The first video game prototypes in the 1950s and 1960s were simple extensions of electronic games using video-like output from large, room-sized mainframe computers. The first consumer video game was the arcade video game Computer Space in 1971, which took inspiration from the earlier 1962 computer game Spacewar!. In 1972 came the now-iconic video game Pong and the first home console, the Magnavox Odyssey.
The term "video game" was developed to describe electronic games played on a video display rather than on a teletype printer, audio speaker, or similar device. The first appearance of the term "video game" emerged around 1973.
While many games readily fall into a clear, well-understood definition of video games, new genres and innovations in game development have raised the question of what are the essential factors of a video game that separate the medium from other forms of entertainment.
Today, video game development requires numerous skills, vision, teamwork, and liaisons between different parties, including developers, publishers, distributors, retailers, hardware manufacturers, and other marketers, to successfully bring a game to its consumers. As of 2020, the global video game market had estimated annual revenues of US$159 billion across hardware, software, and services.
Video games are typically categorized according to their hardware platform, which traditionally includes arcade video games, console games, and computer games. More recently, the video game industry has expanded onto mobile gaming through mobile devices, virtual and augmented reality systems, and remote cloud gaming.
A video game is generally considered to require a platform, the hardware which contains computing elements, to process player interaction from some type of input device and displays the results to a video output display.
Platforms may include multiple brands held by platform holders, such as Nintendo or Sony, seeking to gain larger market shares. Games are typically designed to be played on one or a limited number of platforms, and exclusivity to a platform or brand is used by platform holders as a competitive edge in the video game market.
Early arcade games, home consoles, and handheld games were dedicated hardware units with the game's logic built into the electronic componentry of the hardware. Since then, most video game platforms are considered programmable, having means to read and play multiple games distributed on different types of media or formats.
Video games can use several types of input devices to translate human actions to a game. Most common are the use of game controllers like gamepads and joysticks for most consoles, and as accessories for personal computer systems along keyboard and mouse controls.
By definition, all video games are intended to output graphics to an external video display, such as cathode ray tube televisions, newer liquid-crystal display (LCD) televisions and built-in screens, projectors or computer monitors, depending on the type of platform the game is played on.
Video games are frequently classified by a number of factors related to how one plays them. A video game, like most other forms of media, may be categorized into genres. However, unlike film or television which use visual or narrative elements, video games are generally categorized into genres based on their gameplay interaction.
Most commonly, video games are protected by copyright, though both patents and trademarks have been used as well. Because gameplay is normally ineligible for copyright, gameplay ideas in popular games are often replicated and built upon in other games.
The early history of the video game industry, following the first game hardware releases and through 1983, had little structure. The industry remained more conservative following the 1983 crash, forming around the concept of publisher-developer dichotomies, and by the 2000s, leading to the industry centralizing around low-risk, triple-A games and studios with large development budgets of at least $10 million or more.
Video games have caused controversy since the 1970s. Parents and children's advocates regularly raise concerns that violent video games can influence young players into performing those violent acts in real life, and events such as the Columbine High School massacre in 1999 in which some claimed the perpetrators specifically alluded to using video games to plot out their attack, raised further fears.
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