Art Direction: What inspires me?

What is Art Direction?

Taking a small break from looking at easter eggs and cheat codes I would like to take this opportunity to quickly put up this post. As part of our critical studies module we were asked to do a presentation on art direction and outline what personally inspires us as artists. I don't have a strong art background so this was particularly hard at first. To start off the task I had to understand what exactly art direction is.

Art direction is just what it says on the tin - direction of art. It is the process of making art as beautiful, meaningful and rich as possible. It starts off with taking an idea and then visually taking this idea to another level. For most art this means looking at perspective, colour, composition and other elements that make up the piece.

The Beauty of Nature
After I established the meaning of art direction I then sat down to think of something that inspires me so that I would have an example to talk about and although it took me a long time I finally managed to find out why I was struggling with this so much. The answer is that everything inspires me! After spending hours looking through different mediums of art and not being able to decide on a particular topic I noticed that everything is interesting in its own unique way. Finally I decided to just pick something that stands out for me personally - Nature.

Nature constantly surrounds us and from an early age on-wards we are being inspired by it. Many great designs are influenced by nature itself and that's why I like it so much. The shapes and colours of our natural surroundings can be astonishingly beautiful and interesting. I decided to look at a particular photographer who is able to capture nature's beauty perfectly in form of photographs. His name is George Saad and his work can be found here: http://lowapproach.deviantart.com/

For the purpose of my presentation I picked out a particular image which stood out from the rest to me because of the use of composition, lightning and colour. It can be found here: http://lowapproach.deviantart.com/art/Tree-Of-Light-48680409

Composition
Looking at the composition within the photograph it is quite obvious that the main focus of the image is in the middle of the picture. George Saad made this clear by using the tree in the foreground as well as the sun behind it and placing them both into the centre of the picture. Using the rule of thirds you can also see that the horizon line perfectly lines up with the lower third of the picture, while the sun marks the line between the top two thirds.




Colour
While the picture isn't particularly vivid in colour it does have a nice range of tones, ranging from near complete black to a very bright yellowish colour. This is most noticeable in the sky, which has a nice gradient. There also seems to be a bit of a glow around the trees, which gives the image a beautiful touch and adds a bit of depth. The trees themselves are nearly completely black and almost look like simple silhouettes, which is caused by the camera looking directly into the sun.




Lightning
The photograph was taken either during the early morning or late evening. The low sun creates long, smooth shadows that cover almost all of the floor. As I mentioned before the trees seem to have a glow around them, which might also be caused by this. I personally really like the mood that the lightning brings to this picture.




Conclusion
All in all I think that the picture is quite beautiful and George Saad has done a good job in portraying the whole feel that this kind of scene would bring to the viewer. He has achieved this by using art direction and carefully considering each the components of the image itself. If you have some spare time I can only recommend checking out his other photographs!

In my next post I will go back to looking at easter eggs and cheat codes and until then, stay tuned!~

Easter Eggs and Cheat Codes - Draft 1: The Beginning

Planning Phase
As I have previously announced I will be taking a look at the history of video game easter eggs and cheat codes. I first came up with the idea for this topic when we were presented with a task to write a blog post about a topic of our choice within the video game history. I started off researching through several books and creating a mind map to list potential topics. Here is what I got down to:

• The Golden Age of Arcade Video Games
• The Rise and Fall of Atari
• The Console War (Bit Wars)
• Violence in Video Games
• Nolan Bushnell and Chuck E. Cheese
• Easter Eggs and Cheat Codes

I then tried to come up with specific questions that I could cover for each topic and eventually made my decision. To research my chosen topic I decided to start at the most obvious place to search: The internet. Each part of my topic (Easter eggs and Cheat codes) have got a separate Wikipedia article so that was a good start, but obviously I couldn't leave it at that so I decided to dig further.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_egg_(media)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheating_in_video_games

Starting with easter eggs I then had a thought about the questions I came up with earlier. My main goal of this post would be to start of explaining what easter eggs actually are and then talking about the history behind them and possibly even as far as their purpose.

http://www.computerhope.com/eggs.htm

http://www.surfnetkids.com/tech/471/what-is-a-virtual-easter-egg/

http://gizmodo.com/5900026/a-brief-history-of-easter-eggs-in-tech/

http://www.themarysue.com/the-origin-of-easter-eggs/

http://www.surfnetkids.com/tech/475/the-purpose-of-easter-eggs/

Next up I did the same for cheat codes. Again I wanted to start off by giving a brief definition and then looking at the history as well as their purpose. While I was researching I came across other interesting things that I could talk about as well, such as the greatest and most useless cheats in video game history or why people use cheats.

http://www.gamesradar.com/a-brief-history-of-cheats/

http://www.trueachievements.com/n12234/the-history-of-cheating-from-god-mode-to-tilting.htm

http://www.complex.com/video-games/2011/11/the-10-greatest-cheat-codes-in-gaming-history/

http://www.toplessrobot.com/2013/10/the_eight_most_worthless_cheats_in_video_game_hist.php

http://vgstrategies.about.com/od/basicgamingtipstricks/a/whyusecheats.htm

First Draft
So what actually are easter eggs? Easter eggs are inside jokes or hidden messages that can be found in many different mediums, including video games. Within video games they might appear as references to other games or funny things that seem out of place of the actual game and they are usually put into the game by developers to show some form of credit to themselves.

One of the first known easter eggs can be found in the game Adventure for the Atari 2600. This easter egg was put into the game by the developer Warren Robinett and simply displayed the words "Created by Warren Robinett". The reason the developer put this easter egg into his game was because Atari didn't normally credit game designers in the video games themselves. This trend continued on throughout the years and many designers put in their names as hidden messages to credit themselves. As easter eggs developed onwards they went from being simple hidden words to actual pictures of the developers and even to hidden mini games.

So the question that comes up is 'Why do developers hide these easter eggs within their software?' As I mentioned above it all started as a way of crediting themselves, but other reasons may include a way to add a personal touch to their work or just to express their sense of humor. While easter eggs are not harmful in any way, most companies disapprove of developers putting those hidden secrets into their software, which is another reason why it sometimes can be hard to find them.

But how do you actually find easter eggs? While sometimes all you need is a well-trained eye to spot them, most easter eggs can only be accessed by doing a combination of tasks, such as pressing buttons in a certain order or typing in codewords. It is hard to find out those combinations yourself, but players sometimes stumble across them by accident and then share their findings with fellow players.

Similar to easter eggs, cheat codes are hidden within video games and can be activated by typing in codewords or pushing a combination of buttons. Cheat codes started off as ways for game developers to quickly access certain parts of the game for testing purposes and were left in the game after the release, sometimes on purpose and sometimes by accident. However throughout the years it became more common to leave cheat codes in a game because not everyone had enough time to play through hard parts within games over and over again until they finally managed to beat it. Sometimes cheat codes are even used to entertain the player or give the game replay value, for example cheat codes that change around body proportions, which is useless but entertaining to watch nonetheless.

While using cheat codes can ruin the experience of a game, they are a valuable tool and since most of the time they are hidden within the game itself players often don't even know of their existence until they have finished playing the game or get stuck and end up being frustrated enough to find ways to carry on playing the game with the help of cheats.

History of Video Games Part 3: 2000s - Present

The Three Giants
This is the last part in the series and it will cover the recent generations of video games. I left of just after the turn of the millennium and we are now in the 2000s. Sega has been outsold and left the video game console market to the last 3 major companies: Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft.

While both Sony and Microsoft were aiming at the same audience with their consoles, Nintendo was taking a different approach and continued to focus mainly on family friendly games. In late 2005 Nintendo took innovative gaming to the next step by releasing the Nintendo Wii which featured motion controls. At the same time Sony and Microsoft were focusing more on hardcore gaming and released their consoles, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. While all 3 consoles standardized online gaming, the feature was more prominent on the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. Both of these consoles also offered to run on HDTVs for the first time in video game history.

Nintendo Wii
(source: wikipedia.org)

PlayStation 3
(source: wikipedia.org)

Xbox 360
(source: wikipedia.org)

Although both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 were much more capable consoles, the Nintendo Wii managed to rank up the majority of sales due to a cheaper price as well as innovative controls and exclusive games. Following up from Nintendo's success, Sony and Microsoft started working on their own set of motion controls and 5 years later released the PlayStation Move and Kinect, which both also proved to be a success.

PlayStation Move
(source: wikipedia.org)

Kinect
(source: wikipedia.org)

Mobile Gaming
Meanwhile, the handheld consoles were catching up with technology as well. While the 90s were being dominated by Nintendo's Game Boy Advance, Sony decided to join the handheld console market and released the PlayStation Portable (PSP) which was the main competitor for Nintendo's DS (DualScreen). Both handhelds were popular with consumers and at the same time we saw another market rise up.

Nintendo DS
(source: wikipedia.org)

Sony PSP
(source: wikipedia.org)

With the continues development on mobile phones and the standardization of smart phones, video games became increasingly popular on those devices, with Apple running their AppStore on iPhones and Google running the Google Play Store on Android Devices. Popular mobile games included Angry Birds (2009), Fruit Ninja (2010) and Temple Run (2011).

Angry Birds Icon
(source: wikipedia.org)

Current Generation
The current generation of video game consoles started with Nintendo's release of the 3DS in 2011 which features an inbuilt Autostereoscopic 3D screen as well as faster hardware than the previous DS. This was followed up by Sony releasing their PlayStation Vita which is an upgraded version of their previously released PlayStation Portable.

PS Vita
(source: wikipedia.org)

Nintendo 3DS
(source: wikipedia.org)

A year later in 2012, Nintendo released their next generation console, the Wii U, which besides being an upgraded Wii also features a new gamepad, which is incorporating a touchscreen; a trait from increasingly popular tablet devices. Sony and Microsoft quickly joined in and released the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One a year later. Both consoles are using newest technology to enable them to run high-end games.

Wii U
(source: wikipedia.org)

PlayStation 4
(source: wikipedia.org)

Xbox One
(source: wikipedia.org)

The Future of Gaming (and References)
As with the current generation of consoles, it seems to me that the future of gaming moves more and more towards online compatibility. While online gaming has been around for more than a decade now, buying downloadable games is becoming increasingly popular, as well as the ability to record gameplay and share it with friends on social media websites. We can also see a rise in innovative controls with touch controls currently dominating the market and virtual reality slowly being developed.

Now that I have finished my series on the history of video games I will go back to my planned post about Easter Eggs and Cheat Codes that I have managed to postpone for so long. Until then, stay tuned~

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WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Temple Run. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_Run [Accessed 04/2014]

WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Seventh generation of video game consoles. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_generation_of_video_games_consoles [Accessed 04/2014]
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WIKIPEDIA. (2014) PlayStation Move. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Move [Accessed 04/2014]
WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Kinect. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinect [Accessed 04/2014]
WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Wii U GamePad. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_U_GamePad [Accessed 04/2014]

History of Video Games Part 2: 1980s - 1990s

The Story Must Go On!
Continuing on from where I left off, I would now like to take us further through the history of video games. With the industry just taking shape and the fathers of video games developing on their ideas, we now see a massive release of home gaming consoles; and this is where we start the second part of our adventure!

Donkey Kong Arcade
(source: wikipedia.org)

The Golden Age
It is the year 1981. Video games are increasingly gaining more and more publicity in the United States and this leads us into what is known as "The Golden Age". Since most video games were available in arcades and people increasingly got interested in spending time playing them, a large quantity of people spent hundreds of quarters to play. This quickly brought the video game industry to its peak with profits nearly twice as much as the movie industry, and three times as much as major league baseball, basketball and football.

While the arcades were booming with success from games such as Space Invaders and Donkey Kong, some companies decided to turn to people's homes and further bring the gaming experience into the living room by continuing their development on game consoles. One of the major companies was Atari. While many other companies released pong type Atari went a step further and introduced game cartridges together with their game console, which would enable developers to make different kind of games running on the same hardware. The Atari 2600 (or originally Atari VCS) was released in 1977 and with the help of continuous game development as well as ports of popular arcade games such as Space Invaders it became a massive success.

Atari 2600
(source: wikipedia.org)

Video Game Crash of 1983
Following Atari's success, many other companies decided to bring out their own game consoles with game cartridges. While Atari decided to follow up and release a better console in 1982 (the Atari 5200), the year also saw the release of Atari's main competitor: The ColecoVision. While the Atari 5200 had an arguably better hardware, the ColecoVision was more successful due to it's bundled in, licensed copy of Nintendo's popular arcade title Donkey Kong. Throughout 1982, the gaming market was flooded by enthusiastic companies hoping to release consoles and games and follow in to Atari's and Coleco's success. This in return urged Atari to fight its competitors by releasing major game titles for their system.

Atari 5200
(source: wikipedia.org)

ColecoVision
(source: wikipedia.org)

The first attempt at this was in made in early 1982 by Atari's port of Pac-Man. Atari was so confident that their game would be a hit, that they manufactured two million copies more than they had consoles sold, in hope that people would buy the console just to play the game. However, while the game sold seven million copies, it was badly programmed and many people were disappointed by it and asked for a refund. In their last attempt to get out of the hole, Atari licensed Spielberg's E.T, feeling confident that it could be a huge bestseller, however due to unrealistic development time the game again failed to impress and didn't sell, leaving the majority of E.T. cartridges in dead inventory.

E.T. Video Game
(source: wikipedia.org)

As 1983 slowly approached, many consumers had begun to lose interest in video arcades and stopped purchasing video games, which lead the industry into a black hole. Atari was left with enormous inventories of worthless game cartridges and with no hope of selling them, dumped millions of cartridges in a landfill in the New Mexico desert. By 1985 the golden age was truly over and video games started to completely disappear within the United States.

Console Wars
Over in Japan the video game market was far from over. With the rise of Nintendo and the release of their first console, the NES (or originally Famicom), they managed to conquer the market. Being a huge success, Nintendo decided to release their console in the United States in 1985, two years after the original launch in Japan. With many retailers scared of selling the NES due to the recent crash, Nintendo decided to offer retailers a risky offer: a money-back guarantee. Knowing that it would be hard to get the NES to sell, Nintendo only shipped over a small amount of units of the console and decided to only sell it in shops throughout the New York area.

Nintendo Entertainment System
(source: wikipedia.org)

The NES wasn't a smash hit, however it managed to sell 50,000 units, nearly half of the systems that shipped over from Japan. This was enough to prove that video games were not dead and resulted in Nintendo expanding their sales into Los Angeles. While the system only sold moderately well in both cities, the majority of retailers decided to continue carrying it which Nintendo saw as a sign of future success and expanded their sales to include Chicago and San Francisco.

Meanwhile back in Japan a new competitor has decided to enter the market. The Sega Master System was more powerful than the NES, however it didn't manage to market as well within Japan, where Nintendo controlled more than 90 percent of the market. Therefore Sega decided to sell their game console in the United States a year later. While it was not as highly distributed as the NES, the Master System was sold by retailers in most major cities in time for the holidays.

Sega Master System
(source: wikipedia.org)

The NES sold more than the Master System in the United States due to Nintendo's console not only being cheaper, but also offering a range of highly popular arcade games, such as Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong. The Master System was shipped with a port of the arcade game Hang On, however very few people ever seemed aware of the cartridge itself and rather asked for "the video game system that plays that Mario game".

Super Mario Bros. Cartridge
(source: mobygames.com)

While Sega's sales were not as high as Nintendo's, they were good enough for the company to expand into Europe and South America, which proved to be a good decision with the Master System selling more than the NES within those regions. Both companies continued to grow and a few major game titles got released throughout the 80s, such as The Legend of Zelda, Myke Tyson's Punch-Out and Metroid.

The Legend of Zelda Cartridge
(source: mobygames.com)

New Hardware (Console Wars Part 2)
By the end of the 80s Sega finally decided that it was time to release newer and better hardware to attempt to take over the market from Nintendo. They released the Mega Drive in 1988 in Japan and a year later in the United States under the name Genesis. At the same time Nintendo decided to take a step in a different direction and released the first portable gaming console, the Game Boy, in 1989. Both competitors responded to the releases and in 1990 Sega released its own portable gaming console, the Game Gear, while Nintendo released the Super NES (or Super Famicom).

Sega Mega Drive
(source: wikipedia.org)

Super Nintendo Entertainment System
(source: wikipadia.org)

In 1991 Sega started a marketing campaign around their new mascot, Sonic The Hedgehog, which quickly ranked up the sales for the Genesis and made it a true competitor for Nintendo who was not as successful with their Super NES as they were with the NES.

Continuing on their competition and going with advancement of technology, both Sega and Nintendo once again decided to upgrade their gaming consoles a few years later, but they were not alone. After Sega released their new console, the Sega Saturn in 1994, it was quickly joined by Sony, who successfully launched their first gaming console, the PlayStation, which was the result of a failed co-operation between Nintendo and Sony to bring out a CD-based video game system. It was a big hit and Nintendo disappeared for two years before releasing the Nintendo 64 in 1996.

Sega Saturn
(source: wikipedia.org)

Sony PlayStation
(source: wikipedia,org)

Nintendo 64
(source: wikipedia.org)

Both Nintendo and Sony were more successful and Sega began losing market share rapidly in late 1996, which pushed them to release their next and final console in 1998, the Dreamcast, which for the first time enabled online gaming by using a built-in modem, however by the turn of the century both Sony and Nintendo released their next generation consoles, the PlayStation 2 and GameCube, which both also featured online gaming through the help of adapters. Nintendo and Sony managed to outsell Sega, however they were joined by another competitor in 2001 with Microsoft releasing their Xbox, which finally managed to popularise online gaming and set standards for future consoles to come.

Sega Dreamcast
(source: wikipedia.org)

Sony PlayStation 2
(source: wikipedia.org)

Nintendo GameCube
(source: wikipedia.org)

Microsoft Xbox
(source: wikipedia.org)

End of Part 2 (PC and References)
While the console market was increasing in popularity throughout the 90s, at the same time PCs were becoming more and more popular and soon proved to be a competitor to gaming consoles. Many PC games changed the face of video games and inspired future games, for example Populous, which set standards for most strategy games released within the 90s, including Command & Conquer. The Monkey Island series popularized the point-and-click adventure genre and first-person shooters such as Doom, Quake and Half-Life were big hits with many gamers.

In the next part I will round up the history by talking about game consoles of the new century as well as the current generation. Apologies that this post dragged on so much, I will try to keep it shorter next time, but until then: Stay tuned!~

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MARK LANGSHAW. (2013) Atari retrospective: The rise and fall of a gaming giant. [Online] Digital Spy. Available from: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/news/a453849/atari-retrospective-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-gaming-giant.html#~oCCphaNhLs3ovi [Accessed 04/2014].
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WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Atari 2600. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600 [Accessed 04/2014].
WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Atari 5200. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_5200
WIKIPEDIA. (2014) ColecoVision. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ColecoVision [Accessed 04/2014].
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WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Sega Genesis. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis [Accessed 04/2014].
WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Super Nintendo Entertainment System. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System [Accessed 04/2014].
WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Sega Saturn. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn [Accessed 04/2014].
WIKIPEDIA. (2014) PlayStation (console). [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_(console) [Accessed 04/2014].
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History of Video Games: 1800s - 1970s

Time for an update!
First of all apologies for the massive delay in my planned blog post about cheat codes and easter eggs and the delay on this post right here. We have had 2 intensive weeks at university and I got caught up in my work after that, so I didn't have much time left to write on my blog. However, the post is definitely coming along, yet first of all I'd like to give you an insight into the history of video games themselves. So without further ado let's start off right at the beginning. Let's take a trip back into the past and look at how computers developed over time and how video games came into existence!

Technology?

Jacquard Loom 'Punch Cards'
(source: wikipedia.org)

Welcome to the 19th century! The French Revolution has just passed and we find ourselves under the imperial rule of Napoleon, who just rose to power over the First French Empire. It is 1804 and we are in Paris. Joseph Marie Jacquard, who was born into a family of silk-weavers is presenting his invention of the Jacquard Loom. This revolutionary loom uses a series of punch cards to simplify the process of creating textiles with complex patterns.

While this invention not only helped the textile industry, it also helped the advance in technology. It is the first time that a machine was able to follow algorithms with the use of punch cards, which later on turned out to be the standard in computing technology. Jacquard was awarded with a medal and patent for his invention, however the French government then claimed for it to be public property.

Complex Calculations
Following up from the Jacquard Loom we are now moving forward a few decades and are now in Britain. Charles Babbage, a British mathematician had the idea to create a machine which would allow people with no skill in mathematics to do arithmetic calculations. After coming up with plans of creating his 'Difference Engine' he quickly earned himself a sponsorship from the government and was working with the engineer Joseph Clement to construct his machine using a highly complex system of toothed wheels, however by 1833 the costs of his project had
come to £17,000, which is the equivalent to the costs of two battleships in that period and eventually forced the government to cancel the project all together.

London Science Museum's
Difference Engine.
Built from Babbage's design.
(source: wikipedia.org)

While Babbage never managed to build the Difference Engine he also had plans to construct an ever more complex machine which he named the Analytical Engine. This would be a step up from his original design and would be able to perform even more arithmetic calculations. It was to have 50,000 geared wheels, however due to the reason that it was so complex that it was impossible to even be drawn using the existing skills of mechanical drawing it was practically impossible for the machine to be built at this time. Conceptually speaking though the machine was possible thanks to Jacquard's idea of using punch cards. Later on this idea was then put into practice by the company that became IBM.





Digitalizing The Computer
A hundred years have passed and while technology advanced more and more we find ourselves in Germany just before the second world war. In 1936 Konrad Zuse gave up his job as a design engineer to fully commit his time into developing and building a computer. His main idea was to use binary instead of decimal calculating units and by 1938 he had come up with his first prototype, the Zuse Z1. It ran using the planned binary system and included some impressing features, such as having a memory as well as something vaguely equivalent to a central processor. On top of that it was using a keyboard to input the numbers.

Z4 on display at the
Deutsches Museum, Munich.
(source: wikipedia.org)

Following up from his success he then developed further and soon after created the Z2. While still having everything that made the Z1 successful he decided to replace the mechanical switches with electro-magnetic relays, which made it easier to use. He also introduced a system similar to that of the punch cards that the Jacquard Loom was using. As time went on Zuse continued to work on his invention and eventually made the Z3 and Z4. Unfortunately most of his machines were burned down in a fire in Berlin in 1944, however Zuse managed to save his Z4, which up to date is known as the world's first digital computer.


Simultaneously on the other side of the Atlantic, Howard H. Aiken had the same idea as many similar inventors and was planning to create a machine that would be able to take away the time and effort needed to perform endless calculations. He got his idea from looking at Babbage's Analytical Engine and realized that with modern technology he would be able to actually create it, however he didn't have the required fund for such a project. In 1936, IBM was already a highly successful company and so Aiken decided to turn to them to receive the necessary resources to create his computer. He contacted one of IBM's most respected employees, James Bryce, who immediately saw the force of Aiken's idea and spoke to his boss about it who made an on the spot decision to hand out a million dollars to Aiken's development.

Harvard Mark I
(source: kids.britannica.com)

Development went on for several years and Aiken decided to stick to a digital rather than an analogue computer. In 1943 the Harvard Mark I was finally born and with a massive size of 55 feet in length and 8 feet in height it was one of the biggest computers to be built. It contained not much less than a million individual components and it was clear that there would never be another machine just like it.

And then... Video Games!

A recreation of the original Tennis
for Two constructed for the 50th
anniversary of the game's first appearance.
(source: bnl.gov)

One and a half decades later we find ourselves once again in the U.S. William Higinbotham was working as a physicist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. He noticed that most of the science exhibits were static and non-interactive and he decided to create something that would be more entertaining for visitors. While Higinbotham was reading through the instruction manual for the Donner Model 30 analog computer, he noticed that among the examples given in the book were the trajectories of a bouncing ball, which gave him the idea to create a tennis game and thus Tennis for Two was born.

Higinbotham used several computers to run his game and it was highly popular with visitors. What he couldn't possibly have dreamed of was that he just laid the foundation for an entire industry, which in less than fifty years would be worth more than $9.5 billion in the U.S. alone.


The Fathers of the Industry

Spacewar on PDP-1
(source: wikipedia.org)

Finally we are making a stop in the early 60s. At MIT, Steve Russell was working with the newly invented PDP-1 to create an interactive game. After several months of work he finally completed the first version of his game, which he named Spacewar. While Russell had no way of making money with his invention he purely did it to show that it was possible.

A few years later in 1967, Ralph Baer was working together with a team of engineers to create games which could be played on a TV. While the company he worked for was slowly starting to fall apart, Baer looked for alternative companies who would invest in his concept and eventually found Magnavox, which immediately saw the potential in his idea. Baer then signed the contract in 1971 before the Magnavox Odyssey was released in 1972.

Magnavox Odyssey
(source: magnavox-odyssey.com)

Atari Pong
(source: wikipedia.org)

While both Russell and Bear were forgotten fathers of the industry, in 1972 another machine was about to change the way America played games: Atari Pong! Nolan Bushnell created Atari after failing to create a coin-operated version of Spacewar. Originally Bushnell assigned his employee with an exercise to create a simple ping-pong game to get him familiar with the process of making games, however due to being surprised by the features his employee added to the game Bushnell soon decided to make the exercise Atari's flagship product.

Soon after Pong started gaining attention from its success, Magnavox took Bushnell to court, claiming that he had violated one of Baer's patents. Knowing that he was lacking the required funds to get Atari through court, Bushnell was looking for alternative solutions and eventually decided on signing a settlement with Magnavox, making Atari their sole licensee. The case never went to court and over the years Nolan Bushnell became known as the "Father of Video Games".


End of Part 1 - References
So this is a brief start into the history of video games. In my next blog post I will continue this and outline some of the things that happened in the 80s and 90s and after that write another blog post about the 2000s and present, before finally getting back to my planned post about easter eggs and cheat codes. Stay tuned~

MIRZOEFF, N. (c2009). An introduction to visual culture. 2nd ed. Abingdon: Routledge.
EVANS, C. (1981). The making of the micro : a history of the computer. London: Victor Gollancz.
KENT, S. (c2001). The ultimate history of video games : from Pong to Pokemon and beyond : the story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world. New York: Three Rivers.

PHIL AMENT. (2006) Jacquard Loom History - Invention of the Jacquard Loom [Online] The Great Idea Finder. Available from: http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/jacquard.htm [Accessed 02/2014].
BNL. (n.d) The First Video Game? [Online] BNL. Available from: http://www.bnl.gov/about/history/firstvideo.php [Accessed 02/2014].

WIKIPEDIA. (2014) French Revolution. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution [Accessed 02/2014].
WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Jacquard loom. [Online]. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom [Accessed 02/2014].
WIKIPEDIA. (2014) Tennis for Two. [Online]. Available from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis_for_Two [Accessed 02/2014].

Job Research - Critical Studies

Introduction

While I am currently almost simultaneously working on several blog posts, I am quickly taking a break to post about a topic which we recently talked about as part of our critical studies module. We looked at different job specifications and came up with a lists of general skills that one might need to be able to work in the games industry as an artist. This was ranging from your usual skills such as knowing how to use the software and having an understanding of art, to social skills and time management.

As a bit of homework we were asked to research an entry level or graduate/junior job offer and then compare it to what skills we already have and create a roadmap of skills we would need to work on to be able to meet the criteria.

Finding a Job

I sat down and was trying to find a job offer and while I knew it wasn't going to be easy, I never expected it to be that hard. I think it's safe to say that I have learned that there aren't many jobs out there for graduates; pretty much none at all at the moment it seems. I did however manage to find one in the end and although the job specifications are very vague, I thought it would be better than nothing.

The job offer that I have chosen can be found here:

http://www.indeed.co.uk/cmp/Cherry-Pop-Games/jobs/Junior-63dd79be5eab2e14

(working as of 7th March 2014)

Do you have what it takes?

Let's have a look at what is being asked of the perfect candidate:

"Self-motivation, good communications skills, and a great team-player attitude"

I am not sure if the order of these requirements matter, but if I assume that the first one would be the most important one then I am off to a good start here. My self-motivation isn't always at its peak and I have my times where I am feeling quite down and I am not being all too productive, however I believe that university is giving me a great chance to work on this and I can already see improvement from when I started the course. In the end without self-motivation I would never be able to get a degree, so I guess that it would be kinda self-explanatory that a graduate would have self-motivation.

"Good communications skills and a great team-player attitude" are both skills that I was able to take away from when I used to work at McDonald's. While it wasn't the greatest job, it did teach me a lot about working as part of a team and the importance of communication. They taught me about the 3 Cs: Communication, Co-operation and Co-ordination. All of those were vital to run the store efficiently.

"Creative person with a passion for games"

Okay, the next point is something which is quite open. It would be hard calling yourself an artist without being creative at all, so maybe this is just nailing it down. It all comes down to the definition of creative I guess and because I wasn't quite sure what the actual definition was, I decided to have a look:

1. 1.

   relating to or involving the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something.

So I guess this makes it quite clear, they want a person that is able to come up with ideas and is able to put those ideas onto paper. While I do struggle with this at times, I also got quite a lot of practice in this area recently, as part of my visual design projects were coming up with a vehicle and a character. So hopefully by the time I finish this course I will have had enough practice at it to consider myself a creative person.

As for having a passion for games: I was just going to say that I study Game Art Design and I believe that this would kinda make the rest self-explanatory, but maybe I should go a bit further into it. I have played games ever since I was a young child. We owned a Nintendo 64 and my dad would always bring home games for us to play. I absolutely loved it. As the years went by I eventually got my own PC and mainly used it to play some early PC games. I remember, the first game I played on my own PC was called "Holiday Island". Every few years I would get a newer and better PC to run the new games and still today I am an avid PC gamer myself with a collection of over 400 games and while I don't always have the time to play them I enjoy every minute that I can spare on gaming.

"Strong art skills in both 2D and 3D"

This point is always something that I struggle with. I am an art student, so obviously I am at university to learn and practice my skills. While I am quite confident with my 3D skills (except for my issue with textures) my main reason for being concerned about this point is my 2D skills.

I had never really spent a lot of time in my childhood drawing and even though I studied art and design at school, I wasn't particularly good at it. However, I did enjoy it and I think that is what mattered most in the end. If it weren't for me enjoying drawing so much (and even creating stuff in general) then I wouldn't have the necessary patience to spend time on it now to get better at it. I have already made massive improvements since I started my course and I believe that by the end of the next 2 years I will be able to say to myself that I have "strong art skills".

When it comes to 3D, like I said, I feel quite confident. However I do believe that one can never be perfect at something. There is always room for improvement and when I say that I feel quite confident about it, then by no means do I mean that I would be ready to use my skills in a professional job. It simply means, that I am quite happy with the stuff I can do, which currently (even after all the improvement) is not something I can say about my 2D work. Nonetheless, I am pretty certain that the course will give me a very good chance to practice both of those areas.

"Good portfolio demonstrating aesthetic sense and artistic eye"

There isn't really much to say about this one. It's simply them asking to prove that we can actually do what we say we can. During our last visual design lecture we had been told that by the end of the course we would create a book to demonstrate our learning process at university and show what we can do and in general we will create a lot of work at university which we could use as part of our portfolio. Judging by the variety of projects that we did in the first year alone I can safely say, that my portfolio would easily be able to demonstrate the things that are being asked for.

"Willingness to learn"

Again, this is something that I believe comes quite self-explanatory. If I wouldn't be willing to learn, I surely wouldn't be studying at university right now. As I have mentioned before, one can never be perfect at anything and I am happy if I can learn new stuff. To a certain extent my job at McDonald's has kinda required that as well. There was a lot of different jobs that needed to be done to run the store and while most of them were quite easy, you first had to learn how to do them. You had to learn the right procedures and how to use the specialized equipment. If I wouldn't be willing to learn, I wouldn't have ended up being trained to do nearly every single job in the whole restaurant.

"Excellent knowledge of 3DS Max and Photoshop"

Having over 2 years of experience with those programmes certainly helps here. I was lucky enough to use both programmes during my time at college and I continue to constantly learn new tricks on using them while I am at uni. Again I have to go back to saying that one can never perfect at anything, as the same goes for using software. Every time I find myself working together with other people I am always happy when someone shows me a different way of doing things within the software and although I already have quite an extensive knowledge for both programmes, I believe that by the end of the course I would have learned so much more which will help me hitting this criteria with ease.

Rounding Off

So there we go, while I do not meet every criteria exactly yet, I am pretty confident that I am definitely on the right track. I strongly believe that my university course is giving me what I need to become a great artist; and that is really what I need the most right now. Further developing my skills in 3D and especially in 2D is my main objective and I need to push myself to achieve what I truly can achieve; and with that said I will make an end here, as there is more blog posts waiting for me. I will aim to publish the next one within this week, but if I get caught up again it will definitely come up next week.

A Quick Update!

I am still alive!

Hi there! It has been a while since I have updated this blog and I thought I would just send out a quick post to let people know that I am still breathing. I have been quite busy over the past few weeks and will probably do a proper update soon. I also have a post planned which is long due which I will aim to publish by the end of next week giving some insight into the history of "cheat codes" and "easter eggs" within video games.

Stay tuned.