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Video games have been around for quite a while, and it’s always a good time remembering the roots of it all. Mostly because, for most of us, the golden era of gaming is behind us. We might envy the children that grow up with today’s gaming scene, but we aren’t kids anymore.
For those of us that can still enjoy gaming, it’s still a warm feeling to remember the good old days. Back then, the sky was the limit, a few pixels represented eternity and you got what you paid for. These pictures represent a trip down memory lane, with all its ups and downs.
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Indie Developers
Gaming was for everyone, even back in the 70s. Here, we see soon-to-be engineers preparing to finish their final senior project, their very own video game.
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Ads In Comic Books
The comic book and video game scenes are somewhat related today, at least in terms of audience overlap, but back then it was even more so. Here, we see an ad for a video game on the back of a, you guessed it, comic book page.
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Video Game Wonder
The children born in the back end of the 80s were the first generation that grew up with video games. Of course, that wasn’t the case for the whole population, but like this picture shows, it was the case for some of us.
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Steven And E.T.
You might not know the legend, but the E.T. video game is considered by most the worst game ever made. That makes this image of Spielberg testing the game with awe on his face a little bit sad.
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The Video Game Store
Nowadays, the video game store is slowly dying in favor of purely digital purchases, but here we can see the craft on its first legs. Of course, before having dedicated stores, games were sold alongside other products, like at a cafe in this case.
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Test Your Future Games
A very common practice in video game stores was letting customers try out the games, like what we today know as a demo. Some people used these opportunities to beat entire games in one sitting, something frowned upon by the store owners.
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Space Invaders Competition
Unlike other, more casual competitions, the ones held for Space Invaders in the early 80s were quite organized, with devices made specially for the event. Since PvP wasn’t really a thing, players competed for the highest score.
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Trying The Atari Controller
As we know, adults were into video games just as much as children, and with home consoles, they were the ones that needed to know how the system worked. A small child wasn’t going to fix the console if something broke, after all.
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Perfect Distraction Tool
I think we can all agree that having a waiting area at the dentist, one filled with toys and video games, would make going there less of a hassle. This doctor was ahead of its time.
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Mystery Game
Here, we can see a bunch of kids hunched over a computer with excited poses. Now, we don’t know what they’re watching, but we doubt that’s homework; they’re more likely playing some new videogame at someone’s house.
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Waiting Game
The dentist wasn’t alone in modernizing the way we wait for things, since the Powell Street BART Station added Atari consoles for people waiting for their trains. We can only imagine the number of trains lost due to people having a bit too much fun.
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Console Wars
You might think that the console wars were always between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, but these companies weren’t reality a thing the further back you go. The original console wars were between the Coleco Vision, Intellivision and Atari.
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The Tech Store
The one place where you can still see physical video games being sold is at department stores around the world. The things on offer today may be different, but visually, little has changed at these places.
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The One That Started It All
No vintage video game list is complete without mentioning the progenitor of the medium, Pong. Here, we see some kids enjoying an afternoon of gaming, bouncing that ball around like their lives depended on it.
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First Spinach, Then Video Games
As we all know, the concept of Popeye was conceived so kids in America would eat more vegetables, spinach in particular. Well, Popeye did such a good job at that, that he was then used to sell other things like video games. Sadly, to lesser results.
The post 15 Vintage Photos of Gaming in the ’70s & ’80s appeared first on Den of Geek.
