Video Games History

Engineers at a New Hampshire based defense contractor, Sanders Associates, developed the first video game. It was created by Ralph Baer who was the manager of equipment design at Sanders Associates. In August 1966 when he came up with the idea of making a game for a television set. In 1967 employee Bill Rusch, assigned to the project, proposed a new game in which the hardwired logic circuit projected a spot flying across the screen. Originally the object of the game was for players to catch the spot with manually controlled dots. Over time, the players' dots evolved into paddles and the game became ping pong. Baer tried to find a buyer for his invention but had trouble finding interested parties. Finally in 1971 he struck a deal with
They invest heavily in technology, developmental tools, and research and development in order to create new and exciting games for consumers. They are expanding their operations to include multiple consoles in multiple countries and in multiple languages. "In the course of creating a number of its games, EA acquired intellectual property and other licensed content from sports leagues, player associations, performing artists, movie studios, music studios, and book authors. In doing this they established themselves as the leader in sports games. The reason why is because now they are the only game maker that can use the names of these professional athletes. Who is going to buy a sports game that isn't like real life? The answer is no one. They also are very specific in the games that they produce. They stay away from games with violence, crime, sex, and profanity. They strive to make video games that the company can be proud of. Along with re-releasing their sports games annually they also released "expansion packs" to provide additional characters, new storylines, settings, and missions. There marketing efforts are always about promoting the Electronic Arts brand of sports games. Just about 70% of their revenue comes from the re-releasing of existing games. Electronic Arts prefers to think of themselves as "a sports company that makes games as opposed to a game company that makes sports games. EA Sports is as much a culture as it is a product" (Thompson & Gamble, 2006, pg.320). EA has titles covering almost every major team and individual sport resulting in the domination of the