4 ms·

So, is it correct to say that Bertie the Brain (1950) was the very first video game?

• masswerk 7y ago
  Apparently, it depends on the definition. Personally (as pointed out at the beginning of this write-up), it's more about a visual feedback loop and fluid user interaction, which would exclude turn-based games or any presentation that runs autonomously while triggered on some user input, which is evaluated at the start of the program (compare Bouncing Ball or Mouse in a Maze). I guess, what makes a video game a video game is the kind of interaction – and typically a user may choose to interact or to not interact at any given iteration of the principal main loop – and this required real-time computing. There's a distinction of a "mere" computer game (whatever the output medium) and a video game. We may even add some cultural notion, like that a true video game had to introduce some "magical" world of its own (by invention or abstraction) as opposed to just recreating an existing game in faithful on-screen simulation. But, again, this is subject to debate. For me, when it comes to digital video games (i.e. a visual real-time game running on a digital computer), the first one we do know of is still "Spacewar!" (1962). -- Edit: The cultural argument is rather similar to the question of rejecting "doing things on a computer" in tech patents.