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Playstate Firsts in Video Games / Video Plays

September 16, 2017 by Chris Billows in Playstates Theory tags: Playstates

I’ve made arguments in previous posts (Why Games are about Play of Measurement and Measurement as Power) that Games join naturally with computers (which are about measurement and calculation). It is this alignment that has resulted in the assumption and innocent misnomer that all Video Games are Games.

Because Games are about Measurement, they are only one of the five Playstates; the others being Toys/Playgrounds, Role-Play, Puzzles, and Sports. The fact is that Video Games are much broader than Games.

It is an innocent mistake though. The first Video Games were primarily were about Play of Measurement and Competition. They were not Video Role-Plays, Video Toys-Playgrounds, or Video Puzzles. Tic-Tac-Toe from 1950 was the first ever Computer Game, with its play of measurement being about staking out territory on a nine-square grid. Space War! from 1962 was a competitive Game/Sport that played a huge influence on the industry. The very first Arcade games were inspired by Space War!

Yet it is important to not neglect the other Playstates that are playable on computers: Toys/Playgrounds, Role-Plays, and Puzzles are all part of the history but did not have the fame that the Games/Sports Playstates did.

Cheekily, I would say these other Playstates were non-Game Video Games. 😉 I would further propose that Video Games should actually be called Video Plays, since they now encompass all of the various Playstates, but I know that will go nowhere but at least I’ve said it. 🙂

Below is a list of the Playstate Firsts found in Video Games. I call this my first version of a list, because I do think that with more research and pondering this list will evolve.

 

Playstate Firsts in Video Games (Version 1.0)
Year Game Primary Playstate Notes
1950 Tic-Tac-Toe (Exhibition) Games First ever computer game via Bertie the Brain*
1962 Space War! (Mainframe) Sports Inspired Computer Space in 1971 to be the first ever arcade game
1968 Kingdom/Hamurabi (Mainframe) Games First strategy video game
1970 Game of Life (Mainframe) Toy First simulation video game
1970 Moo aka Bulls & Cows (Mainframe) Puzzle First puzzle video game
1971 Trek (Mainframe) Games First video game based on media franchise
1972 Table Tennis (Console) Sports Magnavox Odyssey (dev started in 1966) was first ever video game console
1972 Pong (Arcade) Sports First successful arcade game; inspired creation of video game industry
1975 Moria (Plato) Role-Play First multi-player video game with collaboration
1976 Colossal Cave Adventure (Mainframe) Playground First adventure video game
1978 Flag Capture (Atari 2600) Puzzle First puzzle console game

* Tic-Tac-Toe is really the first ever Computer Game, not Video Game. While Bertie the Brain used a display to illustrate play, it was not a video display in any technical sense, so literally it was not a Video Game. Yet you cannot logically have a Video Game without a computer.  The list of games that ran on computers with no video display is small and played little significance in Video Game history.

About The Author: Chris Billows

Chris Billows is a knowledge seeker who believes in social responsibility, a health care professional, and a business dabbler. The Journals of Doc Surge is his personal blog. Doc Surge (a cool synonym for Billows) is inspired by Doc Brass from the Planetary Comic series who in turn was inspired by the 1930s pulp hero Doc Savage.
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