Technology: Computer Games - From Pong! to Ping!
Once upon a time ago, in the gaming world, it was all (very excitedly)
about Pong! where today it is
all about Ping! I shall go on to explain...
Play has been an element of human interaction since the beginning of recorded history and presumably its origins lay much further back than that. In past times, play, and most recreational activities manifested itself in sports (lawn) games, board games, table games and pub games (using cards, dice or tiles) many of which are still played today. One of the most recent, and perhaps most exciting mediums to arrive for interactive play has been multi-player online gaming.
The arrival of the internet (the vehicle for online gaming) has taken the world by storm, pervading lives without many realising how it occurred so speedily and what it means for the future of society. The innovation of the World Wide Web in the post-modern world as we know it means we are communicatively smaller and some of us have become excited, if not overly engaged with ‘playing’ games with/against people from the other parts of the world. Subsequently, a whole subculture of online gamers has emerged.
There has been much debate over when the first video game was developed and who the many so-called ‘founding fathers’ of the industry actually where. However the general consensus now, is that Tennis for Two, developed in 1958 by American physicist Dr William Higginbotham, was the first to develop the multi-player game using a graphic display. Inventor Ralph Baer also experimented with games technology in the sixties and demonstrated the game Pong! at trade shows across America in 1966. Around the same time, Visionary Nolan Bushnell (then a computer science student from Utah who worked in amusement parks) was fascinated with the concept of human curiousness over using skill and luck to beat their opponents during arcade and amusement park games. It emerged later that Bushnell discovered Pong! at one of Baer’s trade shows (Baer would later receive patent rights), however, regardless of this went on to test and develop the game further for the newly launching arcade industry.
In the early 1970s, Bushnell tested Pong! in his local pub. He observed how quickly people flocked to his ‘tester’ game and got excited by how competitive and curious they became by trying to out-manoeuvre each other. Many could not understand how computer graphics worked on screen and many questioned him on where the signal was coming from (assuming it operated like television). This success encouraged 28-year-old Bushnell to form the company 'Atari' (Japanese for engulfing an opponent) and release the first video game Pong! in 1972. It became a smash hit in taverns across America and marked the beginning of the Arcade boom.
We can only suspect the origins of the gamer culture emanated from the arcade generation. The kids that hung out and played in game taverns and clubs became obsessed with competing each other for high point scores and there was an unspoken accolade for the ones that achieved the highest. Parents worried that it was a distraction from education and there was even a backlash from government and educational authorities who associated arcade hangouts with delinquency. The tenancy the kids took in these arcades was a new form of socialisation yet many would argue the kids’ behaviour was anti-social i.e. having a one-on-one relationship with a computer screen! 
On the discovery that game information could now be stored on a chip, Atari began developing consoles for the home market thus the beginning of home gaming systems. In 1974, Atari moved into the consumer electronics market and signed a distribution contract with Sears department store in the U.S. going on to sell millions of game consoles. 
In the 1980’s, B.M.I. released several new and progressively more powerful personal computers, which also facilitated home gaming. The culture progressed slowly from this point on, developers making major leaps now and then, as new technologies became available.
The late eighties to early nineties saw more competition in the market with the release of the various Sega and Nintendo console gaming systems. In this period, however, multi-player gaming was restricted to two, or maybe four player games. Personal hand-held gaming also became popular with the release of the Nintendo Gameboy (concept not unlike the Sony Walkman personal stereo) and with this the debut of the ancient Russian game Tetris which was a global success. Who doesn't love Tetris?! 
Internet gaming has developed as a major player in the twenty first century computer games industry, as IBM developed more powerful personal computers, and fast internet connections became more widely available. Apart from sending a message from one computer to another to check whether it is
reachable and active, 'Ping!' is a computer network administration utility used to test whether a
particular host is reachable across an Internet Protocol (IP) network
and to measure the round-trip time for packets sent from the local host
to a destination computer, including the local host's own interfaces. In other words, it's the time it takes one PC communicating with another! Due to this technology, one of the major genres to develop in the area of internet gaming over the years is that of the M.M.O.R.P.G. (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game). 
Other major genres to have communities build around them were Action, Adventure, Real Time Strategy, and perhaps the most significant of them all, the First Person Shooter. First Person Shooters originated on the PC, finding their first incarnations in games like Doom and Quake by Id Software. The technology which is used to fuel the now thriving console gaming communities was built from the ground upwards on the PC gaming platform. If it were not for that then, hardcore FPS gamers would not be able to commune on Xbox live in the way that they do now. It is important to understand where the roots of this community lie, if you are to understand the direction it is heading in now.