History of Games

Interpreting sources can be difficult. So how can we ensure that we are accurate in our interpretations, and make sure that future generations will be acurate in theirs?

The beauty of games is that we can still play games from the past, and the systems they were created on. When we draw conclusions about these games, we first have to put in context the time which they are from. How do we do that? By looking at the technology they were created for.

In society we have a pecking order for technology. Defence gets the most up to date, state of the art equipment, followed by other goverment run endeavours like transport and healthcare. Not far behind is the entertainment industry, and in some shape or form this has been the way of things for hundreds of years. When we judge games of today we play them on a PS3 or Xbox360 and know that "this is the best technology available to us". Like so we have to play Frontier on an Amiga and ask "Was this the best they could do with the technology available"?

But more importantly when assessing games from the past is the question of "What did the influence?" "Was this the first of it's kind"? Frontier inspired titles like EVE and Starlancer. If we see what games introduced the conventions we used today, we can trace these conventions by regression back to their roots, which teaches us alot about where today's games come from, but also how they evolve.