Now we see thousands of people playing online games like tetris, ping pong, mario bros, super mario etc. for free, but despite its history dating back to the 1970s, for most people, online gaming began with the explosion of the Internet in 1993 and the arrival of Doom and Warcraft sometime in the 1994 or 1995. This received a further boost when publishers began adding Internet connectivity to computer games in 1994-95.

The media, in fact, has been ignorant about the history of online gaming. As far as they’re concerned, online gaming happened by chance when their advertisers started producing Internet-enabled games. But it’s not like that…

Early years of development

In the early 1950s, a college student created a game much like Tic-Tac-Toe for a class project that would be played on the dinosaur computers of the day with cathode ray tubes for the screen. In the 1960s, MIT students programmed a game called “Space War” that could be played by two people on a primitive network. In the late 1960s, the first “real” video games appeared, such as table tennis and shooting games.

The 70s – the game begins

Serious online gaming started with the first interactive online game called ADVENT. In fact, network gaming was conceptualized with ADVENT. Network games had users playing against each other within an online fantasy world. The first network game was called Mazewar, a game in which network players traveled through a maze and tried to kill each other.

Then came the interpersonal interaction in a multiplayer environment. The first game of this type was called DUNGEN. DUNGEN had players competing against each other to complete a series of quests. DUNGEN provides new settings and players every time the user logs in.

The late 1970s saw the beginning of the video game craze with more and more households becoming computer literate. As a natural corollary, people started writing their own games for home computers. These programming hobbyists traded and sold these homegrown games at local markets.

Other changes in the 1970s were home game consoles that used game cartridges. That meant people could collect game cartridges for a base unit instead of having bulky game console systems.

The 80’s – some pause before the storm

The 1980s saw the craze for video games and computer games grow, but online gaming was not yet on the horizon. New games with better sound and graphics were introduced and gained popularity. Pole Position and Pac-man were two that achieved great popularity. It was during the 1980s that Nintendo introduced its first gaming system.

The 90s – the revolution begins

The 1990s saw a phenomenal growth in both popularity and technology, primarily due to the rise of 3-D and multimedia.

Myst, the intellectual adventure game introduced the games in CD-ROM format. More sophisticated 3-D graphics hardware made FPS (first-person shooter) games like Quake possible.

The late 1990s saw the exponential growth of the Internet, MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) which made online gaming very popular. The new and improved graphical interfaces made it possible for people from all over the world to play with each other, not only in FPS games, but also in real-time strategy games (RTS games), as well as third-person games like Grand Theft Auto.

This was also the period when websites started offering online games like tetris, ping pong, mario bros, super Mario and other free online flash games and free non-flash based games to play after signing up with they. This really pushed online gaming into the popular psyche.

The 21st century: the world is just a playground

The early years of the 21st century were dominated by the DVD-CD-ROM. It has changed the way online games are played. The latest gaming systems, such as Sony’s Play Station and Microsoft’s X-box, have networking capabilities to allow people to play games with each other in real time from all over the world. The exponentially growing broadband Internet services have made it possible to play these games online in the truest sense of the word.

The only downside to ever-evolving technology for online gaming is that what you buy today may be outdated next year. Fortunately, for serious gamers, the reselling industry for these online games is huge. This scalping industry is just another element in the ever-changing story of online gaming.