The History Of Guns In Games

As gaming has progressed through the years, it, like all media, has had its fair share of influences such as the Role Playing Game(RPG) and First Person Shooters (FPS); however, it is arguable that the FPS has gone the furthest of all the genres in North America. This is because unlike other countries, the US started its early gaming history using its history with the gun.

In the early days of games, around the 1980's, people were finally becoming more aware that games would be a viable means of both industry and entertainment. In 1968, a man by the name of Ralph Baer developed the first light gun for the Magnavox Odyssey's game, Shooting Gallery which began sales in 1972. Due to this being one of the earliest forms of the light gun, only a small number of games were created for it: Shootout, Dogfight, Prehistoric Safari and Shooting Gallery. It was in 1985 that the light gun gained more fame as Nintendo developed the first home console light gun for the NES and the game Duck Hunt. This model was known as the NES Zapper, and it had several games to its legacy, though Duck Hunt was probably the most recognized of them all.

One may ask the question, how does this affect the history of games, and to answer this it wouldn't be a far stretch to say in every way. To go a bit more in depth with the history of the US, there were many more times in its history than other countries in which guns were used, from civil wars to claiming their country. When it came time for game's appearances, guns were naturally expected to be involved at one point or another, however, the time at which they came in changed everything as their incredible popularity did not go unnoticed by the newly formed industry and game makers knew that this was going to stick.

Through the next 15 years we can see that games such as Doom, Resident Evil, Wild Gunmanm, Mech Warrior, Ghost Squad and Battle Field made their appearances with good reception and a lot of sales. This has pushed the market form the very beginning towards Shooter games. Looking at the list we can see that at least three of these series are still being made today, and more importantly, are being bought and played. All of these games today were inspired by games that preceded them, and down the chain to the very beginning. Any time a game is greeted with the kind of reception that shooters have had throughout their lifetime, its incredibly likely that many designers will jump on board and make similar games.

The Light Gun, the history of the weapon and its influence on American Culture, the games invented in the early days of gaming, all of these contributed to bringing shooters to the level they're at now. These games have been there since the beginning, and will always be a major part of gaming history. It's because of the history of the gun in games and reality that games are what they are today.