The Devil Finds Work for Idle Hands

The Devil Finds Work for Idle Hands

What comes to mind when someone mentions video games? A lot of people will think of a waste of time or a device for creating lazy children. That very well may be in a lot of cases, but from a different point of view, video games have very important uses. Instead of creating lazy children, they eliminate boredom for them. We all know what types of activities children find when they are bored. There is also a huge job market in video games ranging from programming to sales. It seems they have something for everyone, and in my presentation I try to convey how the video game industry became the big dollar industry it is today.

The history really begins in 1889 when the Marufuku Company was established to manufacture and distribute Japanese playing cards. This may not seem relevant until 1951 when they change their name to Nintendo Playing Cards. Three years later, David Rosen, a US Korean War veteran, sees the popularity of coin-operated games on military bases and starts Service Games. SEGA is put on all the games using the first two letters of Service and Games.

In 1972, a computer programmer named Nolan Bushnell starts a video game company called Atari. Atari’s first game release is “Pong”, a very simple tennis game. Pong is a huge hit and sets up Atari for many arcade games to come. Bushnell decides to sell Atari to Warner Communications for $28 million in 1976. He remained chairman of the board. In 1977 Atari opens Pizza Time Theatre featuring robotic animals, electronic games, food, and a mascot by the name of Chuck E. Cheese. That same year Atari releases its first programmable game system, Atari 2600 for $249. 1977 seemed to be a great year for Atari, but still the very next year Bushnell leaves Atari to take over Pizza Time Theatre. Atari began to sell computers to compete with Apple that year, but everyone considered Atari as only a video game company.

Coleco releases the Colecovision in 1982. Nintendo, not doing well in the arcade market, licenses Donkey Kong among other games to Coleco. Colecovision’s main appeal was an adapter to play Atari 2600 games. To compete with Colecovision, Atari releases its Atari 5200. It does poorly mainly because it took years to have the Atari 2600 adapter that Colecovision had all along. The very next year the Commodore 64 comes out. It is the best video game system yet and acted more like a computer. Because of this sudden flood of game consoles and software, 3rd party companies couldn’t compete and went out of business. Their games became dirt cheap and soon people preferred to buy them than the expensive company’s games. This all lead to a rough market.

In 1985, Nintendo test-markets it’s Nintendo Entertainment System. It’s a huge hit and goes nationwide the very next year. Because of its popularity, Sega releases the Sega Master System and Atari releases the 7800 game console. No one is as popular as Nintendo and in 1988; Atari sues Nintendo for having a monopoly. Atari of course lose. The video game war rages on to this day with many companies joining wanting their piece of the market. Atari was a main treat until 1996 when they merged with JTS and never released a game console again. Sega put up a good fight until their Dreamcast bombed in 2000, causing them to discontinue it. Panasonic joined the race for a while, but couldn’t keep up.

Today the main competitors are Nintendo, Sony, and the newcomer, Microsoft. Love them or hate them, video games have a rich history teaching us lessons in business and technology.

The Devil Finds Work for Idle Hands

What comes to mind when someone mentions video games? A lot of people will think of a waste of time or a device for creating lazy children. That