-style interludes.…