Online gambling (also known as rahapelit netissä in Suomi), has certainly taken big steps towards progress; it has proven that online casinos are the future of gambling. However, another noteworthy development has stepped into the spotlight, it is an industry that has undoubtedly outdone itself for the past decades, and it is nothing else but PC gaming.
Let’s rewind time and take a look back over the last 60 years of PC gaming. Computers back then only had the basic functionalities, there was barely immersion in the experience. The best games it could offer graphically were depicted in simple dots and lines with monochrome design; some had pixelated graphics with linear controls and movement patterns. Gaming in its early stages was not at all that impressive.
Skip forward 50 years or so though, and the progress is almost incomparable: say hello to new high-end games with hyper-realistic graphics and competitive gameplay, matched with dynamic controls, open-world settings, and compelling storylines such as Call of Duty, DOTA 2, and League of Legends. These games have turned the PC gaming industry into a billion-dollar empire and have become so famous and successful that they created a new career: streaming. PC gaming has progressed substantially, but now, let’s take a more in-depth look at its history, and see how it developed to be the way that it is now.
The 1960s
Now let’s go back to the ’60s and take a glimpse of what’s known today as PC gaming. Before 1962, gaming wasn’t that significant, no one talked about gaming. MIT students Martin Graetz, Alan Kotok, and Steve Russell however, developed the pioneer game, Spacewar – a multiplayer face-off game where players had to destroy each others’ spaceship to be the victor. At the time of its creation, computers were inconveniently huge, PC’s today would pale in comparison to its size. The PDP-1 mainframe computer was primarily used for workplace calculations, the game itself was merely designed to boost the potential of computing and programming.
Later that decade, in 1966 specifically, HP announced their first 16-bit minicomputer, so-called HP 2116A – it was 10 times faster than other machines of its time. This was still the first step to advancement.
The 1970s
The ’70s gave an equally promising potential for gaming, with the first-ever competitive Spacewar tournament, situated at the Stanford University. The tournament featured one-on-one battle gameplay: the victor moved up the ladder for the next round of the competition. While this may be seemingly trivial, it would soon become a catalyst for game competitions all around the world.
Pong was a tennis-style sports game that became an instant hit 2 weeks after its release in 1972. The game was primarily made for arcade machines and featured simple graphics and functionality. Each player operated a paddle that could only move up and down the screen. This manually controlled paddle was then used to hit a ball back to the other player, this rally continues until a player fails to return the ball and loses. The first to reach 11 points won the game.
Despite the simplicity of its mechanic, it was still entertaining at the time and received many sequels from Atari in the future.
In the late ’70s, text-based adventure games were released in masses, players interacted with the game using commands sent from the keyboard. Minicomputers made the development of these games possible, it was unique gameplay that introduced a new genre to the table.
Progress through the ’60s and ’70s moved at a slow pace, but a few hardware arrivals that came in the ’80s was about to change all that.
The 1980s
The first personal computer was introduced in the 80s. It was first known as the IBM Personal Computer, BYTE made feedback worth noting, stating it was an ‘excellent gaming device’ highlighting its speed and sophistication.
The 1990s
The ’90s gave us a whole cast of quality arrivals in both the hardware and gaming fields. Wolfenstein 3D got out in 1992 and sold a staggering 200,000 copies in just a year. It was considered the creator of the first-person shooter genre and laid the road for Doom which was released just 12 months later.
Doom was quickly hailed as the most influential first-person shooter game at the time. While the graphics of both Wolfenstein and Doom were still miles away from today’s standards, they were seen as bounds and leaps forward in technological advancement – especially when in comparison t early 70s games.
The 2000s
By the ’00s, gaming graphics and hardware were increasing (in complexity) at an exponential rate. PCs were in most households across America and gaming was becoming hugely popular across the face of the globe. By the end of 2000, Counter-Strike gets released by Valve and quickly becomes one of the most popular competitive first-person shooters of all time. It goes on to sell over 25 million copies worldwide and sparks a competitive gaming scene that was about to explode over the next 15 years.
Counter strike
A couple of years after the release of CS, Valve introduced the Steam platform to the world of gaming. It quickly becomes one of the most popular gaming platforms out there and offers thousands of games to its loyal following.
Alongside first-person shooter glory, the ’00s can also lay claim to one of the greatest MMORPG games ever made, World Of Warcraft. The game was released in 2004 and quickly climbed the global subscription ranking figures. By the end of the ’00s, World Of Warcraft had over 12 million subscriptions, becoming the most subscribed to MMORPG ever.
By this time, faster graphics accelerators and improving CPU technologies result in much higher levels of realism in computer games. Nvidia and RADEON both offer up high-performance graphics card options, allowing developers to increase the complexity of modern-day game engines.
The 2010s
After the 00s, gaming had become one of the globe’s biggest industries, snowballing to greater heights every year. At this point, AMD and Intel were rivals and tirelessly competed with each other, a similar story applies in the graphics industry: RADEON and Nvidia. Gaming has reached impressive levels of realism and has become a few paces away from today’s standards.
Unreal Engine 4 released after 11 years of persevering development, quickly claiming the throne as the pinnacle of 3D graphics capabilities.
By 2015, gaming had become widely competitive, leading GFINITY to open the first esports arena. A bunch of events are hosted throughout the entire year, covering a wide variety of games and hauling over 58 million viewers.
PUBG2
PLAYERUNKNOWN’s BATTLEGROUNDS took the end of the decade and sold a jaw-dropping 10 million copies, instantly taking a spot in the top 10 best-selling of all time.
Modern-Day Gaming
Genshin Impact takes the throne for having the most impressive gameplay this year. In the first six months of its release, it has already reached 1 billion in revenue: Genshin Impact reportedly makes 6 million dollars every day. It features a vast and fully explorable map, with a highly action-packed combat system, it’s considered to be the present-day pinnacle of MMORPG.
When we look back at all the milestones that the PC gaming industry has achieved year by year, you can’t help but be fascinated with the progress. With all these achievements laid out, PC gaming is undoubtedly the future of gaming.