Evolution of Video Games

It’s funny how some of the best ideas can come from odd places. In this case something that is done frequently. While sitting on a couch and playing a game, a usual task for myself, I came upon a revelation. Though amazingly simple, video games are technology, and like technology they’ve evolved. It was a thought that I just hadn’t thought about for a long time. How every few years new consoles come out, and with them a bucket load of new features. The amazing realistic style games that exist now are a product of all the consoles and games that have failed and succeeded throughout the past few decades. In a way the industry has evolved through natural selection.

Companies come and go every few years, Sega was a big contender for years but they removed from the console business with the Dreamcast. Microsoft would enter with their Xbox and take up a reigning position within the industry. It’s exactly like what Darwin said,


“As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurring struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable for itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected.” (Appleman 97)


Whenever a console is created with a strong successful feature, the consumer will purchase it, improving the company’s business, increasing its survival. It’s near the end of that generation of consoles that other companies attempt to mimic the feature or improve upon it to succeed as well. Before you know it every game system has it as a staple feature. For example Microsoft brought online multiplayer to the table, now on the next generation Sony and Nintendo have picked up the feature for their own products, This being one of the more modern examples. The upgrade from 2D to 3D and the change from cartridges to disks are some of the older ones, to see 50 of the greatest innovations in the game industry click on this, 50 Greatest Game Design Innovations(Link).

So while Darwin might be referring to the evolution of species, it can still be applicable to the game industry and how far it has come. Systems have come and gone, and all of the industry has evolved from every stepping stone. The next generation will come, and with it new ways to survive in the world of video games.



Works Cited:
Appleman, Philip. Darwin. 3rd. New York: Norton, 2001.

Edge Staff, "50 Greatest Game Design Innovations." Edge Online. 01 Nov 2007. Edge. 14 Dec 2008 .