Ruminations about Video Games

Between 1981 and 1983 hundreds of different themed video games became readily available. Living room game consoles were marketed in the 1970's but few people took particular notice or purchased consoles. General interest, demand and supply were modest. Solitary public coin-op video games were also available in the 1970's but not in all areas and the enthusiasm varied wildly, from regarding the game as a momentarily amusing technical novelty to making regular visits to a public video arcade game to play or watch others. Depending on the regional area, a video game might be ornamental and seldom played or perhaps small crowds might regularly gather around the video game. Although it is exciting that a video game player could use controls on the panel to reliably manipulate the onscreen graphics, the games had an inherent predictability and players generally remained in the role of a passive spectator. The obscurity of video games abruptly changed in 1980 as supply along with imagination and ingenuity of game themes expanded. More awareness and input was required and the video game player's role shifted from that of primarily monitoring the screens on-goings and applying input as needed to an engaged participant with sustained involvement. Most public video games were almost the size of refrigerators and wedged into the corners of corner stores or broom closets and small unused building spaces, discovered and accessed when store owners (sometimes renters) made holes in the walls of a broom closet turning them into passage ways to these under-utilized inter-wall cavities. It's surprising how many machines and people could fit into these areas. The game "Omega Race" had an advantage here as it's cabinet is unusually small and thus a better candidate for placement in small quarters. No promotion is needed for those with interest to find these games. Recognizing a reliable customer base, the occasional local entrepreneur would buy a small building in which to house a few dozen video games finding this to be a non-franchise independent and profitable enterprise harmonious with the local economic ecology. These impromptu venues had a different social atmosphere than that found about of game consoles in a living room. These social video gaming centers also provided a nice lightning rod for public derision on slow news days. Stories could be presented a manner to exaggerate the consequences of overindulgence of playing video arcade games and encourage viewer indignation. Console games could be costly and of limited supply. Getting the most favored console games was an arduous and overly competitive process. A person that could attain rare console games was regarded with sincere admiration. Before 1983 video games were typically kept behind a counter separate from other merchandise, cost 20 dollars or more and sold out swiftly. That is until 1983 when console video games became both easily available and affordable. However these games are inconsistent in their input response and of dubious playability. Before 1983 unintended behaviors(programing or coding oversights, sometimes referred to as bugs) were common to video games and celebrated, but it was also plain that a tremendous deal of thought was put into the programming of a video game. This combination of considerable thought along with welcoming some chaos in programming is probably what makes it an art form. It may be that in 1983 as video game manufacture became an established market, production pace superseded the craft of programming games.