Computer Game Software

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A diagram showing how the user interacts with application software on a typical desktop computer.The application software layer interfaces with the operating system, which in turn communicates with the hardware. The arrows indicate information flow.

Computer software, or simply software, is a collection of data or computer instructions that tell the computer how to work. This is in contrast to physical hardware, from which the system is built and actually performs the work. In computer science and software engineering, computer software is all information processed by computer systems, programs and data. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and related non-executable data, such as online documentation or digital media. Computer hardware and software require each other and neither can be realistically used on its own.

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At the lowest programming level,^{[clarification needed]}executable code consists of machine language instructions supported by an individual processor—typically a central processing unit (CPU) or a graphics processing unit (GPU). A machine language consists of groups of binary values signifying processor instructions that change the state of the computer from its preceding state. For example, an instruction may change the value stored in a particular storage location in the computer—an effect that is not directly observable to the user. An instruction may also invoke one of many input or output operations, for example displaying some text on a computer screen; causing state changes which should be visible to the user. The processor executes the instructions in the order they are provided, unless it is instructed to 'jump' to a different instruction, or is interrupted by the operating system. As of 2015, most personal computers, smartphone devices and servers have processors with multiple execution units or multiple processors performing computation together, and computing has become a much more concurrent activity than in the past.

The majority of software is written in high-level programming languages. They are easier and more efficient for programmers because they are closer to natural languages than machine languages.^[1] High-level languages are translated into machine language using a compiler or an interpreter or a combination of the two. Software may also be written in a low-level assembly language, which has strong correspondence to the computer's machine language instructions and is translated into machine language using an assembler.

2Types
3Topics
7References

History

An outline (algorithm) for what would have been the first piece of software was written by Ada Lovelace in the 19th century, for the planned Analytical Engine.^[2] She created proofs to show how the engine would calculate Bernoulli Numbers.^[2] Because of the proofs and the algorithm, she is considered the first computer programmer.^[3]^[4]

The first theory about software—prior to creation of computers as we know them today—was proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935 essay On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem (decision problem).

This eventually led to the creation of the academic fields of computer science and software engineering; Both fields study software and its creation. Computer science is the theoretical study of computer and software (Turing's essay is an example of computer science), whereas software engineering is the application of engineering and development of software.

However, prior to 1946, software was not yet the programs stored in the memory of stored-program digital computers, as we now understand it. The first electronic computing devices were instead rewired in order to 'reprogram' them.

In 2000, Fred Shapiro, a librarian at the Yale Law School, published a letter revealing that John Wilder Tukey's 1958 paper 'The Teaching of Concrete Mathematics'^[5]^[6] contained the earliest known usage of the term 'software' found in a search of JSTOR's electronic archives, predating the OED's citation by two years.^[7] This led many to credit Tukey with coining the term, particularly in obituaries published that same year,^[8] although Tukey never claimed credit for any such coinage. In 1995, Paul Niquette claimed he had originally coined the term in October 1953, although he could not find any documents supporting his claim.^[9] The earliest known publication of the term 'software' in an engineering context was in August 1953 by Richard R. Carhart, in a Rand Corporation Research Memorandum.^[10]

Types

Blender Game Engine, a free software.

On virtually all computer platforms, software can be grouped into a few broad categories.

Purpose, or domain of use

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Online goods and services
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Customer service
E-procurement
Purchase-to-pay

Based on the goal, computer software can be divided into:

Application software
which is software that uses the computer system to perform special functions or provide entertainment functions beyond the basic operation of the computer itself. There are many different types of application software, because the range of tasks that can be performed with a modern computer is so large—see list of software.
System software
which is software for managing computer hardware behaviour, as to provide basic functionalities that are required by users, or for other software to run properly, if at all. System software is also designed for providing a platform for running application software,^[11] and it includes the following:
- Operating systems
  which are essential collections of software that manage resources and provides common services for other software that runs 'on top' of them. Supervisory programs, boot loaders, shells and window systems are core parts of operating systems. In practice, an operating system comes bundled with additional software (including application software) so that a user can potentially do some work with a computer that only has one operating system.
- Device drivers
  which operate or control a particular type of device that is attached to a computer. Each device needs at least one corresponding device driver; because a computer typically has at minimum at least one input device and at least one output device, a computer typically needs more than one device driver.
- Utilities
  which are computer programs designed to assist users in the maintenance and care of their computers.
Malicious software or malware
which is software that is developed to harm and disrupt computers. As such, malware is undesirable. Malware is closely associated with computer-related crimes, though some malicious programs may have been designed as practical jokes.

Nature or domain of execution

Desktop applications such as web browsers and Microsoft Office, as well as smartphone and tablet applications (called 'apps'). (There is a push in some parts of the software industry to merge desktop applications with mobile apps, to some extent. Windows 8, and later Ubuntu Touch, tried to allow the same style of application user interface to be used on desktops, laptops and mobiles.)
JavaScript scripts are pieces of software traditionally embedded in web pages that are run directly inside the web browser when a web page is loaded without the need for a web browser plugin. Software written in other programming languages can also be run within the web browser if the software is either translated into JavaScript, or if a web browser plugin that supports that language is installed; the most common example of the latter is ActionScript scripts, which are supported by the Adobe Flash plugin.
Server software, including:
- Web applications, which usually run on the web server and output dynamically generated web pages to web browsers, using e.g. PHP, Java, ASP.NET, or even JavaScript that runs on the server. In modern times these commonly include some JavaScript to be run in the web browser as well, in which case they typically run partly on the server, partly in the web browser.
Plugins and extensions are software that extends or modifies the functionality of another piece of software, and require that software be used in order to function;
Embedded software resides as firmware within embedded systems, devices dedicated to a single use or a few uses such as cars and televisions (although some embedded devices such as wireless chipsets can themselves be part of an ordinary, non-embedded computer system such as a PC or smartphone).^[12] In the embedded system context there is sometimes no clear distinction between the system software and the application software. However, some embedded systems run embedded operating systems, and these systems do retain the distinction between system software and application software (although typically there will only be one, fixed, application which is always run).
Microcode is a special, relatively obscure type of embedded software which tells the processor itself how to execute machine code, so it is actually a lower level than machine code. It is typically proprietary to the processor manufacturer, and any necessary correctional microcode software updates are supplied by them to users (which is much cheaper than shipping replacement processor hardware). Thus an ordinary programmer would not expect to ever have to deal with it.

Programming tools

Programming tools are also software in the form of programs or applications that software developers (also known asprogrammers, coders, hackers or software engineers) use to create, debug, maintain (i.e. improve or fix), or otherwise support software.

Software is written in one or more programming languages; there are many programming languages in existence, and each has at least one implementation, each of which consists of its own set of programming tools. These tools may be relatively self-contained programs such as compilers, debuggers, interpreters, linkers, and text editors, that can be combined together to accomplish a task; or they may form an integrated development environment (IDE), which combines much or all of the functionality of such self-contained tools. IDEs may do this by either invoking the relevant individual tools or by re-implementing their functionality in a new way. An IDE can make it easier to do specific tasks, such as searching in files in a particular project. Many programming language implementations provide the option of using both individual tools or an IDE.

Topics

Architecture

Users often see things differently from programmers. People who use modern general purpose computers (as opposed to embedded systems, analog computers and supercomputers) usually see three layers of software performing a variety of tasks: platform, application, and user software.

Platform software
The Platform includes the firmware, device drivers, an operating system, and typically a graphical user interface which, in total, allow a user to interact with the computer and its peripherals (associated equipment). Platform software often comes bundled with the computer. On a PC one will usually have the ability to change the platform software.
Application software
Application software or Applications are what most people think of when they think of software. Typical examples include office suites and video games. Application software is often purchased separately from computer hardware. Sometimes applications are bundled with the computer, but that does not change the fact that they run as independent applications. Applications are usually independent programs from the operating system, though they are often tailored for specific platforms. Most users think of compilers, databases, and other 'system software' as applications.
User-written software
End-user development tailors systems to meet users' specific needs. User software include spreadsheet templates and word processor templates. Even email filters are a kind of user software. Users create this software themselves and often overlook how important it is. Depending on how competently the user-written software has been integrated into default application packages, many users may not be aware of the distinction between the original packages, and what has been added by co-workers.

Execution

Computer software has to be 'loaded' into the computer's storage (such as the hard drive or memory). Once the software has loaded, the computer is able to execute the software. This involves passing instructions from the application software, through the system software, to the hardware which ultimately receives the instruction as machine code. Each instruction causes the computer to carry out an operation—moving data, carrying out a computation, or altering the control flow of instructions.

Data movement is typically from one place in memory to another. Sometimes it involves moving data between memory and registers which enable high-speed data access in the CPU. Moving data, especially large amounts of it, can be costly. So, this is sometimes avoided by using 'pointers' to data instead. Computations include simple operations such as incrementing the value of a variable data element. More complex computations may involve many operations and data elements together.

Quality and reliability

Software quality is very important, especially for commercial and system software like Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows and Linux. If software is faulty (buggy), it can delete a person's work, crash the computer and do other unexpected things. Faults and errors are called 'bugs' which are often discovered during alpha and beta testing. Software is often also a victim to what is known as software aging, the progressive performance degradation resulting from a combination of unseen bugs.

Many bugs are discovered and eliminated (debugged) through software testing. However, software testing rarely—if ever—eliminates every bug; some programmers say that 'every program has at least one more bug' (Lubarsky's Law).^[13] In the waterfall method of software development, separate testing teams are typically employed, but in newer approaches, collectively termed agile software development, developers often do all their own testing, and demonstrate the software to users/clients regularly to obtain feedback. Software can be tested through unit testing, regression testing and other methods, which are done manually, or most commonly, automatically, since the amount of code to be tested can be quite large. For instance, NASA has extremely rigorous software testing procedures for many operating systems and communication functions. Many NASA-based operations interact and identify each other through command programs. This enables many people who work at NASA to check and evaluate functional systems overall. Programs containing command software enable hardware engineering and system operations to function much easier together.

License

The software's license gives the user the right to use the software in the licensed environment, and in the case of free software licenses, also grants other rights such as the right to make copies. Vmware 5.5 standalone converter download.

Proprietary software can be divided into two types:

freeware, which includes the category of 'free trial' software or 'freemium' software (in the past, the term shareware was often used for free trial/freemium software). As the name suggests, freeware can be used free, although in the case of free trials or freemium software, this is sometimes only true for a limited period of time or with limited functionality.
software available for a fee, often inaccurately termed 'commercial software', which can only be legally used on purchase of a license.

Open source software, on the other hand, comes with a free software license, granting the recipient the rights to modify and redistribute the software.

Patents

Software patents, like other types of patents, are theoretically supposed to give an inventor an exclusive, time-limited license for a detailed idea (e.g. an algorithm) on how to implement a piece of software, or a component of a piece of software. Ideas for useful things that software could do, and user requirements, are not supposed to be patentable, and concrete implementations (i.e. the actual software packages implementing the patent) are not supposed to be patentable either—the latter are already covered by copyright, generally automatically. So software patents are supposed to cover the middle area, between requirements and concrete implementation. In some countries, a requirement for the claimed invention to have an effect on the physical world may also be part of the requirements for a software patent to be held valid—although since all useful software has effects on the physical world, this requirement may be open to debate. Meanwhile, American copyright law was applied to various aspects of the writing of the software code.^[14]

Software patents are controversial in the software industry with many people holding different views about them. One of the sources of controversy is that the aforementioned split between initial ideas and patent does not seem to be honored in practice by patent lawyers—for example the patent for Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP), which purported to claim rights over any programming tool implementing the idea of AOP, howsoever implemented. Another source of controversy is the effect on innovation, with many distinguished experts and companies arguing that software is such a fast-moving field that software patents merely create vast additional litigation costs and risks, and actually retard innovation. In the case of debates about software patents outside the United States, the argument has been made that large American corporations and patent lawyers are likely to be the primary beneficiaries of allowing or continue to allow software patents.

Design and implementation

Design and implementation of software varies depending on the complexity of the software. For instance, the design and creation of Microsoft Word took much more time than designing and developing Microsoft Notepad because the latter has much more basic functionality.

Software is usually designed and created (aka coded/written/programmed) in integrated development environments (IDE) like Eclipse, IntelliJ and Microsoft Visual Studio that can simplify the process and compile the software (if applicable). As noted in a different section, software is usually created on top of existing software and the application programming interface (API) that the underlying software provides like GTK+, JavaBeans or Swing. Libraries (APIs) can be categorized by their purpose. For instance, the Spring Framework is used for implementing enterprise applications, the Windows Forms library is used for designing graphical user interface (GUI) applications like Microsoft Word, and Windows Communication Foundation is used for designing web services. When a program is designed, it relies upon the API. For instance, a Microsoft Windows desktop application might call API functions in the .NET Windows Forms library like Form1.Close() and Form1.Show()^[15] to close or open the application. Without these APIs, the programmer needs to write these functionalities entirely themselves. Companies like Oracle and Microsoft provide their own APIs so that many applications are written using their software libraries that usually have numerous APIs in them.

Data structures such as hash tables, arrays, and binary trees, and algorithms such as quicksort, can be useful for creating software.

Computer software has special economic characteristics that make its design, creation, and distribution different from most other economic goods.^[specify]^[16]^[17]

A person who creates software is called a programmer, software engineer or software developer, terms that all have a similar meaning. More informal terms for programmer also exist such as 'coder' and 'hacker' – although use of the latter word may cause confusion, because it is more often used to mean someone who illegally breaks into computer systems.

Industry and organizations

A great variety of software companies and programmers in the world comprise a software industry. Software can be quite a profitable industry: Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft was the richest person in the world in 2009, largely due to his ownership of a significant number of shares in Microsoft, the company responsible for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office software products - both market leaders in their respective product categories.

Non-profit software organizations include the Free Software Foundation, GNU Project and the Mozilla Foundation. Software standard organizations like the W3C, IETF develop recommended software standards such as XML, HTTP and HTML, so that software can interoperate through these standards.

Other well-known large software companies include Google, IBM, TCS, Infosys, Wipro, HCL Technologies, Oracle, Novell, SAP, Symantec, Adobe Systems, Sidetrade and Corel, while small companies often provide innovation.

References

^'Compiler construction'. Archived from the original on 2 November 2013.
^ ^a^bEvans 2018, p. 21.
^Fuegi, J.; Francis, J. (2003). 'Lovelace & Babbage and the creation of the 1843 'notes''. Annals of the History of Computing. 25 (4): 16–26. doi:10.1109/MAHC.2003.1253887.
^'Ada Lovelace honoured by Google doodle'. The Guardian. 10 December 2012. Retrieved 25 November 2018.
^Tukey, John Wilder (January 1958). 'The Teaching of Concrete Mathematics'. American Mathematical Monthly. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. / Mathematical Association of America. 65 (1): 1–9, 2. doi:10.2307/2310294. ISSN0002-9890. JSTOR2310294. CODEN AMMYAE. […] Today the 'software' comprising the carefully planned interpretive routines, compilers, and other aspects of automative programming are at least as important to the modern electronic calculator as its 'hardware' of tubes, transistors, wires, tapes, and the like. […]
^Beebe, Nelson H. F. (22 August 2017). 'Chapter I - Integer arithmetic'. The Mathematical-Function Computation Handbook - Programming Using the MathCW Portable Software Library (1 ed.). Salt Lake City, UT, USA: Springer International Publishing AG. pp. 969, 1035. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-64110-2. ISBN978-3-319-64109-6. LCCN2017947446.
^Shapiro, Fred (2000). 'Origin of the Term Software: Evidence from the JSTOR Electronic Journal Archive'(PDF). IEEE Annals of the History of Computing. 22 (2): 69–71. doi:10.1109/mahc.2000.887997. Archived from the original(PDF) on 5 June 2003. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
^Leonhardt, David (28 July 2000). 'John Tukey, 85, Statistician; Coined the Word 'Software''. New York Times. Retrieved 24 September 2012.
^Niquette, R. Paul (2006), Softword: Provenance for the Word 'Software, ISBN1-58922-233-4, archived from the original on 8 August 2019, retrieved 18 August 2019
^Carhart, Richard (1953). A survey of the current status of the electronic reliability problem(PDF). Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation. p. 69. […] It will be recalled from Sec. 1.6 that the term personnel was defined to include people who come into direct contact with the hardware, from production to field use, i.e., people who assemble, inspect, pack, ship, handle, install, operate, and maintain electronic equipment. In any of these phases personnel failures may result in unoperational gear. As with the hardware factors, there is almost no quantitative data concerning these software or human factors in reliability: How many faults are caused by personnel, why they occur, and what can be done to remove the errors. […]
^'System Software'. The University of Mississippi. Archived from the original on 30 May 2001.
^'Embedded Software—Technologies and Trends'. IEEE Computer Society. May–June 2009. Archived from the original on 28 October 2013. Retrieved 6 November 2013.
^'scripting intelligence book examples'. 9 May 2018. Archived from the original on 6 November 2015.
^Gerardo Con Díaz, 'The Text in the Machine: American Copyright Law and the Many Natures of Software, 1974–1978,” Technology and Culture 57 (October 2016), 753–79.
^'MSDN Library'. Archived from the original on 11 June 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
^v. Engelhardt, Sebastian (2008). 'The Economic Properties of Software'. Jena Economic Research Papers. 2 (2008–045). Archived from the original on 5 January 2016.
^Kaminsky, Dan (1999). 'Why Open Source Is The Optimum Economic Paradigm for Software'. Archived from the original on 22 May 2012.

Sources

Evans, Claire L. (2018). Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet. New York: Portfolio/Penguin. ISBN9780735211759.

External links

Software at Curlie

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Software&oldid=917694658'

Video games
Part of a series on:
Console game Electronic game Handheld game Online game PC game
Action Action-adventure Adventure Role-playing Simulation Strategy
Best-selling video game franchises Most-played video games by player count

A PC game, also known as a computer game or personal computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-determined gaming hardware and software; and generally greater capacity in input, processing, video and audio output. The uncoordinated nature of the PC game market, and now its lack of physical media, make precisely assessing its size difficult.^[1]

Home computer games became popular following the video game crash of 1983, leading to the era of the 'bedroom coder'. In the 1990s, PC games lost mass-market traction to console games, before enjoying a resurgence in the mid-2000s through digital distribution.^[1]^[2]

Newzoo reports that the PC gaming sector is the third-largest category (and estimated in decline) across all platforms as of 2016, with the console sector second-largest, and mobile/smartphone gaming sector biggest. 2.2 billion video gamers generate US$101.1 billion in revenue, excluding hardware costs. 'Digital game revenues will account for $94.4 billion or 87% of the global market. Mobile is the most lucrative segment, with smartphone and tablet gaming growing 19% year on year to $46.1 billion, claiming 42% of the market. In 2020, mobile gaming will represent just more than half of the total games market. [..] China expected to generate $27.5 billion, or one-quarter of all revenues in 2017.'^[3]^[4]

PC gaming is considered synonymous (by Newzoo and others) with IBM Personal Computer compatible systems; while mobile computers – smartphones and tablets, such as those running Android or iOS – are also personal computers in the general sense. The APAC region was estimated to generate $46.6 billion in 2016, or 47% of total global video game revenues (note, not only 'PC' games). China alone accounts for half of APAC's revenues (at $24.4 billion), cementing its place as the largest video game market in the world, ahead of the US's anticipated market size of $23.5 billion. China is expected to have 53% of its video game revenues come from mobile gaming in 2017 (46% in 2016).

1History
2Foreign PC gaming
3Platform characteristics
- 3.2Openness
- 3.3Dominant software
4PC gaming technology
- 4.3Multiplayer

History[edit]

Early growth[edit]

Spacewar!, developed for the PDP-1 in 1961, is often credited as being the second ever computer game. The game consisted of two player-controlled spaceships maneuvering around a central star, each attempting to destroy the other.

Bertie the Brain was one of the first game playing machines developed. It was built in 1950 by Josef Kates. It measured more than four meters tall, and was displayed at the Canadian National Exhibition that year.^[5]

Although personal computers only became popular with the development of the microprocessor and microcomputer, computer gaming on mainframes and minicomputers had previously already existed. OXO, an adaptation of tic-tac-toe for the EDSAC, debuted in 1952. Another pioneer computer game was developed in 1961, when MIT students Martin Graetz and Alan Kotok, with MIT student Steve Russell, developed Spacewar! on a PDP-1mainframe computer used for statistical calculations.^[6]

The first generation of computer games were often text-basedadventures or interactive fiction, in which the player communicated with the computer by entering commands through a keyboard. An early text-adventure, Adventure, was developed for the PDP-11minicomputer by Will Crowther in 1976, and expanded by Don Woods in 1977.^[7] By the 1980s, personal computers had become powerful enough to run games like Adventure, but by this time, graphics were beginning to become an important factor in games. Later games combined textual commands with basic graphics, as seen in the SSI Gold Box games such as Pool of Radiance, or The Bard's Tale, for example.

By the late 1970s to early 1980s, games were developed and distributed through hobbyist groups and gaming magazines, such as Creative Computing and later Computer Gaming World. These publications provided game code that could be typed into a computer and played, encouraging readers to submit their own software to competitions.^[8] Players could modify the BASIC source code of even commercial games.^[9]Microchess was one of the first games for microcomputers which was sold to the public. First sold in 1977, Microchess eventually sold over 50,000 copies on cassette tape.

As with second-generationvideo game consoles at the time, early home computer game companies capitalized on successful arcade games at the time with ports or clones of popular arcade games.^[10]^[11] By 1982, the top-selling games for the Atari 400 were ports of Frogger and Centipede, while the top-selling game for the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A was the Space Invaders clone TI Invaders.^[10] That same year, Pac-Man was ported to the Atari 800,^[11] while Donkey Kong was licensed for the Coleco Adam.^[12] In late 1981, Atari attempted to take legal action against unauthorized clones, particularly Pac-Man clones, despite some of these predating Atari's exclusive rights to the home versions of Namco's game.^[11]

Industry crash and aftermath[edit]

As the video game market became flooded with poor-quality cartridge games created by numerous companies attempting to enter the market, and overproduction of high-profile releases such as the Atari 2600 adaptations of Pac-Man and E.T. grossly underperformed, the popularity of personal computers for education rose dramatically. In 1983, consumer interest in console video games dwindled to historical lows, as interest in games on personal computers rose.^[13] The effects of the crash were largely limited to the console market, as established companies such as Atari posted record losses over subsequent years. Conversely, the home computer market boomed, as sales of low-cost color computers such as the Commodore 64 rose to record highs and developers such as Electronic Arts benefited from increasing interest in the platform.^[13]

To enhance the immersive experience with their unrealistic graphics and electronic sound, early PC games included extras such as the peril-sensitive sunglasses that shipped with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or the science fiction novella included with Elite. These extras gradually became less common, but many games were still sold in the traditional oversized boxes that used to hold the extra 'feelies'. Today, such extras are usually found only in Special Edition versions of games, such as Battlechests from Blizzard.^[14]

The North American console market experienced a resurgence in the United States with the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). In Europe, computer gaming continued to boom for many years after.^[13] Computers such as the ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro were successful in the European market, where the NES was not as successful despite its monopoly in Japan and North America. The only 8-bit console to have any success in Europe would be the Sega Master System.^[15] Meanwhile, in Japan, both consoles and computers became major industries, with the console market dominated by Nintendo and the computer market dominated by NEC's PC-88 (1981) and PC-98 (1982). A key difference between Western and Japanese computers at the time was the display resolution, with Japanese systems using a higher resolution of 640x400 to accommodate Japanese text which in turn affected video game design and allowed more detailed graphics. Japanese computers were also using Yamaha's FM synthsound boards from the early 1980s.^[16]

During the 16-bit era, the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST became popular in Europe, while the PC-98, Sharp X68000 and FM Towns became popular in Japan. The Amiga, X68000 and FM Towns were capable of producing near arcade-quality hardware sprite graphics and sound quality when they first released in the mid-to-late 1980s.^[16]

Growth of IBM PC gaming[edit]

Among launch titles for the IBM Personal Computer (PC) in 1981 was Microsoft Adventure, which IBM described as bringing 'players into a fantasy world of caves and treasures'.^[17]BYTE that year stated that the computer's speed and sophistication made it 'an excellent gaming device', and IBM and others sold games like Microsoft Flight Simulator. The PC's CGA graphics and speaker sound were poor, however, and most customers bought the powerful but expensive computer for business.^[18]^[19] One ComputerLand owner estimated in 1983 that a quarter of corporate executives with computers 'have a game hidden somewhere in their drawers',^[20] and InfoWorld in 1984 reported that 'in offices all over America (more than anyone realizes) executives and managers are playing games on their computers',^[21] but software companies found selling games for the PC difficult; an observer said that year that Flight Simulator had sold hundreds of thousands of copies because customers with corporate PCs could claim that it was a 'simulation'.^[22]

From mid-1985, however, what Compute! described as a 'wave' of inexpensive IBM PC clones from American and Asian companies, such as the Tandy 1000, caused prices to decline; by the end of 1986, the equivalent to a $1600 real IBM PC with 256K RAM and two disk drives cost as little as $600, lower than the price of the Apple IIc. Consumers began purchasing DOS computers for the home in large numbers. While often purchased to do work in evenings and weekends, clones' popularity caused consumer-software companies to increase the number of IBM-compatible products, including those developed specifically for the PC as opposed to porting from other computers. Bing Gordon of Electronic Arts reported that customers used computers for games more than one fifth of the time whether purchased for work or a hobby, with many who purchased computers for other reasons finding PC games 'a pretty satisfying experience'.^[23]

By 1987, the PC market was growing so quickly that the formerly business-only computer had become the largest and fastest-growing, and most important platform for computer game companies. DOS computers dominated the home, supplanting Commodore and Apple. More than a third of games sold in North America were for the PC, twice as many as those for the Apple II and even outselling those for the Commodore 64.^[24] With the EGAvideo card, an inexpensive clone had better graphics and more memory for games than the Commodore or Apple,^[25]^[26] and the Tandy 1000's enhanced graphics, sound, and built-in joystick ports made it the best platform for IBM PC-compatible games before the VGA era.^[19]

By 1988, the enormous popularity of the Nintendo Entertainment System had greatly affected the computer-game industry. A Koei executive claimed that 'Nintendo's success has destroyed the [computer] software entertainment market'. A Mindscape executive agreed, saying that 'Unfortunately, its effect has been extremely negative. Without question, Nintendo's success has eroded software sales. There's been a much greater falling off of disk sales than anyone anticipated.' A third attributed the end of growth in sales of the Commodore 64 to the console, and Trip Hawkins called Nintendo 'the last hurrah of the 8-bit world'. Experts were unsure whether it affected 16-bit computer games,^[27] but Hawkins in 1990 nonetheless had to deny rumors that Electronic Arts would withdraw from computers and only produce console games.^[28] By 1993 ASCII Entertainment reported at a Software Publishers Association conference that the market for console games ($5.9 billion in revenue) was 12 times that of the computer-game market ($430 million).^[29]

Computer games, however, did not disappear. By 1989 Computer Gaming World reported that 'the industry is moving toward heavy use of VGA graphics'.^[30] While some games were advertised with VGA support at the start of the year, they usually supported EGA graphics through VGA cards. By the end of 1989, however, most publishers moved to at supporting at least 320x200 MCGA, a subset of VGA.^[31] VGA gave the PC graphics that outmatched the Amiga. Increasing adoption of the computer mouse, driven partially by the success of adventure games such as the highly successful King's Quest series, and high resolution bitmap displays allowed the industry to include increasingly high-quality graphical interfaces in new releases.

Further improvements to game artwork and audio were made possible with the introduction of FM synthesis sound. Yamaha began manufacturing FM synth boards for computers in the early-mid-1980s, and by 1985, the NEC and FM-7 computers had built-in FM sound.^[16] The first PC sound cards, such as AdLib's Music Synthesizer Card, soon appeared in 1987. These cards allowed IBM PC compatible computers to produce complex sounds using FM synthesis, where they had previously been limited to simple tones and beeps. However, the rise of the Creative LabsSound Blaster card, released in 1989, which featured much higher sound quality due to the inclusion of a PCM channel and digital signal processor, led AdLib to file for bankruptcy by 1992. Also in 1989, the FM Towns computer included built-in PCM sound, in addition to a CD-ROM drive and 24-bit color graphics.^[16]

By 1990, DOS was 65% of the computer-game market, with the Amiga at 10%; all other computers, including the Apple Macintosh, were below 10% and declining. Although both Apple and IBM tried to avoid customers associating their products with 'game machines', the latter acknowledged that VGA, audio, and joystick options for its PS/1 computer were popular.^[32] In 1991, id Software produced an early first-person shooter, Hovertank 3D, which was the company's first in their line of highly influential games in the genre. There were also several other companies that produced early first-person shooters, such as Arsys Software's Star Cruiser,^[33] which featured fully 3D polygonal graphics in 1988,^[34] and Accolade's Day of the Viper in 1989. Id Software went on to develop Wolfenstein 3D in 1992, which helped to popularize the genre, kick-starting a genre that would become one of the highest-selling in modern times.^[35] The game was originally distributed through the shareware distribution model, allowing players to try a limited part of the game for free but requiring payment to play the rest, and represented one of the first uses of texture mapping graphics in a popular game, along with Ultima Underworld.^[36]

In December 1992, Computer Gaming World reported that DOS accounted for 82% of computer-game sales in 1991, compared to Macintosh's 8% and Amiga's 5%. In response to a reader's challenge to find a DOS game that played better than the Amiga version the magazine cited Wing Commander and Civilization, and added that 'The heavy MS-DOS emphasis in CGW merely reflects the realities of the market'.^[37] A self-reported Computer Gaming World survey in April 1993 similarly found that 91% of readers primarily used IBM PCs and compatibles for gaming, compared to 6% for Amiga, 3% for Macintosh, and 1% for Atari ST,^[38] while a Software Publishers Association study found that 74% of personal computers were IBMs or compatible, 10% Macintosh, 7% Apple II, and 8% other. 51% of IBM or compatible had 386 or faster CPUs.^[29] By 1992 DOS games such as Links 386 Pro supported Super VGA graphics.^[39] While leading Sega and Nintendo console systems kept their CPU speed at 3–7 MHz, the 486 PC processor ran much faster, allowing it to perform many more calculations per second. The 1993 release of Doom on the PC was a breakthrough in 3D graphics, and was soon ported to various game consoles in a general shift toward greater realism.^[40]Computer Gaming World reiterated in 1994, 'we have to advise readers who want a machine that will play most of the games to purchase high-end MS-DOS machines'.^[41]

By spring 1994 an estimated 24 million US homes (27% of households) had a personal computer. 48% played games on their computer; 40% had the 486 CPU or higher; 35% had CD-ROM drives; and 20% had a sound card.^[42] Another survey found that an estimated 2.46 million multimedia computers had internal CD-ROM drives by the end of 1993, an increase of almost 2,000%. Computer Gaming World reported in April 1994 that some software publishers planned to only distribute on CD as of 1995.^[43] CD-ROM had much larger storage capacity than floppies, helped reduce software piracy, and was less expensive to produce. Chris Crawford warned that it was 'apublishers may be losing their focus'. While many companies used the additional storage to release poor-quality shovelware collections of older software, or 'enhanced' versions of existing ones^[44]—often with what the magazine mocked as 'amateur acting' in the added audio and video^[43]—new games such as Myst included many more assets for a richer game experience.

Many companies sold 'multimedia upgrade kits' that bundled CD drives, sound cards, and software during the mid-1990s, but device drivers for the new peripherals further depleted scarce RAM.^[45] By 1993, PC games required much more memory than other software, often consuming all of conventional memory, while device drivers could go into upper memory with DOS memory managers. Players found modifying CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files for memory management cumbersome and confusing, and each game needed a different configuration. (The game Les Manley 2 satirizes this by depicting two beautiful women exhaust the hero in bed, by requesting that he again explain the difference between extended and expanded memory.) Computer Gaming World provided technical assistance to its writers to help install games for review,^[46] and published sample configuration files.^[47] The magazine advised non-technical gamers to purchase commercial memory managers like QEMM and 386MAX^[45] and criticized nonstandard software like Origin Systems's 'infamous late and unlamented Voodoo Memory Manager',^[48] which used unreal mode.

Contemporary gaming[edit]

By 1996, the growing popularity of Microsoft Windows simplified device driver and memory management. The success of 3D console titles such as Super Mario 64 and Tomb Raider increased interest in hardware accelerated 3D graphics on PCs, and soon resulted in attempts to produce affordable solutions with the ATI Rage, Matrox Mystique, S3 ViRGE, and Rendition Vérité.^[49] As 3D graphics libraries such as DirectX and OpenGL matured and knocked proprietary interfaces out of the market, these platforms gained greater acceptance in the market, particularly with their demonstrated benefits in games such as Unreal.^[50] However, major changes to the Microsoft Windows operating system, by then the market leader, made many older DOS-based games unplayable on Windows NT, and later, Windows XP (without using an emulator, such as DOSbox).^[51]^[52]

The faster graphics accelerators and improving CPU technology resulted in increasing levels of realism in computer games. During this time, the improvements introduced with products such as ATI's Radeon R300 and NVidia's GeForce 6 Series have allowed developers to increase the complexity of modern game engines. PC gaming currently tends strongly toward improvements in 3D graphics.^[53]

Computer Game Recording Software

Unlike the generally accepted push for improved graphical performance, the use of physics engines in computer games has become a matter of debate since announcement and 2005 release of the nVidiaPhysXPPU, ostensibly competing with middleware such as the Havok physics engine. Issues such as difficulty in ensuring consistent experiences for all players,^[54] and the uncertain benefit of first generation PhysX cards in games such as Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter and City of Villains, prompted arguments over the value of such technology.^[55]^[56]

Similarly, many game publishers began to experiment with new forms of marketing. Chief among these alternative strategies is episodic gaming, an adaptation of the older concept of expansion packs, in which game content is provided in smaller quantities but for a proportionally lower price. Titles such as Half-Life 2: Episode One took advantage of the idea, with mixed results rising from concerns for the amount of content provided for the price.^[57]

Foreign PC gaming[edit]

Polish[edit]

During the 1980s, the cheap and talented workforce of the Polish People's Republic began producing video games with Warsaw company Karen, founded by enterprising emigrant Lucjan Wencel, developing many hits that were released in the United States.^[58] The 1991 strategy game 'Solidarność' by Przemysław Rokita, where players led a trade union to political victory, was the symbolic beginning of a new trend where interactive works applied video game conventions to local Polish culture and history^[58], and through a distorting mirror portrayed the Eastern Bloc, local villages, and the mentality of citizens.^[59] Developers in this age struggled with minimal profits, working after hours, harsh working conditions, older computers, and an ignorance of foreign languages and sentiments.^[58] The country saw its own text based games – e.g. Mózgprocesor (1989), arcade games – e.g. Robbo (1989), football manager – Polish League (1995), Doom-clone – Cytadela (1995), and The Settlers-clone – Polanie (1995), however the adventure game genre was the 'most significant species in the 90s', a genre which was finally cracked with Tajemnica Statuetki.^[58]

Tajemnica Statuetki was the first commercially released Polish adventure game,^[60]^[61] one of the first Polish and Polish-language video games ever,^[62] and Chmielarz's first game that he had developed from start to finish^[63] – the first officially sold program that he wrote.^[64] It is sometimes erroneously considered the first Polish computer game, a distinction held by Witold Podgórski's 1961 mainframe gameMarienbad, inspired by a Chinese puzzle called 'Nim', and released on the Odra 1003.^[65] (Meanwhile, Polygamia writes that 1986's text-based Puszka Pandory is the first game written by a Pole, sold in Poland, and reviewed in Polish press).^[66] Despite this, Onet wrote in 2013 about a common misconception that the game marks the point where the history of digital entertainment in Poland begins.^[67]

Platform characteristics[edit]

Fidelity[edit]

In high-end PC gaming, a PC will generally have far more processing resources at its disposal than other gaming systems.^[68] Game developers can use this to improve the visual fidelity of their game relative to other platforms, but even if they do not, games running on PC are likely to benefit from higher screen resolution, higher framerate,^[69] and anti-aliasing. Increased draw distance is also common in open world games.^[70]

Better hardware also increases the potential fidelity of a PC game's rules and simulation. PC games often support more players or NPCs than equivalents on other platforms^[71] and game designs which depend on the simulation of large numbers of tokens (e.g. Guild Wars 2, World of Warcraft) are rarely seen anywhere else.^{[citation needed]}

The PC also supports greater input fidelity thanks to its compatibility with a wide array of peripherals.^{[citation needed]} The most common forms of input are the mouse/keyboard combination and gamepads, though touchscreens and motion controllers are also available. The mouse in particular lends players of first-person shooter and real-time strategy games on PC great speed and accuracy.^[72]

Openness[edit]

The defining characteristic of the PC platform is the absence of centralized control; all other gaming platforms (except Android devices, to an extent) are owned and administered by a single group.

The advantages of openness include:

Reduced software cost: Prices are kept down by competition and the absence of platform-holder fees. Games and services are cheaper at every level, and many are free.^[73]^[74]
Increased flexibility: PC games decades old can be played on modern systems, through emulation software if need be.^[75] Conversely, newer games can often be run on older systems by reducing the games' fidelity and/or scale.
Increased innovation: One does not need to ask for permission to release or update a PC game or to modify an existing one, and the platform's hardware and software are constantly evolving. These factors make PC the centre of both hardware and software innovation. By comparison, closed platforms tend to remain much the same throughout their lifespan.^[2]^[76]

There are also disadvantages, including:

Increased complexity: A PC is a general-purpose tool. Its inner workings are exposed to the owner, and misconfiguration can create enormous problems. Hardware compatibility issues are also possible. Game development is complicated by the wide variety of hardware configurations; developers may be forced to limit their design to run with sub-optimum PC hardware in order to reach a larger PC market, or add a range graphical and other settings to adjust for playability on individual machines, requiring increased development, test, and customer support resources.^{[citation needed]}
Increased hardware cost: PC components are generally sold individually for profit (even if one buys a pre-built machine), whereas the hardware of closed platforms is mass-produced as a single unit and often sold at a smaller profit, or even a loss (with the intention of making profit instead in online service fees and developer kit profits).^[74]
Reduced security: It is difficult, and in most situations ultimately impossible, to control the way in which PC hardware and software is used. This leads to far more software piracy and cheating than closed platforms suffer from.^[77]

Modifications[edit]

The openness of the PC platform allows players to edit or modify their games and distribute the results over the Internet as 'mods'. A healthy mod community greatly increases a game's longevity and the most popular mods have driven purchases of their parent game to record heights.^[78] It is common for professional developers to release the tools they use to create their games (and sometimes even source code^[79]^[80]) in order to encourage modding,^[81] but if a game is popular enough mods generally arise even without official support.^[82]

Mods can compete with official downloadable content however, or even outright redistribute it, and their ability to extend the lifespan of a game can work against its developers' plans for regular sequels. As game technology has become more complex, it has also become harder to distribute development tools to the public.^[83]

Modding has a different connotation on consoles which are typically restricted much more heavily. As publicly released development tools are rare, console mods usually refer to hardware alterations designed to remove restrictions.^[84]

Dominant software[edit]

Although the PC platform is almost completely decentralized at a hardware level, there are two dominant software forces: the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Steam distribution service.

Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).^[85] Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal computer market with over 90% market share, overtaking Mac OS, which had been introduced in 1984.

Valve does not release any sales figures on its Steam service, instead it only provides the data to companies with games on Steam,^[86]^[87] which they cannot release without permission due to signing a non-disclosure agreement with Valve.^[88]^[89]However, Stardock, the previous owner of competing platform Impulse, estimated that, as of 2009, Steam had a 70% share of the digital distribution market for video games.^[90] In early 2011, Forbes reported that Steam sales constituted 50–70% of the $4 billion market for downloaded PC games and that Steam offered game producers gross margins of 70% of purchase price, compared with 30% at retail.^[91] In 2011, Steam served over 780 petabytes of information, double what it had delivered in 2010.^[92]

Digital distribution services[edit]

PC games are sold predominantly through the Internet, with buyers downloading their new purchase directly to their computer.^[2]^[93] This approach allows smaller independent developers to compete with large publisher-backed games^[1]^[94] and avoids the speed and capacity limits of the optical discs which most other gaming platforms rely on.^[95]^[96]

Valve Corporation released the Steam platform for Windows computers in 2003 as a means to distribute Valve-developed video games such as Half-Life 2. It would later see release on the Mac OS X operating system in 2010 and was released on Linux in 2012 as well. By 2011, it controlled 70% of the market for downloadable PC games, with a userbase of about 40 million accounts.^[97]^[98]Origin, a new version of the Electronic Arts online store, was released in 2011 in order to compete with Steam and other digital distribution platforms on the PC.^[99] The period between 2004 and now saw the rise of many digital distribution services on PC, such as Amazon Digital Services, GameStop, GFWL, EA Store, Direct2Drive, GOG.com, and GamersGate.

Digital distribution also slashes the cost of circulation, eliminates stock shortages, allows games to be released worldwide at no additional cost, and allows niche audiences to be reached with ease.^[100] However, most digital distribution systems create ownership and customer rights issues by storing access rights on distributor-owned computers. Games confer with these computers over the Internet before launching. This raises the prospect of purchases being lost if the distributor goes out of business or chooses to lock the buyer's account, and prevents resale (the ethics of which are a matter of debate).

PC gaming technology[edit]

An exploded view of a modern personal computer:

CPU (Microprocessor)
Primary storage (RAM)
Expansion cards (graphics cards, etc.)
Secondary storage (Hard disk)

Hardware[edit]

Modern computer games place great demand on the computer's hardware, often requiring a fast central processing unit (CPU) to function properly. CPU manufacturers historically relied mainly on increasing clock rates to improve the performance of their processors, but had begun to move steadily towards multi-core CPUs by 2005. These processors allow the computer to simultaneously process multiple tasks, called threads, allowing the use of more complex graphics, artificial intelligence and in-game physics.^[53]^[101]

Similarly, 3D games often rely on a powerful graphics processing unit (GPU), which accelerates the process of drawing complex scenes in realtime. GPUs may be an integrated part of the computer's motherboard, the most common solution in laptops,^[102] or come packaged with a discrete graphics card with a supply of dedicated Video RAM, connected to the motherboard through either an AGP or PCI-Express port. It is also possible to use multiple GPUs in a single computer, using technologies such as NVidia's Scalable Link Interface and ATI's CrossFire.

Sound cards are also available to provide improved audio in computer games. These cards provide improved 3D audio and provide audio enhancement that is generally not available with integrated alternatives, at the cost of marginally lower overall performance.^[103] The Creative LabsSoundBlaster line was for many years the de facto standard for sound cards, although its popularity dwindled as PC audio became a commodity on modern motherboards.

Physics processing units (PPUs), such as the NvidiaPhysX (formerly AGEIA PhysX) card, are also available to accelerate physics simulations in modern computer games. PPUs allow the computer to process more complex interactions among objects than is achievable using only the CPU, potentially allowing players a much greater degree of control over the world in games designed to use the card.^[102]

Virtually all personal computers use a keyboard and mouse for user input. Other common gaming peripherals are a headset for faster communication in online games, joysticks for flight simulators, steering wheels for driving games and gamepads for console-style games.

Software[edit]

Computer games also rely on third-party software such as an operating system (OS), device drivers, libraries and more to run. Today, the vast majority of computer games are designed to run on the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems. Whereas earlier games written for DOS would include code to communicate directly with hardware, today application programming interfaces (APIs) provide an interface between the game and the OS, simplifying game design. Microsoft's DirectX is an API that is widely used by today's computer games to communicate with sound and graphics hardware. OpenGL is a cross-platform API for graphics rendering that is also used. The version of the graphics card's driver installed can often affect game performance and gameplay. In late 2013, AMD announced Mantle, a low-level API for certain models of AMD graphics cards, allowing for greater performance compared to software-level APIs such as DirectX, as well as simplifying porting to and from the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles, which are both built upon AMD hardware.^[104] It is not unusual for a game company to use a third-party game engine, or third-party libraries for a game's AI or physics.

Multiplayer[edit]

Local area network gaming[edit]

Multiplayer gaming was largely limited to local area networks (LANs) before cost-effective broadband Internet access became available, due to their typically higher bandwidth and lower latency than the dial-up services of the time. These advantages allowed more players to join any given computer game, but have persisted today because of the higher latency of most Internet connections and the costs associated with broadband Internet.

LAN gaming typically requires two or more personal computers, a router and sufficient networking cables to connect every computer on the network. Additionally, each computer must have its own copy (or spawn copy) of the game in order to play. Optionally, any LAN may include an external connection to the Internet.

Online games[edit]

Online multiplayer games have achieved popularity largely as a result of increasing broadband adoption among consumers. Affordable high-bandwidth Internet connections allow large numbers of players to play together, and thus have found particular use in massively multiplayer online role-playing games, Tanarus and persistent online games such as World War II Online.

Computer Program Games

Although it is possible to participate in online computer games using dial-up modems, broadband Internet connections are generally considered necessary in order to reduce the latency or 'lag' between players. Such connections require a broadband-compatible modem connected to the personal computer through a network interface card (generally integrated onto the computer's motherboard), optionally separated by a router. Online games require a virtual environment, generally called a 'game server'. These virtual servers inter-connect gamers, allowing real time, and often fast-paced action. To meet this subsequent need, Game Server Providers (GSP) have become increasingly more popular over the last half decade.^[when?] While not required for all gamers, these servers provide a unique 'home', fully customizable, such as additional modifications, settings, etc., giving the end gamers the experience they desire. Today there are over 510,000 game servers hosted in North America alone.^[105]

Emulation[edit]

Emulation software, used to run software without the original hardware, are popular for their ability to play legacy video games without the platform for which they were designed. The operating system emulators include DOSBox, a DOS emulator which allows playing games developed originally for this operating system and thus not compatible with a modern-day OS. Console emulators such as Nestopia and MAME are relatively commonplace, although the complexity of modern consoles such as the Xbox or PlayStation makes them far more difficult to emulate, even for the original manufacturers.^[106] The most technically advanced consoles that can currently be successfully emulated for commercial games on PC are the PlayStation 2 using PCSX2, and the Nintendo Wii U using the Cemu emulator. A PlayStation 3 emulator named RPCS3 is in development, although it can currently^[when?] only run small Homebrew games and certain old arcade titles that were originally ported to the PS3 from older platforms.^[107]

Most emulation software mimics a particular hardware architecture, often to an extremely high degree of accuracy. This is particularly the case with classic home computers such as the Commodore 64, whose software often depends on highly sophisticated low-level programming tricks invented by game programmers and the demoscene.

Controversy[edit]

PC games have long been a source of controversy, largely due to the depictions of violence that has become commonly associated with video games in general. The debate surrounds the influence of objectionable content on the social development of minors, with organizations such as the American Psychological Association concluding that video game violence increases children's aggression,^[108] a concern that prompted a further investigation by the Centers for Disease Control in September 2006.^[109] Industry groups have responded by noting the responsibility of parents in governing their children's activities, while attempts in the United States to control the sale of objectionable games have generally been found unconstitutional.^[110]

Video game addiction is another cultural aspect of gaming to draw criticism as it can have a negative influence on health and on social relations. The problem of addiction and its health risks seems to have grown with the rise of massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs).^[111] Alongside the social and health problems associated with computer game addiction have grown similar worries about the effect of computer games on education.^[112]

Computer games museums[edit]