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.
History of Western role-playing video games
The earliest role-playing video games were created in the mid-to-late 1970s, as offshoots of early university mainframe text-based RPGs that were played on PDP-10, PLATO and Unix-based systems. These included "Dungeon", written in 1975 or 1976, "pedit5", created in 1975, and "dnd", also from 1975. These early games were inspired by pen-and-paper role-playing games, particularly "Dungeons & Dragons", which was first published in 1974, and J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Some of the first graphical computer RPGs (CRPGs) after "pedit5" and "dnd" included "orthanc" (1978), which was named after Saruman's tower in "Lord of the Rings", "avathar" (1979), later renamed "avatar", "oubliette" (1977), named after the French word for "dungeon", "moria" (1975), "dungeons of degorath", "baradur", "emprise", "bnd", "sorcery", and "dndworld". All of these were developed and became popular on the PLATO system during the late 1970s, in large part due to PLATO's speed, fast graphics, and large number of players with access to its nationwide network of terminals. PLATO was a mainframe system that supported multiple users and allowed them to play simultaneously, a feature not commonly available to owners of home personal computer systems at the time. These were followed by games on other platforms, such as "Temple of Apshai", written in 1979 for the TRS-80 and followed by two add-ons; "" (1980), which gave rise to the well-known "Ultima" series; "Wizardry" (1981), and "Sword of Fargoal" (1982). Games of this era were also influenced by text adventures such as "Colossal Cave Adventure" (1976) and "Zork" (1976); early MUDs, tabletop wargames such as "Chainmail" (1971), and sports games such as "Strat-O-Matic".