Early history of video games
Throughout the rest of the 1960s, digital computer games were created by increasingly numerous programmers and sometimes sold commercially in catalogs. As the audience for video games expanded to more than a few dozen research institutions with the falling cost of computers, and programming languages that would run on multiple types of computers were created, a wider variety of games began to be developed. Video games transitioned into a new era in the early 1970s with the launch of the commercial video game industry in 1971 with the display of the coin-operated arcade game "Galaxy Game" and the release of the first arcade video game "Computer Space", and then in 1972 with the release of the immensely successful arcade game "Pong" and the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, which launched the first generation of video game consoles.
Strategy video game
The origin of strategy video games is rooted in traditional tabletop strategy games like Chess and Go, as well as board and miniature wargaming. The first console strategy game was a "Risk"-like game called "Invasion," released in 1972 for the Magnavox Odyssey. Strategic Simulations (SSI)'s "Computer Bismarck", released in 1980, was the first historical computer wargame. Companies such as SSI, Avalon Hill, MicroProse, and Strategic Studies Group released many strategy titles throughout the 1980s. "Reach for the Stars" from 1983 was one of the first 4X strategy games, which expanded upon the relationship between economic growth, technological progress, and conquest. That same year, "Nobunaga's Ambition" was a conquest-oriented grand strategy wargame with historical simulation elements. "The Lords of Midnight" combined elements of adventure, strategy and wargames, and won the Crash magazine award for Best Adventure game of 1984, as well as Best Strategy Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards