Video game development
The history of game making begins with the development of the first video games, although which video game is the first depends on the definition of "video game". The first games created had little entertainment value, and their development focus was separate from user experience—in fact, these games required mainframe computers to play them. "OXO", written by Alexander S. Douglas in 1952, was the first computer game to use a digital display. In 1958, a game called "Tennis for Two", which displayed its output on an oscilloscope, was made by Willy Higinbotham, a physicist working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 1961, a mainframe computer game called "Spacewar!" was developed by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students led by Steve Russell.
Audio game
The term "electronic game" is commonly understood as a synonym for the narrower concept of the "video game." This is understandable as both electronic games and video games have developed in parallel and the game market has always had a strong bias toward the visual. The first electronic game, in fact, is often cited to be "Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device" (1947) a decidedly visual game. Despite the difficulties in creating a visual component to early electronic games imposed by crude graphics, small view-screens, and power consumption, video games remained the primary focus of the early electronic game market.