Important Characters Throughout the Decades

1970s
Before the 1970s, there weren't many characters in games. In the 1960s, most of the games had environments to do with space. In the 1970s, Highnoon, Pong and Space Invaders came out. Two of these games featured much more interaction between the player and something in the game; Highnoon features a showdown between the player and Black Bart, set in the Wild West. Pong was one of the first video games to reach mainstream popularity, however Space Invaders was one of the earliest shooting games becoming one of the forerunners of modern video gaming and helping expand the video game industry. It has been the inspiration for other video games, being re-released on many platforms and having several sequels.

1980s
The 1980s introduced many of the games we know and love today, for example. Pac-Man and Super Mario Brothers, as well as having released Castle Wolfenstein which is considered to be the first game that had a World War 2 setting, popularising this setting across future games. Super Mario Bros. is a platform game which has had many sequels and remakes since then. The player controls Mario, or his brother Luigi, as he travels through Mushroom Kingdom. This game popularised the side-scrolling platform genre, selling tens of millions over 3 decade and has been released on practically every one of Nintendo's gaming consoles.

1990s
Since being released in 1992, Mortal Kombat has been released on nearly every video game platform. This arcade fighting game became a best selling game and is still one of the most popular fighting games in this genre's history, creating many sequels and spin-off games. When this game was released it caused a lot of controversy due to the inclusion of realistic violence and gore.
This game introduced age-specific content ratings for games.

2000s
The Sims is a life simulation video game series which has become the best-selling video game series of all time. In The Sims series, the player creates characters in a sandbox game mode which lacks defined goals and places them in houses and directs their moods and tries to satisfy their needs and desires, if the player chooses. Players can build houses as well as choose an already built home. There are many expansion packs released with every main Sims game, adding to what the player can do with their Sims. The Sims has been largely successful, having been released on many platforms and with numerous expansion packs and they are now on their forth "set" of The Sims franchise.

2010+
At the moment, it is difficult to see which games will have a significant impact in future games. The more popular games have been Minecraft, and things like Hotline Miami and other indie-esque games on platforms such as Steam. There are an abundance of games on platforms such as these, ranging from indie games such as To The Moon, and more detailed games such as Skyrim and Shadow of Mordor.


Ralphbaer.com, (2015). [online] Available at: http://www.ralphbaer.com/video_game_history.htm [Accessed 13 Nov. 2015].