Tetris
First released in 1984, the game Tetris was a mile stone in video gaming. The brain child of Alexey Pajitnov, Tetris has gone on to break into the public’s eye and remain popular even to this day. But what is it about this seemingly simple game that makes it so appealing and such a pop hit. The key to Tetris’ success is in its simplicity, it is easy to pick up, is very addicting, and has a sense of nostalgia after all these years.
The low entrance level in terms of difficulty, its addictive gameplay, and its overall familiarity have kept Tetris popular over the years. The many spin-offs and replicas have also helped to keep the game fresh giving updated adaptations for a newer generation. With all of this Tetris has truly weathered the ages and has fortified itself as a timeless masterpiece.
Pokemon
At the end of the 1990’s a craze known as Pokemon swept the United States, but where did it come from and how did it manage to make its way into the houses of America’s youth? Beginning as a game for the new and cool gaming system the Gameboy, Pokemon thrived on the inner need for perfection and collecting. With the addition of a card game and a TV series, Pokemon was able to grow in popularity from its expanse throughout mediums.
From the seed planted by its game in 1998 and up through and 770+ (and counting) episode TV series Pokemon has managed to remain in pop culture. With its compulsion to “collect ‘em all” and the gratification of raising a strong and well-balanced team in the game, Pokemon managed to capture the imaginations of kids across the school playground. Through this, Pokémon was able to sweep across this country and become an unprecedented success.
Id software
In the early 90’s John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall, and Adrian Carmack came together to form id Software, a gaming company that would forever change the landscape of gaming. Until this point, computer games had always been second behind games for consoles like Nintendo, but through hard work and creativity id software began to pave the way for computer gaming. With the development of game engines and 3D graphics id software was able to change the state of computer gaming forever.
With these implementations of game engines and a shift to the 3rd dimension in graphics id was able to change the way computer games were done. With these changes we began to see other companies begin to follow in id’s footsteps creating similarly impressing games. In this way id was able to set a new standard in gaming which even to this day they continue to push.
If your interested here's a cool documentary of sorts on id Software I thought you might find interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YreEwtV7D0 there are multiple parts, so it ends up being fairly long, but since you have expressed an interest in the technologies used in video gaming I thought you might enjoy some of the history of these technologies.
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