Week 1 Top 10’s: Classic Video Games and History

We begin class by learning about the history of video and computer games. Most students know something about Atari 2600 or Pong, but there are many holes we need to fill. Week one’s top 10 provides you with a set of resources to further develop your understanding of video game history. These lists aren’t necessarily academic, nor are they complete, but they are somewhere between entertaining and educational.

• [1] The 10 Most Important Games of all time: As presented at the [2] Game Developer’s Conference (something you should know about). This list will be particularly useful when you are studying for your first quiz. If you don’t know half of these, you don’t know games. Don’t worry, we’ll play some of them in class. You should also note that Game Informer, IGN, and others do similar lists annually.

• [3] Top 10 Cheesiest Classic Game Commercials (Yahoo!Games): Sit back, open a can of Tab and enjoy. We will watch some of these in class. Once you get beyond the laugh, we can start to analyze what sold games then, and what sells games now. Remember, this curse focuses on marketing as well as development.
• [4] Top 10 Remakes of Classic Games (Daily Top 10): Download a few games you might not be able to play otherwise. We can’t play every game in class, so it’s a good idea that you each play some outside of class.

(this is a repost of content I provided my students at http://ai.lgracegames.com/)