Technology is a wonderful thing and the rate in which it is advancing is astonishing. One of the best ways to gauge how far things have come over the decades is by looking at video games and how far they've come.
Whether you're a hardcore console crusader, a casual gamer or someone who occasionally dabbles in the odd spot of online gaming, this brief gaming timeline is sure to perk up your pixels...
1940: Edward U. Condon develops a large computer that plays the traditional game Nim. In this game, players have to avoid picking up the final matchstick and it proves incredibly popular.
1950: Claude Shannon creates the fundamental guidelines for programming a chess playing computer game in a public article. The same year, Alan Turing also creates his own computer chess programme.
1960: By the 60's, video game technology starts to develop further. At home sick for a prolonged period of time, computer programmer John Burgeson develops the first-known baseball simulation game which is launched for the IBM 1620.
1972: After strong developments in the 1960s, the 70s sees the emergence of the arcade game. During 1972, Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn proudly develop the iconic tennis inspired game Pong. The game is first tested the game in Sunnyvale, California and it proves so popular, the machine breaks and a legend is born.
1980: Two words: Pac-Man. Yes, this is the year the mighty Pac-Man for Atari is developed by Namco's Toru Iwanti, which is inspired by a slice of missing pizza. Of course, it doesn't take long to gain worldwide acclaim. This decade also sees the invention of Tetris, Super Mario and the original Nintendo.
1990: Gaming is now in full swing, dominating households across the globe. In 1990, Microsoft bundle a computer based version of the popular card game Solitaire with Windows 3.0. As a result, this becomes one of the most highly-played games in the world. The 1990s also sees the introduction of Sonic the Hedgehog and the original Sony Playstation.
2000: In this year The Sims are created and the game sells like wildfire. This decade also sees the development of the Xbox, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, a subsequent version of the Sony Playstation and an incredible advancement in gameplay and graphics. The decade ends with the introduction of social games such as Farmville, which can be played on the social media platform Facebook.
2010:Minecraft, an addictive brick building game by Markus Persson, becomes an online gaming phenomenon in 2010, which creates a flurry of super-fans.
Present day: There are so many incredible consoles and iconic game franchises around today, it would take almost all day to list them, but the quality of gameplay, graphics and story lines of today's video games are so advanced, it's almost hard to believe.
At the rate things are going, it wouldn't be unfathomable to believe that one day, it will be impossible to tell whether we're in real life or virtual reality when playing a video game. Scary or exciting? I'll let you be the judge of that.
Image: Ram Yoga via Flickr