History of games.

The history of games dates to the ancient past.^[1] Games are an integral part of all societies. Like work and relationships, they are an expression of some basic part of the human nature. Games are formalized expressions of play which allow people to go beyond immediate imagination and direct physical activity. Games capture the ideas and behaviors of people at one period of time and carry that through time to their descendants. Games like Liubo, Xiangqi, and Go illustrate the thinking of the military leaders who employed them centuries ago. When archaeologists excavate an ancient society they find artefacts related to living, working, family and social activities, games often become an archival record of how individuals and groups played in earlier times.

Contents [hide] 1 Dice games 2 Tile games 3 Board games 3.1 Extinct board games 3.2 Ancient board games 3.3 Chaturanga, Xiangqi, Shogi, Chess 3.4 The 16th through 18th centuries 3.5 The 19th century 3.6 The 20th century 4 Card games 5 Table games 6 Electronic games 7 References

[edit]Dice games

Dice appear to be among the earliest pieces of specialised gaming equipment used by humans, having been used throughout Asiasince before recorded history, the oldest known examples being a 3000-year-old set unearthed at an archaeological site in south-eastern Iran.^[2] Notable dice games have included Hazard, a game popular in Europe from the 14th through the 18th centuries, Chuck-a-luck, a related game also known as birdcage, Craps, which replaced Hazard in popularity during the 19th century, and Sic bo, a Far Eastern Chuck-a-luck variant which evolved into a popular casino game in the 20th century.

[edit]Tile games

What appear to have been the earliest references to gaming tiles are mentions of kwat pai, or "bone tiles", used in gambling, in Chinesewritings no later than 900 CE.^[3] The earliest definite references to Chinese dominoes are found in the literature of the Song Dynasty (960-1279), while Western-style dominoes are a more recent variation, with the earliest examples being of early-1700s Italian design.^[4]The tile game Mahjong, also of Chinese origin, first appears in the written record in the mid-19th century, and was first mentioned in a publication written in a language other than Chinese in 1895.

[edit]Board games

[edit]Extinct board games

Among the earliest board games discovered by archaeologists and historians are a number of games the exact rules of which have been forgotten, with rules sometimes being completely unknown today and sometimes being only partially understood, although in many cases proposed or theorised rulesets for these games have been offered by historians and board game manufacturers. Among the earliest examples of board games whose rules have been lost is Senet, a game found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burial sites inEgypt (circa 3500 BCE and 3100 BCE, respectively) and in heiroglyphs dating to around 3100 BCE.^[5]

The extinct Chinese board game Liubo was immensely popular during the Han Dynasty (202 BCE-220 CE). Early Chinese records indicate that Liubo was already a popular game by the Warring States Period (476 BCE - 221 BCE).^[6][7] Although the game's rules have been lost, gameplay was apparantly not unlike Senet in that playing pieces were moved about a board using sticks thrown to determine movements.

The Tafl games were a family of ancient Germanic and Celtic board games played across much of Northern Europe from earlier than 400CE until the 12th century,^[8] although the rules of the games were never explicitly recorded and are only partially understood today.^[9]

[edit]Ancient board games

The Royal Game of Ur, or Game of Twenty Squares, dated from the First Dynasty of Ur, before 2600 BCE, has been documented as still being played in Iraq.^[10]

Go, also known as Weiqi, Igo, or Baduk (in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, respectively), has been evident in the archaeological record as far back as 200 BCE - 200 CE, with the earliest definite literary references dating to the 4th century BCE,^[11] and possible references occurring earlier. Go is played by an estimated 27 million people throughout the world today, professionally in many countries.

Backgammon, which came into its current form in the 6th or 7th century CE, is closely related to similar games dating back even further, excavations at Shahr-e Sokhteh in Iran having shown examples of such games dated as early as 3000 BCE.

The earliest evidence of Mancala consists of fragments of pottery boards and several rock cuts found in Aksumite in Ethiopia, Matara(now in Eritrea), and Yeha (also in Ethiopia), which have been dated by archaeologists to between the 6th and 7th century CE. The game is today played worldwide, with many distinct variants representing different regions of the Third World.

Nine Men's Morris and its variants, which likely emerged from the Roman Empire,^[12] peaked in popularity in medieval England.^[13] Along with other significant games of the period, it is both described and depicted in the Libro de los juegos, completed in 1283.

[edit]Chaturanga, Xiangqi, Shogi, Chess

Chaturanga, a board game which developed in India during the 6th century CE, was the apparant common ancestor of Xiangqi (Chinese; the earliest Xiangqi pieces yet discovered dating from the Song dynasty, 960 - 1279^[14]), Shogi (Japanese; the earliest generally accepted mention being circa 1060), and Chess (occasionally called Western or International Chess to distinguish it from Far Easternvarieties, which came into its current form in Europe during the 15th century), as well as Makruk (Thai), Sittuyin (Burmese), and Janggi(Korean).

[edit]The 16th through 18th centuries

Snakes and Ladders is believed to have originated in India as Moksha Patam, emphasising the role of fate or karma; the game dates at least to the 16th century as part of a family of dice board games, including Pachisi (a descendant of the earlier game Ludo).

[edit]The 19th century

Designed in England by George Fox in 1800, The Mansion of Happiness became the prototype for commercial board games for at least two centuries to follow. While demonstrating the commercial viability of the ancient race game format, its moralistic overtones were countered by Milton Bradley in 1860 with the introduction of a radically different concept of success in The Checkered Game of Life, in which material successes came as a result of material accomplishments, such as attending college. Likewise the Game of the District Messenger Boy (1886), which also focused on daily rather than eternal life.

[edit]The 20th century

The French board game L'Attaque was first commercially released in 1910, having been designed two years prior as a military-themed imperfect knowledge game based upon the earlier Chinese children's board game Dou Shou Qi. L'Attaque was subsequently adapted by the Chinese into Luzhanqi (or Lu Zhan Jun Qi), and by Milton Bradley into Stratego, the latter having been trademarked in 1960 while the former remains in the public domain.

First published in 1936, the origins of the board game Monopoly run as far back as 1903.^[15] Initially designed in 1938, Scrabble received its first mass-market exposure in 1952, two years prior to the release of Diplomacy, in 1954. Originally released in 1957 as La Conquête du Monde ("The Conquest of the World") in France, the Cold War-themed Risk was first published under its English title in 1959.

[edit]Card games

Playing cards first appeared in Ancient China,^[16] where they were found as early as the 9th century during the Tang Dynasty(618–907).^[17][18][19] The earliest reference to card games in literature appears during the same period, in the Collection of Miscellanea at Duyang.^[20][21] Playing cards first appeared in Europe during the 14th century, most likely by way of Mamluk Egypt, with suits very similar to the tarot suits of Swords, Staves, Cups and Coins, as continue to be used in traditional Italian, Spanish and Portuguesedecks today.^[22] The four suits most commonly encountered today (spades, hearts, diamonds, and clubs) appear to have originated in France circa 1480.^[23]

The game of Cribbage appears to have developed in the early 17th century, as an adaptation of the earlier card game Noddy. Pinochlewas likely derived from the earlier Bezique, a game popular in France during the 17th century. The game of Whist was widely played during the 18th and 19th centuries,^[24] having evolved from the 16th century game of Trump (or Ruff) by way of Ruff and Honours.^[25][26]The earliest references in print to the Poker family of games occur in the first half of the 19th century. While possibly dating back as far as the reign of Charles VIII of France (1483–1498), Baccarat first came to the attention of the public at large and grew to be widely played as a direct result of the Royal Baccarat Scandal of 1891,^[27][28] and bears resemblances to the card games Faro and Basset, both of which were very popular during the 19th century. The rules of Contract bridge were originally published in 1925, the game having been derived from Bridge games with rules published as early as 1886, Bridge games, in turn, having evolved from the earlier game of Whist.

Collectible card games such as Magic: The Gathering, while bearing similarities to earlier games in concept, first achieved wide popularity in the 1990s.^[29]

[edit]Table games

With the possible exception of Carrom (a game whose origins are uncertain), the earliest table games appear to have been the Cue sports, which include Carom billiards, Pool, or Pocket billiards, and Snooker. The cue sports are generally regarded as having developed into indoor games from outdoor stick-and-ball lawn games (retroactively termed ground billiards),^[30] and as such to be related to trucco, croquet and golf, and more distantly to the stickless bocce and balls.

Roulette has been played in its present form since the late 18th century, and is generally understood to have been adapted from English wheel games such as Roly-Poly and E.O., with influences from the Italian board games Hoca and Biribi.

[edit]Electronic games

Main article: History of video games

The earliest reference to a purely electronic game appears to be a United States patent registration in 1947 for what was described by its inventors as a "cathode ray tube amusement device".^[31] Through the 1950s and 1960s the majority of early computer games ran on university mainframe computers in the United States. Beginning in 1971, arcade games began to be offered to the public for play. The first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, was released in 1972.^[32][33] A second generation of video game consoles, released between 1977 and 1983, saw increased popularity. This same time period saw the advent of the personal computer game, specialised gaming computers, early online gaming, and the introduction of handheld LED games.

[edit]References

1. ^ Radoff, Jon (May 2010), "History of Social Games," http://radoff.com/blog/2010/05/24/history-social-games/
2. ^ "Burnt City, key to lost civilization". Wed Apr 11, 2007. presstv.ir
3. ^ Schwartz, David G. Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling. Gotham, 2006. ISBN 978-1592402083.
4. ^ Tidwell, Ken. http://www.gamecabinet.com/rules/DominoIntro.html
5. ^ Piccaione, Peter A. In Search of the Meaning of Senet
6. ^ Xu, Shen. "說文解字/06 [Shuowen Jiezi vol. 7]" (in Chinese). 維基文庫 (Chinese Wikisource). Retrieved 2009-06-26. "簙：局戲也。六箸十二棊也。从竹博聲。古者烏胄作簙。"
7. ^ Sima, Qian. "史記/卷069 [Records of the Grand Historian vol.69]" (in Chinese). 維基文庫 (Chinese Wikisource). Retrieved 2009-06-26. "臨菑甚富而實，其民無不吹竽鼓瑟，彈琴擊築，鬥雞走狗，六博蹋鞠者。"
8. ^ Murray, H. J. R. (1951). A History of Board-Games Other than Chess. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198274017. LCCN 52-003975 OCLC 1350513, pp.56, 57.
9. ^ Bell, R. C. (1979). Board and Table Games from Many Civilizations (Revised ed.). New York: Dover Publications, Inc. ISBN 0-486-23855-5. LCCN 79-051819, p.77.
10. ^ "Assyrian guardian figure". BBC. Retrieved 2010-09-10. "Bored guards have scratched a gaming board on the plinth. The game is a version of the 'Game of Twenty Squares', which was played at Ur in southern Iraq in about 2,600 BC, and is still played today."
11. ^ Brooks, E Bruce (2007), Warring States Project Chronology #2, retrieved 2007-11-30
12. ^ Berger, Friedrich (2004). "From circle and square to the image of the world: a possible interpretation for some petroglyphs of merels boards" (PDF). Rock Art Research 21 (1): 11–25. Retrieved 2007-01-12.
13. ^ Mohr, Merilyn Simonds (1997). The New Games Treasury. Houghton Mifflin. pp. 30–32. ISBN 1-57630-058-7.
14. ^ Ancient Chinese Chess (Xiangqi) Pieces
15. ^ Orbanes, Philip E. (2006). Monopoly: The World's Most Famous Game & How it Got that Way. Da Capo Press. p. 10. ISBN 0-306-81489-7.
16. ^ Temple, Robert K.G. (2007). The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery, and Invention (3rd edition). London: André Deutsch, pp. 130-1. ISBN 9780233002026.
17. ^ Needham 2004, pp. 131–132
18. ^ Needham 2004, p. 328 "it is also now rather well-established that dominoes and playing-cards were originally Chinese developments from dice."
19. ^ Needham 2004, p. 334 "Numbered dice, anciently widespread, were on a related line of development which gave rise to dominoes and playing-cards (+9th-century China)."
20. ^ Zhou, Songfang. "On the Story of Late Tang Poet Li He", Journal of the Graduates Sun Yat-sen University, 1997, Vol. 18, No. 3:31-35
21. ^ Needham, Joseph and Tsien Tsuen-Hsuin. (1985). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 1, Paper and Printing. Cambridge University Press., reprinted Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.(1986)
22. ^ Donald Laycock in Skeptical—a Handbook of Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, ed Donald Laycock, David Vernon, Colin Groves,Simon Brown, Imagecraft, Canberra, 1989, ISBN 0731657942, p. 67
23. ^ Early Playing Cards Research. Trionfi. 2006.
24. ^ Waddingtons Family Card Games, Robert Harbin, Pan Books Ltd, London, 1972
25. ^ Oxford Dictionary of Card Games, p. 340, David Parlett ISBN 0-19-869173-4
26. ^ Pole, William (1895). The Evolution of Whist. Longmans, Green, and Co. (New York, London), 269 pages.
27. ^ The Royal Baccarat Scandal at Tranby Croft. July 10, 2011.
28. ^ WALES AND THE SCANDAL; THE PRINCE OWNED THE BACCARAT COUNTERS. HE WAS ACCUSTOMED TO CARRY THEM ON HIS VISITS TO THE COUNTRY -- ANOTHER LIVELY DAY IN THE GORDON CUMMING TRIAL. The New York Times. June 5, 1891.
29. ^ Sports Collectors Digest (April 7, 2000) at 50. Description of the first known collectible card game, The Base Ball Card Game produced by The Allegheny Card Co. and registered on April 4, 1904 featuring 104 unique baseball cards with individual player attributes printed on the cards enabling each collector to build a team and play the game against another person.
30. ^ Stein and Rubino, Paul, Victor (1996). The Billiard Encyclopaedia: An Illustrated History of the Sport (2nd ed.). Blue Book Publications, June 1996. ISBN 1-886768-06-4., specific page reference needed
31. ^ US 2455992, also available from JMargolin.com
32. ^ Moore, Michael E.; Novak, Jeannie (2010). Game Industry Career Guide. Delmar: Cengage Learning. p. 7. ISBN 1-4283-7647-X. "In 1966, Ralph H. Baer .. pitched an idea .. to create interactive games to be played on the television. Over the next two years, his team developed the first video game system—and in 1968, they demonstrated the "Brown Box," a device on which several games could be played and that used a light gun to shoot targets on the screen. After several more years of development, the system was licensed by Magnavox in 1970 and the first game console system, the Odyssey, was released in 1972 at the then high price of $100."
33. ^ Wolverton, Mark. "The Father of Video Games". American Heritage. Retrieved March 31, 2010.