Violence in Video Games: 1950s-1970s

By cassieplemmons

  • Hutspiel

    U.S. military designs this game, first wargame entering the computer age
    Red vs. Blue Players (NATO and Soviet commanders) wage war
    Created by Operations Research Office, a civilian military research center conducted by the Johns Hopkins University

  • Spacewar!

    Spacewar!
    Developed by Steve Russell
    Published to minicomputers at MIT
    Description: It is a space combat game with 2 spaceships that are fighting with one another.
    Technological Advancements: It helped inspire more games to be created in the programming community. It is the first computer game played at multiple computer installations.

  • Maze/Maze War

    Maze/Maze War
    Developed by high school students (Steve Colley, Greg Thompson, Howard Palmer) during school work/study program at NASA Ames Research Center
    Published on ARPANET(Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)
    Description: FPS(First person shooter) game that was originally just a maze that they turned into a shooter game
    Technological Advancements: Played on two computers connected. Expanded in 1974 where it was an 8-player game. Then got updated so you could play within universities using ARPANET

  • Death Race

    Death Race
    Developer/ Publisher: Exidy
    Description: You run into “gremlins” to earn points. You can have one or two players and it is an arcade game.
    Technological Advancements: It was a modification of the Destruction Derby game where you would run into cars to gain points
    Controversy: People didn’t like the violence depicted in the game because the little “gremlins” in the game would screech every time you would run them over. There was a gravestone that popped up after they got hit too.