From Nimatron to VR – how gaming changed the world

Did you know video games have been around for more than 80 years? Today we just grab a controller, play on our phones, or even put on a VR headset. But a long time ago, games looked very different. Let’s go on a timetravel adventure and see how gaming changed!

In 1940, a scientist named Edward Condon built a giant machine called the Nimatron.
It was taller than most adults and weighed as much as a small car! People played a math game called Nim on it by pressing buttons to make their moves. About 100,000 people tried it – it was their first chance to play against a computer for fun. Fun fact: the machine won 90% of the time!

In 1952, a student named Alexander S. Douglas made a simple game of tictactoe on an early computer. The computer was so big it filled an entire room! Players used an old-school telephone pads to make their moves against the computer.

Ten years later, students at MIT in America built a game called Spacewar!, on a computer that was the size of a fridge. Two players would each control a tiny spaceship, trying to destroy the other one and not crash into a star at the same time.

There even was the Intergalatic Spacewar! Olympics – basically the first ever esports tournament. The winner got a subscription to Rolling Stone magazine. Very different to the millions of dollars that today’s players can win!

In 1972, a man named Nolan Bushnell made Pong, a super simple tabletennis video game.

Even though it was just two paddles and a square ball, people were obsessed. Pong became the first big successful video game and helped launch the gaming industry as we know it.

By the early 80s, too many bad games came out, and people stopped trusting game companies.

But in 1983, Nintendo released the Famicom, which became the NES in America.
Then came classics like:

• Super Mario Bros. (1985)
• The Legend of Zelda (1986)
• Final Fantasy (1987)

Nintendo also released the Game Boy in 1989 — with Tetris — and it became one of the most loved handheld consoles ever. These games changed everything, created new gaming categories and definitely brought the fun back.

In the 90s, the tech boom meant that computers and graphics got way better. This saw brand new games explode on the scene:

• Doom (1993) let players battle monsters and even play together on the same network
• Quake (1996) let people play online with others far away
• StarCraft (1998) became so popular in South Korea it was shown on TV!

This was the beginning of esports.

When the internet became faster, everything changed.

• Counter-Strike turned into one of the biggest competitive games ever.
• World of Warcraft (2004) let millions explore a giant online world.
• Stores like Steam made it easy to buy games online.
• The 2010s made mobile gaming huge

And now, we’ve got VR, AR, cloud gaming, and even AI powered worlds.

So over 80 years after the first computer game - no one could have imagined video games would become this big. But dreamers, inventors, and players kept pushing the limits — and now gaming is one of the most exciting things on Earth and there’s even more to come.