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121-454: In graphical user interface environments, control+C is often used to copy highlighted text to the clipboard . Macintosh computers use ⌘ Command + C for this. In many command-line interface environments, control+C is used to abort the current task and regain user control. Larry Tesler created the concept of cut, copy, paste, and undo for human-computer interaction while working at Xerox PARC to control text editing . During

242-565: A computer keyboard . The actions in a GUI are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements. Beyond computers, GUIs are used in many handheld mobile devices such as MP3 players, portable media players, gaming devices, smartphones and smaller household, office and industrial controls . The term GUI tends not to be applied to other lower- display resolution types of interfaces , such as video games (where head-up displays ( HUDs ) are preferred), or not including flat screens like volumetric displays because

363-457: A teletype printer , audio speaker , or similar device. This also distinguished from many handheld electronic games like Merlin which commonly used LED lights for indicators but did not use these in combination for imaging purposes. "Computer game" may also be used as a descriptor, as all these types of games essentially require the use of a computer processor, and in some cases, it is used interchangeably with "video game". Particularly in

484-544: A DEC PDP-1 computer in 1962. Each game has different means of display: NIMROD has a panel of lights to play the game of Nim , OXO has a graphical display to play tic-tac-toe, Tennis for Two has an oscilloscope to display a side view of a tennis court, and Spacewar! has the DEC PDP-1's vector display to have two spaceships battle each other. These inventions laid the foundation for modern video games. In 1966, while working at Sanders Associates , Ralph H. Baer devised

605-470: A GUI and some level of a CLI, although the GUIs usually receive more attention. GUI wrappers find a way around the command-line interface versions (CLI) of (typically) Linux and Unix-like software applications and their text-based UIs or typed command labels. While command-line or text-based applications allow users to run a program non-interactively, GUI wrappers atop them avoid the steep learning curve of

726-410: A combination of technologies and devices to provide a platform that users can interact with, for the tasks of gathering and producing information. A series of elements conforming a visual language have evolved to represent information stored in computers. This makes it easier for people with few computer skills to work with and use computer software. The most common combination of such elements in GUIs

847-437: A combination of the limitations of the game platform and display device and the program efficiency of the game itself. The game's output can range from fixed displays using LED or LCD elements, text-based games , two-dimensional and three-dimensional graphics, and augmented reality displays. The game's graphics are often accompanied by sound produced by internal speakers on the game platform or external speakers attached to

968-445: A developer's programming language of choice, or they may opt to also use game development kits that minimize the amount of direct programming they have to do but can also limit the amount of customization they can add into a game. Like all software, video games usually undergo quality testing before release to assure there are no bugs or glitches in the product, though frequently developers will release patches and updates . With

1089-414: A fictional piece of technology from Star Trek , arguing for the video game as a medium in which the player is allowed to become another person, and to act out in another world. This image of video games received early widespread popular support, and forms the basis of films such as Tron , eXistenZ and The Last Starfighter . Ludologists break sharply and radically from this idea. They argue that

1210-432: A game following its initial release. Several games offer players the ability to create user-generated content to share with others to play. Other games, mostly those on personal computers, can be extended with user-created modifications or mods that alter or add onto the game; these often are unofficial and were developed by players from reverse engineering of the game, but other games provide official support for modding

1331-505: A grid of items with rows of text extending sideways from the icon. Multi-row and multi-column layouts commonly found on the web are "shelf" and "waterfall". The former is found on image search engines , where images appear with a fixed height but variable length, and is typically implemented with the CSS property and parameter display: inline-block; . A waterfall layout found on Imgur and TweetDeck with fixed width but variable height per item

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1452-415: A letter dated July 10, 1972. In the letter, Bushnell uses the term "video game" twice. Per video game historian Keith Smith, the sudden appearance suggested that the term had been proposed and readily adopted by those in the field. Around March 1973, Ed Adlum, who ran Cashbox ' s coin-operated section until 1972 and then later founded RePlay Magazine , covering the coin-op amusement field, in 1975, used

1573-504: A limited number of platforms, and exclusivity to a platform or brand is used by platform holders as a competitive edge in the video game market. However, games may be developed for alternative platforms than intended, which are described as ports or conversions. These also may be remasters - where most of the original game's source code is reused and art assets, models, and game levels are updated for modern systems – and remakes, where in addition to asset improvements, significant reworking of

1694-432: A minimum age is used by nearly all systems, along with additional descriptors to identify specific content that players and parents should be aware of. The regulations vary from country to country but generally are voluntary systems upheld by vendor practices, with penalty and fines issued by the ratings body on the video game publisher for misuse of the ratings. Among the major content rating systems include: Additionally,

1815-551: A platform, the hardware which contains computing elements, to process player interaction from some type of input device and displays the results to a video output display. Video games require a platform, a specific combination of electronic components or computer hardware and associated software , to operate. The term system is also commonly used. These platforms may include multiple brandsheld by platform holders , such as Nintendo or Sony, seeking to gain larger market shares. Games are typically designed to be played on one or

1936-506: A program was busy. Additionally, it was the first GUI to introduce something resembling Virtual Desktops . Windows 95 , accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign, was a major success in the marketplace at launch and shortly became the most popular desktop operating system. In 2007, with the iPhone and later in 2010 with the introduction of the iPad , Apple popularized the post-WIMP style of interaction for multi-touch screens, and those devices were considered to be milestones in

2057-464: A relatively recent development in the humanities. The two most visible schools in this emerging field are ludology and narratology . Narrativists approach video games in the context of what Janet Murray calls "Cyberdrama". That is to say, their major concern is with video games as a storytelling medium, one that arises out of interactive fiction . Murray puts video games in the context of the Holodeck ,

2178-474: A retail store, airline self-ticket and check-in, information kiosks in a public space, like a train station or a museum, and monitors or control screens in an embedded industrial application which employ a real-time operating system (RTOS). Cell phones and handheld game systems also employ application specific touchscreen GUIs. Newer automobiles use GUIs in their navigation systems and multimedia centers, or navigation multimedia center combinations. A GUI uses

2299-455: A service . Today, video game development requires numerous interdisciplinary skills, vision , teamwork , and liaisons between different parties, including developers , publishers , distributors , retailers , hardware manufacturers, and other marketers, to successfully bring a game to its consumers. As of 2020 , the global video game market had estimated annual revenues of US$ 159 billion across hardware, software, and services, which

2420-414: A short sequence of words and symbols. Custom functions may be used to facilitate access to frequent actions. Command-line interfaces are more lightweight , as they only recall information necessary for a task; for example, no preview thumbnails or graphical rendering of web pages. This allows greater efficiency and productivity once many commands are learned. But reaching this level takes some time because

2541-590: A similar version running in a smaller coin-operated arcade cabinet using a less expensive computer. This was released as Computer Space , the first arcade video game , in 1971. Bushnell and Dabney went on to form Atari, Inc. , and with Allan Alcorn , created their second arcade game in 1972, the hit ping pong -style Pong , which was directly inspired by the table tennis game on the Odyssey. Sanders and Magnavox sued Atari for infringement of Baer's patents, but Atari settled out of court, paying for perpetual rights to

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2662-428: A system or moved about to different places during redesigns. Also, icons and dialog boxes are usually harder for users to script. WIMPs extensively use modes , as the meaning of all keys and clicks on specific positions on the screen are redefined all the time. Command-line interfaces use modes only in limited forms, such as for current directory and environment variables . Most modern operating systems provide both

2783-515: A system to play a basic table tennis game on a television screen. With the company's approval, Baer created the prototype known as the "Brown Box." Sanders patented Baer’s innovations and licensed them to Magnavox , which commercialized the technology as the first home video game console , the Magnavox Odyssey , released in 1972. Separately, Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney , inspired by seeing Spacewar! running at Stanford University , devised

2904-424: A video game are primarily determined by the underlying set of rules, demands, and expectations imposed on the player. While many games rely on emergent principles , video games commonly present simulated story worlds where emergent behavior occurs within the context of the game. The term "emergent narrative" has been used to describe how, in a simulated environment, storyline can be created simply by "what happens to

3025-412: A video game is first and foremost a game, which must be understood in terms of its rules, interface, and the concept of play that it deploys. Espen J. Aarseth argues that, although games certainly have plots, characters, and aspects of traditional narratives, these aspects are incidental to gameplay. For example, Aarseth is critical of the widespread attention that narrativists have given to the heroine of

3146-457: A way to distinguish them from console games , arcade games , or mobile games . Other terms such as "television game", "telegame", or "TV game" had been used in the 1970s and early 1980s, particularly for home gaming consoles that rely on connection to a television set . However, these terms were also used interchangeably with "video game" in the 1970s, primarily due to "video" and "television" being synonymous. In Japan , where consoles like

3267-411: A word from Billboard ' s description of movie jukeboxes, Adlum started to refer to this new breed of amusement machine as 'video games.' The phrase stuck." Adlum explained in 1985 that up until the early 1970s, amusement arcades typically had non-video arcade games such as pinball machines and electro-mechanical games . With the arrival of video games in arcades during the early 1970s, there

3388-443: Is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation . In many applications, GUIs are used instead of text-based UIs , which are based on typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to the perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on

3509-664: Is a related technology that promises to deliver the representation benefits of 3D environments without their usability drawbacks of orientation problems and hidden objects. In 2006, Hillcrest Labs introduced the first ZUI for television. Other innovations include the menus on the PlayStation 2 , the menus on the Xbox , Sun's Project Looking Glass , Metisse , which was similar to Project Looking Glass, BumpTop , where users can manipulate documents and windows with realistic movement and physics as if they were physical documents, Croquet OS , which

3630-431: Is a video game "appears highly eclectic and diverse". The gameplay experience varies radically between video games, but many common elements exist. Most games will launch into a title screen and give the player a chance to review options such as the number of players before starting a game. Most games are divided into levels which the player must work the avatar through, scoring points , collecting power-ups to boost

3751-445: Is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick , controller , keyboard , or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device , most commonly shown in a video format on a television set , computer monitor , flat-panel display or touchscreen on handheld devices , or a virtual reality headset . These games are addictive and can lead to

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3872-404: Is built for collaboration, and compositing window managers such as Enlightenment and Compiz . Augmented reality and virtual reality also make use of 3D GUI elements. 3D GUIs have appeared in science fiction literature and films , even before certain technologies were feasible or in common use. Video game A video game , also known as a computer game or just a game ,

3993-417: Is especially common with applications designed for Unix-like operating systems. The latter used to be implemented first because it allowed the developers to focus exclusively on their product's functionality without bothering about interface details such as designing icons and placing buttons. Designing programs this way also allows users to run the program in a shell script . Many environments and games use

4114-459: Is frequently a cross-disciplinary field. Video game developers , as employees within this industry are commonly referred to, primarily include programmers and graphic designers . Over the years, this has expanded to include almost every type of skill that one might see prevalent in the creation of any movie or television program, including sound designers , musicians, and other technicians; as well as skills that are specific to video games, such as

4235-421: Is from 1947—a " cathode-ray tube amusement device " was filed for a patent on 25 January 1947, by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann, and issued on 14 December 1948, as U.S. Patent 2455992. Inspired by radar display technology, it consists of an analog device allowing a user to control the parabolic arc of a dot on the screen to simulate a missile being fired at targets, which are paper drawings fixed to

4356-548: Is mostly isolated from the rest of the world due to the government's censorship, and all games published there must adhere to strict government review, disallowing content such as smearing the image of the Chinese Communist Party . Foreign games published in China often require modification by developers and publishers to meet these requirements. Video game development and authorship, much like any other form of entertainment,

4477-655: Is represented by rotating a cube with faces representing each user's workspace, and window management is represented via a Rolodex -style flipping mechanism in Windows Vista (see Windows Flip 3D ). In both cases, the operating system transforms windows on-the-fly while continuing to update the content of those windows. The GUI is usually WIMP-based, although occasionally other metaphors surface, such as those used in Microsoft Bob , 3dwm, File System Navigator, File System Visualizer , 3D Mailbox, and GopherVR . Zooming (ZUI)

4598-440: Is the windows, icons, text fields, canvases, menus, pointer ( WIMP ) paradigm, especially in personal computers . The WIMP style of interaction uses a virtual input device to represent the position of a pointing device's interface , most often a mouse , and presents information organized in windows and represented with icons . Available commands are compiled together in menus, and actions are performed making gestures with

4719-447: Is the primary means which one interacts with a video game. The narrative setting does not impact gameplay; a shooter game is still a shooter game, regardless of whether it takes place in a fantasy world or in outer space. An exception is the horror game genre, used for games that are based on narrative elements of horror fiction , the supernatural , and psychological horror . Genre names are normally self-describing in terms of

4840-571: Is three times the size of the global music industry and four times that of the film industry in 2019, making it a formidable heavyweight across the modern entertainment industry . The video game market is also a major influence behind the electronics industry , where personal computer component, console, and peripheral sales, as well as consumer demands for better game performance, have been powerful driving factors for hardware design and innovation. Early video games use interactive electronic devices with various display formats. The earliest example

4961-442: Is used for one of the commands, and both appear in the emulator's menus . On ASCII terminals the keystroke produced the end-of-text control character . There is no indication this had anything to do with the choice to use it to interrupt programs, instead it was chosen because it was not being used for anything else. Graphical user interface A graphical user interface , or GUI ( / ˈ ɡ uː i / GOO -ee ),

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5082-551: Is usually implemented by specifying column-width: . Smaller app mobile devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smartphones typically use the WIMP elements with different unifying metaphors, due to constraints in space and available input devices. Applications for which WIMP is not well suited may use newer interaction techniques , collectively termed post-WIMP UIs. As of 2011, some touchscreen-based operating systems such as Apple's iOS ( iPhone ) and Android use

5203-515: The Berne Convention . This typically only applies to the underlying code, as well as to the artistic aspects of the game such as its writing, art assets, and music. Gameplay itself is generally not considered copyrightable; in the United States among other countries, video games are considered to fall into the idea–expression distinction in that it is how the game is presented and expressed to

5324-637: The Clue VCR Mystery Game which required players to watch VCR clips between turns. To distinguish between these two, video games are considered to require some interactivity that affects the visual display. Most video games tend to feature some type of victory or winning conditions, such as a scoring mechanism or a final boss fight. The introduction of walking simulators ( adventure games that allow for exploration but lack any objectives) like Gone Home , and empathy games (video games that tend to focus on emotion) like That Dragon, Cancer brought

5445-540: The United Kingdom and Western Europe , this is common due to the historic relevance of domestically produced microcomputers. Other terms used include digital game, for example, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics . However, the term "computer game" can also be used to more specifically refer to games played primarily on personal computers or other types of flexible hardware systems (also known as PC game ), as

5566-485: The Unterhaltungssoftware Selbstkontrolle ( Entertainment Software Self-Regulation ) would refuse to classify, and thus allow sale, of any game depicting Nazi imagery, and thus often requiring developers to replace such imagery with fictional ones. This ruling was relaxed in 2018 to allow for such imagery for "social adequacy" purposes that applied to other works of art. China's video game segment

5687-681: The Xerox Star . These early systems spurred many other GUI efforts, including Lisp machines by Symbolics and other manufacturers, the Apple Lisa (which presented the concept of menu bar and window controls ) in 1983, the Apple Macintosh 128K in 1984, and the Atari ST with Digital Research 's GEM , and Commodore Amiga in 1985. Visi On was released in 1983 for the IBM PC compatible computers, but

5808-476: The crash of the North American video game market in 1983 due to loss of publishing control and saturation of the market. Following the crash, the industry matured, was dominated by Japanese companies such as Nintendo , Sega , and Sony , and established practices and methods around the development and distribution of video games to prevent a similar crash in the future, many of which continue to be followed. In

5929-498: The cursor (or rather pointer ) control: mouse , pointing stick , touchpad , trackball , joystick , virtual keyboards , and head-up displays (translucent information devices at the eye level). There are also actions performed by programs that affect the GUI. For example, there are components like inotify or D-Bus to facilitate communication between computer programs. Ivan Sutherland developed Sketchpad in 1963, widely held as

6050-611: The first-person shooter and the Grand Theft Auto clone , respectively, in the few years after their release. However, at times and more frequently at the onset of the industry, developers would intentionally create video game clones of successful games and game hardware with few changes, which led to the flooded arcade and dedicated home console market around 1978. Cloning is also a major issue with countries that do not have strong intellectual property protection laws, such as within China . The lax oversight by China's government and

6171-409: The game designer . All of these are managed by producers . In the early days of the industry, it was more common for a single person to manage all of the roles needed to create a video game. As platforms have become more complex and powerful in the type of material they can present, larger teams have been needed to generate all of the art, programming, cinematography, and more. This is not to say that

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6292-439: The 1950s and 1960s were simple extensions of electronic games using video-like output from large, room-sized mainframe computers . The first consumer video game was the arcade video game Computer Space in 1971. In 1972 came the iconic hit game Pong and the first home console , the Magnavox Odyssey . The industry grew quickly during the "golden age" of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s but suffered from

6413-519: The 1970s and 1980s before having a larger worldwide contribution. Today, the video game industry is predominantly led by major companies in North America (primarily the United States and Canada), Europe, and southeast Asia including Japan, South Korea, and China. Hardware production remains an area dominated by Asian companies either directly involved in hardware design or part of the production process, but digital distribution and indie game development of

6534-616: The 1970s, Engelbart's ideas were further refined and extended to graphics by researchers at Xerox PARC and specifically Alan Kay , who went beyond text-based hyperlinks and used a GUI as the main interface for the Smalltalk programming language , which ran on the Xerox Alto computer , released in 1973. Most modern general-purpose GUIs are derived from this system. The Xerox PARC GUI consisted of graphical elements such as windows , menus , radio buttons , and check boxes . The concept of icons

6655-522: The 1983 crash, forming around the concept of publisher-developer dichotomies, and by the 2000s, leading to the industry centralizing around low-risk, triple-A games and studios with large development budgets of at least $ 10 million or more. The advent of the Internet brought digital distribution as a viable means to distribute games, and contributed to the growth of more riskier, experimental independent game development as an alternative to triple-A games in

6776-462: The 1993 game . A hierarchy of game genres exist, with top-level genres like "shooter game" and "action game" that broadly capture the game's main gameplay style, and several subgenres of specific implementation, such as within the shooter game first-person shooter and third-person shooter . Some cross-genre types also exist that fall until multiple top-level genres such as action-adventure game . A video game's mode describes how many players can use

6897-626: The 2000s, the core industry centered on " AAA " games, leaving little room for riskier experimental games. Coupled with the availability of the Internet and digital distribution , this gave room for independent video game development (or " indie games ") to gain prominence into the 2010s. Since then, the commercial importance of the video game industry has been increasing. The emerging Asian markets and proliferation of smartphone games in particular are altering player demographics towards casual gaming and increasing monetization by incorporating games as

7018-506: The GUIs advantages, many reviewers questioned the value of the entire concept, citing hardware limits, and problems in finding compatible software. In 1984, Apple released a television commercial which introduced the Apple Macintosh during the telecast of Super Bowl XVIII by CBS , with allusions to George Orwell 's noted novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . The goal of the commercial was to make people think about computers, identifying

7139-637: The Internet or other communication methods as well as cloud gaming alleviate the need for any physical media. In some cases, the media serves as the direct read-only memory for the game, or it may be the form of installation media that is used to write the main assets to the player's platform's local storage for faster loading periods and later updates. Games can be extended with new content and software patches through either expansion packs which are typically available as physical media, or as downloadable content nominally available via digital distribution. These can be offered freely or can be used to monetize

7260-467: The Odyssey were first imported and then made within the country by the large television manufacturers such as Toshiba and Sharp Corporation , such games are known as "TV games", "TV geemu", or "terebi geemu". The term "TV game" is still commonly used into the 21st century. "Electronic game" may also be used to refer to video games, but this also incorporates devices like early handheld electronic games that lack any video output. The first appearance of

7381-474: The active program to receive SIGINT , the interruption signal. If the program does not specify how to handle this condition, the program is terminated. Typically a program that does handle a SIGINT will still terminate itself, or at least terminate a task running inside it. This system is usually preserved even in graphical terminal emulators . If control-C is used for copy in the graphical environment, an ambiguity arises. Typically ⇧ Shift + Ctrl + C

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7502-728: The age of the "one-man shop" is gone, as this is still sometimes found in the casual gaming and handheld markets, where smaller games are prevalent due to technical limitations such as limited RAM or lack of dedicated 3D graphics rendering capabilities on the target platform (e.g., some PDAs ). Video games are programmed like any other piece of computer software. Prior to the mid-1970s, arcade and home consoles were programmed by assembling discrete electro-mechanical components on circuit boards, which limited games to relatively simple logic. By 1975, low-cost microprocessors were available at volume to be used for video game hardware, which allowed game developers to program more detailed games, widening

7623-417: The avatar's innate attributes, all while either using special attacks to defeat enemies or moves to avoid them. This information is relayed to the player through a type of on-screen user interface such as a heads-up display atop the rendering of the game itself. Taking damage will deplete their avatar's health , and if that falls to zero or if the avatar otherwise falls into an impossible-to-escape location,

7744-434: The cars in front of them and the obstacle. The programmer never wrote code to specifically create a traffic jam, yet one now exists in the game. Most commonly, video games are protected by copyright , though both patents and trademarks have been used as well. Though local copyright regulations vary to the degree of protection, video games qualify as copyrighted visual-audio works, and enjoy cross-country protection under

7865-401: The class of GUIs named post-WIMP. These support styles of interaction using more than one finger in contact with a display, which allows actions such as pinching and rotating, which are unsupported by one pointer and mouse. Human interface devices , for the efficient interaction with a GUI include a computer keyboard , especially used together with keyboard shortcuts , pointing devices for

7986-457: The command words may not be easily discoverable or mnemonic . Also, using the command line can become slow and error-prone when users must enter long commands comprising many parameters or several different filenames at once. However, windows, icons, menus, pointer ( WIMP ) interfaces present users with many widgets that represent and can trigger some of the system's available commands. GUIs can be made quite hard when dialogs are buried deep in

8107-413: The command-line, which requires commands to be typed on the keyboard . By starting a GUI wrapper, users can intuitively interact with, start, stop, and change its working parameters, through graphical icons and visual indicators of a desktop environment , for example. Applications may also provide both interfaces, and when they do the GUI is usually a WIMP wrapper around the command-line version. This

8228-417: The console itself, while peripheral controllers are available as a separate purchase from the console manufacturer or third-party vendors. Similar control sets are built into handheld consoles and onto arcade cabinets. Newer technology improvements have incorporated additional technology into the controller or the game platform, such as touchscreens and motion detection sensors that give more options for how

8349-571: The designer's work to change the interface as user needs evolve. Good GUI design relates to users more, and to system architecture less. Large widgets, such as windows , usually provide a frame or container for the main presentation content such as a web page, email message, or drawing. Smaller ones usually act as a user-input tool. A GUI may be designed for the requirements of a vertical market as application-specific GUIs. Examples include automated teller machines (ATM), point of sale (POS) touchscreens at restaurants, self-service checkouts used in

8470-485: The development of mobile devices . The GUIs familiar to most people as of the mid-late 2010s are Microsoft Windows , macOS , and the X Window System interfaces for desktop and laptop computers, and Android , Apple's iOS , Symbian , BlackBerry OS , Windows Phone / Windows 10 Mobile , Tizen , WebOS , and Firefox OS for handheld ( smartphone ) devices. Since the commands available in command line interfaces can be many, complex operations can be performed using

8591-482: The development of the Macintosh it was decided that the cut, paste, copy and undo would be used frequently and assigned them to the ⌘ - Z (Undo), ⌘- X (Cut), ⌘- C (Copy), and ⌘- V (Paste). The four letters are all located together at the left end of the bottom row of the standard QWERTY keyboard. IBM and early versions of windows used a different set of keys as part of IBM Common User Access . Later Windows adopted

8712-423: The difficulty for foreign companies to take Chinese entities to court had enabled China to support a large grey market of cloned hardware and software systems. The industry remains challenged to distinguish between creating new games based on refinements of past successful games to create a new type of gameplay, and intentionally creating a clone of a game that may simply swap out art assets. The early history of

8833-435: The display represents a desktop, on which documents and folders of documents can be placed. Window managers and other software combine to simulate the desktop environment with varying degrees of realism. Entries may appear in a list to make space for text and details, or in a grid for compactness and larger icons with little space underneath for text. Variations in between exist, such as a list with multiple columns of items and

8954-593: The first graphical computer-aided design program. It used a light pen to create and manipulate objects in engineering drawings in realtime with coordinated graphics. In the late 1960s, researchers at the Stanford Research Institute , led by Douglas Engelbart , developed the On-Line System (NLS), which used text-based hyperlinks manipulated with a then-new device: the mouse . (A 1968 demonstration of NLS became known as " The Mother of All Demos ".) In

9075-434: The game Tomb Raider , saying that "the dimensions of Lara Croft 's body, already analyzed to death by film theorists , are irrelevant to me as a player, because a different-looking body would not make me play differently... When I play, I don't even see her body, but see through it and past it." Simply put, ludologists reject traditional theories of art because they claim that the artistic and socially relevant qualities of

9196-642: The game at the same type. This is primarily distinguished by single-player video games and multiplayer video games . Within the latter category, multiplayer games can be played in a variety of ways, including locally at the same device, on separate devices connected through a local network such as LAN parties , or online via separate Internet connections. Most multiplayer games are based on competitive gameplay, but many offer cooperative and team-based options as well as asymmetric gameplay . Online games use server structures that can also enable massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) to support hundreds of players at

9317-406: The game can also be exploited. On some consoles, cheat cartridges allow players to execute these cheat codes, and user-developed trainers allow similar bypassing for computer software games. Both of which might make the game easier, give the player additional power-ups, or change the appearance of the game. To distinguish from electronic games, a video game is generally considered to require

9438-484: The game should they lose all their lives or need to stop the game and restart at a later time. These also may be in the form of a passage that can be written down and reentered at the title screen. Product flaws include software bugs which can manifest as glitches which may be exploited by the player; this is often the foundation of speedrunning a video game. These bugs, along with cheat codes , Easter eggs , and other hidden secrets that were intentionally added to

9559-501: The game. Video game can use several types of input devices to translate human actions to a game. Most common are the use of game controllers like gamepads and joysticks for most consoles, and as accessories for personal computer systems along keyboard and mouse controls. Common controls on the most recent controllers include face buttons, shoulder triggers, analog sticks , and directional pads ("d-pads") . Consoles typically include standard controllers which are shipped or bundled with

9680-399: The game. By definition, all video games are intended to output graphics to an external video display, such as cathode-ray tube televisions, newer liquid-crystal display (LCD) televisions and built-in screens, projectors or computer monitors , depending on the type of platform the game is played on. Features such as color depth , refresh rate , frame rate , and screen resolution are

9801-560: The game. Today, many games are built around a game engine that handles the bulk of the game's logic, gameplay, and rendering. These engines can be augmented with specialized engines for specific features, such as a physics engine that simulates the physics of objects in real-time. A variety of middleware exists to help developers access other features, such as playback of videos within games, network-oriented code for games that communicate via online services, matchmaking for online games, and similar features. These features can be used from

9922-485: The growth of the size of development teams in the industry, the problem of cost has increased. Development studios need the best talent, while publishers reduce costs to maintain profitability on their investment. Typically, a video game console development team ranges from 5 to 50 people, and some exceed 100. In May 2009, Assassin's Creed II was reported to have a development staff of 450. The growth of team size combined with greater pressure to get completed projects into

10043-586: The idea of games that did not have any such type of winning condition and raising the question of whether these were actually games. These are still commonly justified as video games as they provide a game world that the player can interact with by some means. The lack of any industry definition for a video game by 2021 was an issue during the case Epic Games v. Apple which dealt with video games offered on Apple's iOS App Store . Among concerns raised were games like Fortnite Creative and Roblox which created metaverses of interactive experiences, and whether

10164-485: The interface found in current versions of Microsoft Windows, and in various desktop environments for Unix-like operating systems , such as macOS and Linux . Thus most current GUIs have largely common idioms. GUIs were a hot topic in the early 1980s. The Apple Lisa was released in 1983, and various windowing systems existed for DOS operating systems (including PC GEM and PC/GEOS ). Individual applications for many platforms presented their own GUI variants. Despite

10285-413: The kind of data they hold. The widgets of a well-designed interface are selected to support the actions necessary to achieve the goals of users. A model–view–controller allows flexible structures in which the interface is independent of and indirectly linked to application functions, so the GUI can be customized easily. This allows users to select or design a different skin or theme at will, and eases

10406-450: The larger " AAA " game studios, and are often experiments in gameplay and art style. Indie game development is aided by the larger availability of digital distribution, including the newer mobile gaming market, and readily-available and low-cost development tools for these platforms. Although departments of computer science have been studying the technical aspects of video games for years, theories that examine games as an artistic medium are

10527-713: The larger game and the individual experiences themselves were games or not in relation to fees that Apple charged for the App Store. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers , recognizing that there was yet an industry standard definition for a video game, established for her ruling that "At a bare minimum, video games appear to require some level of interactivity or involvement between the player and the medium" compared to passive entertainment like film, music, and television, and "videogames are also generally graphically rendered or animated, as opposed to being recorded live or via motion capture as in films or television". Rogers still concluded that what

10648-417: The late 2000s and which has continued to grow as a significant portion of the video game industry. Video games have a large network effect that draw on many different sectors that tie into the larger video game industry. While video game developers are a significant portion of the industry, other key participants in the market include: The industry itself grew out from both the United States and Japan in

10769-452: The latter also encompasses LAN games , online games , and browser games . More recently, the video game industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablet computers ), virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote cloud gaming . Video games are also classified into a wide range of genres based on their style of gameplay and target audience . The first video game prototypes in

10890-659: The major content system provides have worked to create the International Age Rating Coalition (IARC), a means to streamline and align the content ratings system between different region, so that a publisher would only need to complete the content ratings review for one provider, and use the IARC transition to affirm the content rating for all other regions. Certain nations have even more restrictive rules related to political or ideological content. Within Germany, until 2018,

11011-462: The market to begin recouping production costs has led to a greater occurrence of missed deadlines, rushed games, and the release of unfinished products. While amateur and hobbyist game programming had existed since the late 1970s with the introduction of home computers, a newer trend since the mid-2000s is indie game development . Indie games are made by small teams outside any direct publisher control, their games being smaller in scope than those from

11132-405: The market. Due to loss of publishing control and oversaturation of the market, the North American home video game market crashed in 1983 , dropping from revenues of around $ 3 billion in 1983 to $ 100 million by 1985. Many of the North American companies created in the prior years closed down. Japan's growing game industry was briefly shocked by this crash but had sufficient longevity to withstand

11253-435: The methods of 3D graphics to project 3D GUI objects onto the screen. The use of 3D graphics has become increasingly common in mainstream operating systems (ex. Windows Aero , and Aqua (MacOS)) to create attractive interfaces, termed eye candy (which includes, for example, the use of drop shadows underneath windows and the cursor ), or for functional purposes only possible using three dimensions. For example, user switching

11374-774: The original game and possibly from scratch is performed. The list below is not exhaustive and excludes other electronic devices capable of playing video games such as PDAs and graphing calculators . Early arcade games, home consoles, and handheld games were dedicated hardware units with the game's logic built into the electronic componentry of the hardware. Since then, most video game platforms are considered programmable, having means to read and play multiple games distributed on different types of media or formats. Physical formats include ROM cartridges , magnetic storage including magnetic-tape data storage and floppy discs , optical media formats including CD-ROM and DVDs , and flash memory cards. Furthermore digital distribution over

11495-472: The patents. Following their agreement, Atari made a home version of Pong , which was released by Christmas 1975. The success of the Odyssey and Pong , both as an arcade game and home machine, launched the video game industry. Both Baer and Bushnell have been titled "Father of Video Games" for their contributions. The term "video game" was developed to distinguish this class of electronic games that were played on some type of video display rather than on

11616-409: The platform, as directed by the game's programming. This often will include sound effects tied to the player's actions to provide audio feedback, as well as background music for the game. Some platforms support additional feedback mechanics to the player that a game can take advantage of. This is most commonly haptic technology built into the game controller, such as causing the controller to shake in

11737-399: The player interacts with the game. Specialized controllers may be used for certain genres of games, including racing wheels , light guns and dance pads . Digital cameras and motion detection can capture movements of the player as input into the game, which can, in some cases, effectively eliminate the control, and on other systems such as virtual reality, are used to enhance immersion into

11858-502: The player that can be copyrighted, but not the underlying principles of the game. Because gameplay is normally ineligible for copyright, gameplay ideas in popular games are often replicated and built upon in other games. At times, this repurposing of gameplay can be seen as beneficial and a fundamental part of how the industry has grown by building on the ideas of others. For example Doom (1993) and Grand Theft Auto III (2001) introduced gameplay that created popular new game genres,

11979-433: The player will lose one of their lives . Should they lose all their lives without gaining an extra life or "1-UP" , then the player will reach the " game over " screen. Many levels as well as the game's finale end with a type of boss character the player must defeat to continue on. In some games, intermediate points between levels will offer save points where the player can create a saved game on storage media to restart

12100-419: The player's hands to simulate a shaking earthquake occurring in game. Video games are frequently classified by a number of factors related to how one plays them. A video game, like most other forms of media, may be categorized into genres . However, unlike film or television which use visual or narrative elements, video games are generally categorized into genres based on their gameplay interaction, since this

12221-430: The player." However, emergent behavior is not limited to sophisticated games. In general, any place where event-driven instructions occur for AI in a game, emergent behavior will exist. For instance, take a racing game in which cars are programmed to avoid crashing, and they encounter an obstacle in the track: the cars might then maneuver to avoid the obstacle causing the cars behind them to slow or maneuver to accommodate

12342-403: The pointing device. A window manager facilitates the interactions between windows, applications , and the windowing system . The windowing system handles hardware devices such as pointing devices, graphics hardware, and positioning of the pointer. In personal computers , all these elements are modeled through a desktop metaphor to produce a simulation called a desktop environment in which

12463-450: The question of what are the essential factors of a video game that separate the medium from other forms of entertainment. The introduction of interactive films in the 1980s with games like Dragon's Lair , featured games with full motion video played off a form of media but only limited user interaction. This had required a means to distinguish these games from more traditional board games that happen to also use external media, such as

12584-565: The release of dopamine in the addict's synapses. Most modern video games are audiovisual , with audio complement delivered through speakers or headphones , and sometimes also with other types of sensory feedback (e.g., haptic technology that provides tactile sensations). Some video games also allow microphone and webcam inputs for in-game chatting and livestreaming . Video games are typically categorized according to their hardware platform , which traditionally includes arcade video games , console games , and computer (PC) games ;

12705-637: The same time. A small number of video games are zero-player games , in which the player has very limited interaction with the game itself. These are most commonly simulation games where the player may establish a starting state and then let the game proceed on its own, watching the results as a passive observer, such as with many computerized simulations of Conway's Game of Life . Most video games are intended for entertainment purposes. Different game types include: Video games can be subject to national and international content rating requirements. Like with film content ratings, video game ratings typing identify

12826-544: The scope of what was possible. Ongoing improvements in computer hardware technology have expanded what has become possible to create in video games, coupled with convergence of common hardware between console, computer, and arcade platforms to simplify the development process. Today, game developers have a number of commercial and open source tools available for use to make games, often which are across multiple platforms to support portability, or may still opt to create their own for more specialized features and direct control of

12947-605: The screen. Other early examples include Christopher Strachey 's draughts game, the Nimrod computer at the 1951 Festival of Britain ; OXO , a tic-tac-toe computer game by Alexander S. Douglas for the EDSAC in 1952; Tennis for Two , an electronic interactive game engineered by William Higinbotham in 1958; and Spacewar! , written by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students Martin Graetz, Steve Russell , and Wayne Wiitanen's on

13068-506: The short-term effects, and Nintendo helped to revitalize the industry with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America in 1985. Along with it, Nintendo established a number of core industrial practices to prevent unlicensed game development and control game distribution on their platform, methods that continue to be used by console manufacturers today. The industry remained more conservative following

13189-453: The shortcuts using Control instead of the Command key, as the usual keyboard of IBM PC has no Command key. Control+C was part of various Digital Equipment operating systems, including TOPS-10 and TOPS-20 . Its popularity as an abort command was adopted by other systems including Unix . Later systems that copied it include CP/M , DOS and Windows . In POSIX systems, the sequence causes

13310-509: The system never reached commercial production. The first commercially available computer with a GUI was the 1979 PERQ workstation , manufactured by Three Rivers Computer Corporation. Its design was heavily influenced by the work at Xerox PARC. In 1981, Xerox eventually commercialized the ideas from the Alto in the form of a new and enhanced system – the Xerox 8010 Information System – more commonly known as

13431-484: The target age group that the national or regional ratings board believes is appropriate for the player, ranging from all-ages, to a teenager-or-older, to mature, to the infrequent adult-only games. Most content review is based on the level of violence, both in the type of violence and how graphic it may be represented, and sexual content, but other themes such as drug and alcohol use and gambling that can influence children may also be identified. A primary identifier based on

13552-405: The term "video game" emerged around 1973. The Oxford English Dictionary cited a 10 November 1973 BusinessWeek article as the first printed use of the term. Though Bushnell believed the term came from a vending magazine review of Computer Space in 1971, a review of the major vending magazines Vending Times and Cashbox showed that the term may have come even earlier, appearing first in

13673-546: The term in an article in March 1973. In a September 1982 issue of RePlay , Adlum is credited with first naming these games as "video games": "RePlay's Eddie Adlum worked at 'Cash Box' when 'TV games' first came out. The personalities in those days were Bushnell, his sales manager Pat Karns, and a handful of other 'TV game' manufacturers like Henry Leyser and the McEwan brothers. It seemed awkward to call their products 'TV games', so borrowing

13794-492: The term is restricted to the scope of 2D display screens able to describe generic information, in the tradition of the computer science research at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center . Designing the visual composition and temporal behavior of a GUI is an important part of software application programming in the area of human–computer interaction . Its goal is to enhance the efficiency and ease of use for

13915-503: The type of gameplay, such as action game , role playing game , or shoot 'em up , though some genres have derivations from influential works that have defined that genre, such as roguelikes from Rogue , Grand Theft Auto clones from Grand Theft Auto III , and battle royale games from the film Battle Royale . The names may shift over time as players, developers and the media come up with new terms; for example, first-person shooters were originally called "Doom clones" based on

14036-456: The underlying logical design of a stored program , a design discipline named usability . Methods of user-centered design are used to ensure that the visual language introduced in the design is well-tailored to the tasks. The visible graphical interface features of an application are sometimes referred to as chrome or GUI . Typically, users interact with information by manipulating visual widgets that allow for interactions appropriate to

14157-466: The user-friendly interface as a personal computer which departed from prior business-oriented systems, and becoming a signature representation of Apple products. In 1985, Commodore released the Amiga 1000 , along with Workbench and Kickstart 1.0 (which contained Intuition ). This interface ran as a separate task, meaning it was very responsive and, unlike other GUIs of the time, it didn't freeze up when

14278-422: The video game industry, following the first game hardware releases and through 1983, had little structure. Video games quickly took off during the golden age of arcade video games from the late 1970s to early 1980s, but the newfound industry was mainly composed of game developers with little business experience. This led to numerous companies forming simply to create clones of popular games to try to capitalize on

14399-434: Was initially some confusion in the arcade industry over what term should be used to describe the new games. He "wrestled with descriptions of this type of game," alternating between "TV game" and "television game" but "finally woke up one day" and said, "What the hell... video game!" While many games readily fall into a clear, well-understood definition of video games, new genres and innovations in game development have raised

14520-399: Was later introduced by David Canfield Smith , who had written a thesis on the subject under the guidance of Kay. The PARC GUI employs a pointing device along with a keyboard. These aspects can be emphasized by using the alternative term and acronym for windows, icons, menus, pointing device ( WIMP ). This effort culminated in the 1973 Xerox Alto , the first computer with a GUI, though

14641-574: Was never popular due to its high hardware demands. Nevertheless, it was a crucial influence on the contemporary development of Microsoft Windows . Apple, Digital Research, IBM and Microsoft used many of Xerox's ideas to develop products, and IBM's Common User Access specifications formed the basis of the GUIs used in Microsoft Windows, IBM OS/2 Presentation Manager , and the Unix Motif toolkit and window manager . These ideas evolved to create

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