A Short History of Video Games

Whenever Anna-Sofia Lesiv publishes a new piece, we know we’re going to learn something new. As a writer at Contrary Capital, she publishes incredible deep dives into a wide variety of technical industries, across software, hardware, and deep tech. Her latest is about the innovations behind video games, an industry whose cutting-edge technologies have had a major impact on computing as a whole. This piece demonstrates that there’s a lot to learn about how different sectors of technology interact with—and influence—another. —Kate 

---

Video games are one of the world’s newest art forms. But even though they’re visually stunning and technically challenging, they lack the prestige bestowed on art forms such as film or literature. 

This is a shame—what is required to produce a virtual world is nothing short of miraculous. Video game technologies involve mathematics, physics, and, of course, an intimate familiarity with computer hardware. That’s not to mention the layers of artistry involved in game visuals, narrative architecture, and gameplay design itself.

Video games are more capable of expanding the human experience than any other medium. They can deliver perspectives and sensations achievable only within a game’s virtual environment. To do so, game developers not only leverage the bleeding edge of computing but in many cases push that edge out themselves.  

From the very beginning, the gaming industry has lifted the tide for the computing industry, developing bleeding-edge technologies that have major impacts elsewhere—for example, GPUs. In this piece I’ll highlight some of the terrific achievements, across both hardware and software, that were brought about thanks to the gaming industry.