I found this very useful, and easy to watch, as I'm not a big fan of reading the history of's.....Take a look!

History Of Games – Early days…

A brief introduction to the world of video games up to the 1990’s (because from then on, the games industry is quite well known, therefor not really having a need to explain):

The history of video games goes as far back as the 1940s, when in 1947 Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a United States patent request for an invention they described as a "cathode ray tube amusement device." Video gaming would not reach mainstream popularity until the 1970s and 1980s, when arcade video games, gaming consoles and home computer games were introduced to the general public. Since then, video gaming has become a popular form of entertainment and a part of modern culture in most parts of the world. There are currently considered to be eight generations of video game consoles, with the sixth, seventh and the eighth concurrently ongoing. (Wikipedia)

The first record of any game as such was on January 25, 1947, Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. and Estle Ray Mann filed a United States patent request for an invention they described as a "cathode ray tube amusement device". This patent, which was then issued by the United States Patent and Trademark  on December 14, 1948, details a machine in which a person uses knobs and buttons to manipulate a cathode ray tube beam to simulate firing at "air-borne" targets. A printed overlay on the CRT screen helps to define the playing field. This wasn’t really classed as a game, because in the late 40/50’s, home computers were very rare, purely for the fact that people didn’t know much about them, They were used as a working tool, more than I form of play, in my opinion. In this decade, most basic games were developed such as; Tic-Tac-Toe, Pong, Draughts and many other’s originating from the traditional board/family games people played at that era.

The second games movement came in the 1970’s with the introduction to arcade gaming. In September 1971, Galaxy Game was installed at a student union at Stanford University. Based on Spacewar, this was the first coin-operated video game unit. Only one was built, using a DEC PDP-11 and vector display terminals. In 1972 it was expanded to be able to handle four to eight consoles. Obviously at these early stages in the life of video games, you can easily see how the younger audience caught onto the idea of being able to play, without the need to exercise or having family/relations around. The key part to the 70’s being so influential was when Bushnell and Dabney founded Atari, Inc. in 1972, before releasing their next game: Pong. Pong was the first arcade video game with widespread success. The game is loosely based on table tennis: a ball is "served" from the center of the court and as the ball moves towards their side of the court each player must maneuver their paddle to hit the ball back to their opponent. Atari sold over 19,000 Pong machines, creating many imitators.

The first major hit of the 70’s was the release of the home 'console' system was developed by Ralph Baer and his associates. Development began in 1966 and a working prototype was completed by 1968 (called the "Brown Box") for demonstration to various potential licensees, including GE, Sylvania, RCA, Philco, and Sears, with Magnavox eventually licensing the technology to produce the world's first home video game console. The system was released in the USA in 1972 by Magnavox, called the Magnavox Odyssey. The Odyssey used cartridges that mainly consisted of jumpers that enabled/disabled various switches inside the unit, altering the circuit logic (as opposed to later video game systems that used programmable cartridges). This provided the ability to play several different games using the same system, along with plastic sheet overlays taped to the television that added color, play-fields, and various graphics to 'interact' with using the electronic images generated by the system. Philips bought Magnavox and released a different game in Europe using the Odyssey brand in 1974 and an evolved game that Magnavox had been developing for the US market. Over its production span, the Odyssey system achieved sales of 2 million units. This being the first generation console, was a huge stepping stone to achieve a global market for video games.

The Golden age of gaming arrived between (1978-86). The arcade game industry entered its golden age in 1978 with the release of Space Invaders by Taito, a success that inspired dozens of manufacturers to enter the market. The game inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants and convenience stores during the golden age. The game also became the subject of numerous articles and stories on television and in newspapers and magazines, establishing video gaming as a rapidly growing mainstream hobby. Space Invaders would go on to sell over 360,000 arcade cabinets worldwide, and by 1982, generate revenue of $2 billion in quarters, equivalent to $4.6 billion in 2011.  In 1979, Namco's Galaxian sold over 40,000 cabinets in the United States, and Atari released Asteroids which sold over 70,000 cabinets.

Soon many of these games—at first clones of mainframe classics such as Star Trek, and then later ports or clones of popular arcade games such as Space Invaders, Frogger, Pac-Man (see Pac-Man clones) and Donkey Kong —were being distributed through a variety of channels, such as printing the game’s source code in books (such as David Ahl’s BASIC Computer Games), magazines (Creative Computing), and newsletters, which allowed users to type in the code for themselves. Early game designers like Crowther, Daglow and Yob would find the computer code for their games—which they had never thought to copyright—published in books and magazines, with their names removed from the listings. Early home computers from Apple, Commodore, Tandy and others had many games that people typed in. (Wikipedia)

The computer gaming industry experienced its first major growing pains in the early 1980s as publishing houses appeared, with many honest businesses—occasionally surviving at least 20 years, such as Electronic Arts—alongside fly-by-night operations that cheated the games' developers. While some early 1980s games were simple clones of existing arcade titles, the relatively low publishing costs for personal computer games allowed for bold, unique games. (Wikipedia) However this called for a swift change in the way people perceived the way video games were to be recognised, by creating genres from them, such as; Action-Adventure games, Puzzle games, Beat ‘em up games, Hack and slash games, Sports games and many more styles. This introduction got the public interested, because the games industry at this point were trying to create a game to suit everybody’s need s and desires.

In 1885, the third generation of video games was welcomed into the world by Nintendo’s release of its 8-bit console, the Famicom, known outside Asia as Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was bundled with Super Mario Bros (A brilliant game for all ages, for example my brother’s still a massive fan at the old age of 28). This instantly became a success. The NES dominated the North American and the Japanese market until the rise of the next generation of consoles in the early 1990s. Other markets were not as heavily dominated, because of heavy competition from PC's like the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 preventing the NES having much success in Europe, or lack of marketing, allowing other consoles to find an audience like the Sega Master System in Australia and Brazil (though it was sold in North America as well).

In the new consoles, the gamepad or joypad took over joysticks, paddles, and keypads as the default game controller included with the system. The gamepad design of an 8 direction Directional-pad (or D-pad for short) with 2 or more action buttons became the standard. This generation also marked a shift in the dominance of home video games from the United States to Japan.

The Legend of Zelda series made its debut in 1986 with The Legend of Zelda. In the same year, the Dragon Quest series debuted with Dragon Quest, and has created a phenomenon in Japanese culture ever since. The next year, the Japanese company Square was struggling and Hironobu Sakaguchi decided to make his final game—a role-playing game (RPG) modeled after Dragon Quest and titled Final Fantasy—resulting in Final Fantasy series, which would later go on to become the most successful RPG franchise. 1987 also saw the birth of the stealth game genre with Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear series' first game Metal Gear on the MSX2 computer—and ported to the NES shortly after. In 1989, Capcom released Sweet Home on the NES, which served as a precursor to the survival horror genre. (Wikipedia)

In 1988, Nintendo published their first issue of Nintendo Power magazine, which is being sold at a fast rate to this day. Unfortunately this generation ended with the discontinuation of the NES in 1995.

 

 

 

About me...

About me and what I intend to achieve from the course:

My name is Elliot and I’m currently undertaking my first steps in Game Art design at De Montfort University. I am one of “local lads” on the course being born in Leicester, and currently living at home in the Pork Pie capital, Melton Mowbray.

The reason I have chosen to come to De Montfort University to study Game Art is that I’ve got a real love for games and the industry behind them, as well as a huge passion for creating artwork. Both assets are stated in the course, so why wouldn’t I come here. I’ve also noticed over the past year or so, with the help of research into the game art world, I have seen games in a way most people don’t see or don’t care about to be honest, and that’s how their made, how long did it take the designers, what software do they use and how’d they come up with all these concepts? Those are the questions I can begin to try to answer over the years to come.

I have two major hobbies, apart from creating art and obviously playing games. The first one is football, which is weird for a creative person, because I don’t know many artists who like or play sport. I’m a massive Middlesbrough fan, don’t ask why! Because frankly, I don’t know, I think it’s mainly to blame for picking a team when you’re younger, who were then in the premiership, who weren’t Man United, Chelsea or Arsenal etc. So I’ve stuck with them over the past 6 to 7 years now, even though the matches are different, travelling to places like Barnsley compared to Old Trafford or the Emirates Stadium. My other hobby is playing the drums. I’ve been playing the drums for about the same amount of time, stated above; I’m now studying for my grade 8 exam, which should be around Christmas time, I really enjoy music in general, it’s also a creative art, so It ties in well with a creative course and way of life. Lastly, I forgot to mention, I’m a big metal head, I listen to anything that you can’t understand the lyrics to really, I just think most of these type of bands shout/scream about things ranging from personal problems to challenging the perception of society, I think it’s actually a clever genre of music, so I’d say never judge a book by its cover when it comes to the heavier side of music.

My past experiences with art started at an early stage in my life, through last years of primary school, I discovered that I was better at drawing than most people, which became the nudge I needed to follow down the path of becoming an artist of some sort. Most recent education has been Graphic Design and Media Studies at A-level and a Foundation year in Art and Design which have all given different approaches into the world of art. Firstly studying graphics was a major role in wanting to study Game Art Design. The graphics I studied wasn’t very digital based at all; it was more of a fine art course. My big project was all about comic books and how the style of art (Film Noir) was portrayed compared to modern techniques. My exam project, on the other hand, involved the creation of a new CD album cover/art to one of my favourite bands (Parkway Drive – Metal band from Australia); this project did contain a lot more photography and Photoshop/digital technique work than I was comfortable with, therefor coming out with only a C at the end of the course. My Foundation year was one of the best years of my life, in terms of social events, and more importantly finding my feet and my own unique style of drawing, with the addition of discovering a real passion for pen work. The start of the course was a shock to the system with the introduction of observational drawing and especially LIFE DRAWING! Both assets were daunting at first, but with everything in the art industry, it became easier by putting a lot of hard work, hours, dedication and patience into it. There were set tasks probably about every other week, which was a mixture life drawing, observational, and own personal briefs, involving skills we’d learnt over the weeks/months. The most interesting thing was to be free to do whatever….well okay not that free, but to be able to create briefs with personality and passion in them, compared to structured assignments such as the nature of A-levels. The grade I came out of the foundation year with was a high merit, which I expected to get. That mark, although didn’t compare to getting a distinction for example, was still a well accredited grade. The project I did for the end of year show was to create landscape images in a mixture of pen work and acrylic, which were taken from observation, but matched the writing of the book “Elidor – By Alan Garner” as closely as possible. A lot of interest occurred at the show from students’ parents and other teacher’s etc., commenting on my pieces and saying things such as; “The atmosphere he has is very dark, the lighting brings a sense of belief within the picture and a landscape like that would be well suited in the games industry” or something along those lines, its hard remembering the exact words. But that definitely set me up for continuing my development into becoming a Game Artist at DMU, hopefully, for the next three/four years.

I think my dream job would to become an artist of any sort within a games company such as Bethesda or 2K. For example, 2K has had major success with the game “Bioshock” as well as “Bioshock 2”. This has to be one of my all-time games I’ve played, I just love it, everything from being set in an under-water city, situated in the art deco period, which can be visually seen everywhere you go, to the interaction of characters and weapons and trail of destruction you can leave behind. I think the game story line is brilliant on both games, because in the second one, you swap your role from being an inferior plane crash survivor to becoming one of the most prominent bad-ass characters there is in the game, the BIG DADDY! 2K have really inspired me to work for them, especially now they have that experience of creating such visually pleasing and enjoyable, yet changeling games.

At the moment, there is a vacancy at Irrational Games who are owned by 2K, for an environment artist, however there is a huge list of duties which any applicant must have before even applying, here are the details:

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Have an understanding of and ability to create meaningful combat/tactical spaces and elevation changes that obey a proper architectural hierarchy.
• Take a level from the initial brief to a compositionally pleasing white-box state complete with design requirements in mind (i.e., elevation changes, miscellaneous gameplay/narrative beats, tactical/combat space, etc.).
• Work with atmosphere and lighting to enhance mood and create visual depth.
• Work with environment modelers to create the required building sets, props, etc., to take a level from white box to completion.
• Gather references applicable to your specific level/time period.
• Ability to create compositionally pleasing spaces/moments as the player travels from zone to zone.
• Ability to work and contribute effectively in a team environment.
• Collaborate with the Art Director to lead the creation of consistent, high-quality work.
• Meet project deadlines and milestones.

REQUIREMENTS

• 3-5 years of experience with UE3 editor.
• Ability to work cleanly and efficiently when constructing your level.
• Outstanding communication skills.
• Ability to work within technical constraints and generate top-quality art.
• Clear understanding and implementation of technical guidelines and constraints.
• Ability to effectively collaborate with other departments.

I think that this dream job of mine, isn’t too far out of reach for me, yes okay it is now, but after graduating with a good mark, this is something I’d consider, especially it being in America, that might help swing me into that direction. But overall I will try my very hardest to achieve to work at these requirements or higher by the end of the course. The skills I will learn over the next three or even four years will be vital to achieving anything close to this job role, I hope to develop basic awareness of tone, light and dark, have a good grasp of digital work as well as a great understanding of the software 3D Max. If I succeed with all these assets under my belt, not being too vain, but I should land myself a dream role within the games industry with not too much hassle.

I’m just very excited about learning, developing my skills and knowledge and building up an industry standard portfolio and maybe even a substantial list of contacts in game art/production. I’ve waited a long time for this chance to come along, so there’s no way I’m missing this chance to become who I want to be.