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EnglishOrigin of serious video games Julian Alvarez - 2022
Informations
Support : Autres publicationsAuthor(s) : Julian Alvarez
Editor : Les petits cahiers Ludens n°6, Team Ludens / Semper Ludens
Date : 2022
Lang :
Description
50 years ago, in 1972, the general public really discovered video games, with the commercial success of Atari's Pong arcade machine and the launch of the first home console: Odyssey's Magnavox. Before 1972, video games already existed, but they were not really accessible to the general public. This was known as the “prehistory of video games”.
20 years ago, in 2002, the general public discovered the video game title America's Army. Developed for the U.S. Army and distributed free on the Internet, this is a first-person shooter (FPS). It has sold several million copies and is available on PC, Xbox and Playstation game consoles, as well as on arcade terminals and cell phones. Why did the US Army come up with such a video game? To enhance the image of the U.S. Army and act as a recruitment tool. The approach proved highly effective, especially with young people aged 16 to 24. Noting this success, Ben Sawyer, pioneer of the Serious Game in the USA, declared that America's Army “was the first serious game to be well produced and successful with the general public”. So, to date, 2002 is seen as the official year of the emergence of the Serious Game...
Keywords : Serious games, Retro serious games, Video games, Retrogaming, Video game history