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Talk:Computer game/Computer and video games

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This is a proposal for a merged article of Video game and Computer game. The aim is to give an overview of the topic for the novice, and provide links to other, more specific articles for the passionate.


Computer and video games are games played on computers or video game consoles. Although historically the two have evolved somewhat separately, in part due to technical constraints of different platforms, in practice the distinction is subtle if it is present at all, since many games are now produced for both computers and video game systems.


Table of characteristics

Characteristic Computer Games Video Games
Platform Usually a home / personal computer Usually a dedicated console computer,

sometimes handheld or intergrated

Display Usually, a high resolution computer monitor Various, from low resoltion TV screen to small LCD
Game controllers Usually keyboard and/or mouse, sometimes joysticks Various, including joysticks, rollerballs and custom gamepads
Etc Etc
Etc Etc

Design process

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Modern games are usually made by a team of developers (occasionally by individuals) consisting of designers, graphic designers and other artists, programmers, sound designers, musicians, and others (typically 20 to 50 people, with some teams exceeding 100). As the capabilities of computers and expectations of audiences have grown, the average team size as well as the average development time has grown (see video game industry practices).

Brief history of development of computer and video games

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History of the video game

Early history - text adventures on mainframes

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The first computer games (a genre which continues today) came to be called Interactive fiction, or Adventure games. An example was Colossal Cave Adventure. Screen displayed text such as "You are in a streambed. A troll is watching" or "I do not understand that". The player typed a verb / noun combination such as "Wave wand" or "Go North" (or something even shorter, eg "N") and was presented with a new or partly new text response.

Early graphical games

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The first widely known and distributed recognisable graphical game was Spacewar! (which appeared in 1961) on the then-new DEC PDP-1. This game was soon distributed with new DEC computers and traded throughout primitive cyberspace. The first console game was Atari's Pong in 1972. SOMETHING ABOUT ARCADE MACHINE DEVELOPMENT?

Arcade games

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File:Arcademachine.jpg
An upright arcade machine
Centipede™ by Atari

Arcade game - aha - there's more! List of arcade games

Home computers and early games

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Home computers and early games were very intrakit.

Home game consoles

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Game market

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DO THESE FIGURES INCLUDE COMPUTER GAMES? Video and computer games are very popular and the market has grown continuously since the end of the video game crash of 1983. The market research company NPD estimated that video game hardware, software, and accessories sold about US$10.3 billion in 2002. This was a 10% increase over the 2001 figure.

The video game market changes over the years as new video game consoles are introduced. This has happened in cycles of about 5 years or so, in which multiple manufacturers release their consoles within about a year of each other, then they and the video game publishers enjoy several years of game sales until technology has improved enough for a new cycle to begin. At that point, games for the old consoles generally enjoy some residual sales, but the video game public as a whole has moved on to the new generation of machines. The current dominant consoles are:

SECTION ON SIMILAR PROCESS WITH PC HARDWARE, WITH CURRENT SPECS FOR GAMING MACHINES, PLUS DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS OF SOFTWAREHOUSES IN PORTING FROM ONE PLATFORM TO ANOTHER

Genres of games

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Games similar to the early consoles and arcades are categorized as "arcade games." There are also Adventure games, Sports games, Edutainment games, RPG's, and MMORPGs, Simulation games, a sub genre of Strategy games were made popular by Will Wright's Sim City.

Notable people

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Criticism of games

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Computer and video games have been criticized by some parents' groups, psychologists, politicians, and religious organizations for glorifying violence, cruelty, and crime and possible negative effect on society and individuals. Some studies have shown that children who watch violent television shows and play violent video games have a tendency to act more aggressively on the playground, and some people are concerned that this aggression may presage violent behavior when children grow to adulthood. These concerns have led to voluntary rating systems adopted by the industry, such as the ESRB rating system in the United States, that are aimed at educating parents about game content.

See also: video game controversy, video game proponent

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Game sites

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Open Source gaming

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  • Open Source Gaming: a database of gaming reviews, news, downloads, forums, image galleries, more specifically focused on games released under an Open Source license
  • Linux Games: a news site with the latest on Linux game ports and releases.
  • Open Gaming Foundation

News and comment

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