The first computer game was created in 1952 by A. S. Douglas. Douglas created his first game at the University of Cambridge (one of the most prestigious universities in England). The world's first computer game was programmed on an EDSAC computer, the image on which was formed using cathode rays. Another computer scientist, William Hijinbasam, created his first video game around 1958. His video game was called Tennis for Two. In 1962, Steve Russell invented SpaceWar! It is worth saying that this game, SpaceWar!, was the first computer game that was intended specifically for playing on a computer, that is, for computer use. Steve Russell used a mainframe computer to design his game. But, just five years later, in 1967, Ralph Baer first wrote a video game that could be played on a TV. The game that Ralph Baer managed to write was called “Pursuit”.

The fact is that at that historical period, Ralph Baer worked in an organization dealing with military electronics. In 1971, Bushnell, along with Ted Dabney, created their first game - a maze, a gallery. This game was called "Space". “Space” was based on, that is, when it was created, Steve Russell’s earlier game Spacewar! was taken as a basis. Just a year later, in 1972, the Pong needle was created. Pong was created by Nolan Bushnell and Al Corn. In 1975, Atari released Pong as a home video game.

It is worth saying that Larry Kerekman was one of the first to create video games. In 1972, the first commercial video game console was released. Thanks to this remote control, you could play video games at home, meaning there was no need to go anywhere. Also, it is worth saying that such a commercial remote control for a video game was quite an expensive pleasure, which, however, is not surprising. Any thing that appears for the first time is always very expensive, because in this case such a thing practically claims to be exclusive.

Today, any child cannot imagine his childhood and youth without computer games. Today, a computer and everything that is necessary for a full-fledged and exciting game is quite accessible to anyone, even a not very well-to-do family. However, it is worth reminding our little computer geeks that it is not worth playing computer games for a long time, as this can damage your eyesight. Some games can cause cybernetic gambling addiction - this is what psychologists call addiction to computer games. It is much more fun to play outdoor games with your friends, run in the yard, or play any kind of sport.

Agree, computer technology is rapidly moving into the future, and it is safe to say that in a few years we will be able to fully immerse ourselves in virtual reality and begin to wonder whether the world around us really exists or is it just a mind game. Remember the movie "The Matrix". Maybe its creators were close to the truth?

Nowadays, most people prefer only 3D games with decent graphics, and few remember that the first video games looked simple and more like primitive computing machines. Let's remember 15 old breakthroughs in the gaming industry that were the main impetus for creating games as they are now, because it was the past that created the game, gave it shape and sent it into the future.

15. Interactive game. 1947

When people talk about the humble beginnings of video games, the word "Pong" is usually mentioned. Pong is one of the early games and was released in 1972. The game quickly gained popularity, and already in 1975 its home version appeared. Of course, there were other video games before Pong.

Actually the first interactive electronic game was created 25 years before Ponga, in 1947, two years after the end of World War II. Rocket displays during the war inspired Thomas T. Goldsmith and Astle Ray Mann to create a cathode ray tube rocket simulation game. The game used analog circuits designed to control the light beams of the tube and to control the position of target dots on the screen.

14. A game that influenced the entire gaming world. 1961

In 1960 the company Digital Equipment Corporation released its first minicomputer PDP-1 (Programmable Data Processor-1). A year later, a group of MIT students developed a game for the PDP-1 called Spacewar!

There were two players: each of them controlled their own spaceship and, maneuvering between the stars, tried to knock out the enemy. The game spread through the Internet (obviously, it was primitive then), and also served as the basis for many other video games.

13. Public game. 1971

For many years, you could only try your hand at a video game in the places where it was installed (usually universities), and it was only in the 50s and 60s of the last century that home versions of slot machines appeared. They usually had an electronic tic-tac-toe game installed.

Two arcade versions were released in 1971 Spacewar!. In September of that year, the world's first arcade game, the Galaxy Game, a coin-operated video game, was installed at Stanford University in California.

Two months later, in November, 1,500 Computer Space arcade machines, the first brainchild of Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, the future founders of the Atary computer game production and publishing company, were available for commercial sale. Their second and more successful attempt to enter the international video game market was Pong. Nolan even earned the nickname "King of Pong" as the acknowledged founder of the American video game industry.

12. The first home gaming console. 1972

As the very first interactive electronic game, the home version of Ponga (most often called Home Pong) was to enjoy a long reign of fame. But this did not happen. Three years before the appearance of Homemade Ponga, the world's first video game console was released - the Magnavox Odyssey - developed by engineer Ralph Baer. Unfortunately, the new product did not live up to expectations: sales of the console suffered greatly due to ill-conceived marketing policies, and many believed that the game console only worked when connected to Magnavox TVs.

The Atary company (then still called “Nolan Bushnell”), having quickly found its bearings, benefited from the mistakes of its competitor: the inscription on the Ponga boxes was painted: “Suitable for any TV, both black and white and color.” It is clear that the success of Ponga did not please the developers of the Magnavox Odyssey console, which may have served as the impetus for filing a lawsuit against Nolan Bushnell due to the close similarity of Ponga and playing tennis on the Magnavox Odyssey. Later, lawsuits were filed against other companies: Coleco, Mattel, Seeburg, Activision, with unsuccessful results for those.

The game console from Magnavox, in addition to all the standard manipulators, demonstrated to customers the world's first light gun, which, to the chagrin of the players, did not always work.

11. Arcade game on a microprocessor. 1975

In 1975 the company Midway Games released the Gun Fight arcade machine, the first video game to be powered by a microprocessor rather than traditional TTL electronics. The slot machines were built with 8-bit Intel 8080 CPU chips, which many believe are the first truly working microprocessors. The success of microprocessor-based machines was guaranteed. New technologies were designed to significantly improve video games: the graphics improved by an order of magnitude and became more detailed.

10. The first portable pocket video game. 1979

The first portable game console was Microvision, released in 1979 by the company Milton Bradley. The console had a liquid crystal screen and several replaceable cartridges. One of them (Space Hunter - 1981) demonstrated the ability to move in all directions using only 4 closely spaced buttons. This control button arrangement can be considered an early version of the D-Pad (cross-shaped arrow button). The D-Pad was (and is still used to this day) in many subsequent types of game consoles, for example the GameBoy.

9. 3D games for home use

3D Monster Maze (3D monster maze) is the first 3D computer game created by Malcolm Evans in 1981 for machines on the Sinclair ZX81 platform. The player must overcome a randomly generated labyrinth measuring 16x16 cells and not fall into the clutches of a hostile monster - Tyrannosaurus Rex.

8. Online game. 1983

The ancestor of online games was the small company SuperSet software, founded in Utah in 1981. Two years later, the first ever online game between several people took place, it was called Snipes and was based on text symbols, which, of course, cannot be compared with the bright graphics of modern video games. The game was originally created for a demonstrative purpose: to show society the fantastic capabilities of IBM personal computers for that time, but more importantly, it marked the beginning of the so-called era of online games.

7. 8-bit game consoles, a new generation of gaming systems. 1985

For computers and other equipment, a “bit” is a unit of measurement for processor power. That is, an 8-bit processor can operate only 8 bits of information at one time, while a 16-bit processor accesses 16 bits of data, and so on. Each subsequent generation of n-bit game consoles has improved the quality of graphics and sounds, and therefore modern world games on an 8-bit console look very outdated and primitive.

The first popular 8-bit system was the Nintendo Entertainment System (1985), with sales exceeding 62 million units. Nevertheless, the popularity of the NES on the world market did not prevent other companies producing and selling game consoles, Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, from achieving success. Also in 1985, these companies ushered in the era of 16-bit video games.

6. The first bloody game. 1986

People like violent games, don't they? Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Metal Gear Solid; All these games are incredibly popular, because cruelty and the desire to break the ban flourish in them. Сhiller– the first video game “splattered with blood.”

Released in 1986, it invited the player, armed with a light gun, to shoot everyone who appeared on the screen (including a person, a zombie, a ghost). All that was required was to be creative in dismembering the victims. The picture looked so unacceptable to a respectable citizen that the game became permanently banned in the UK. Although, if you think about it, Chiller looks inappropriately funny compared to modern GTA or Manhunt.

5. The first 16-bit gaming system. 1987

The TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem video game console, also known as the "impressive" PC Engine, was released in Japan in 1978 by NEC. The console had an additional CD module or, more simply put, CDs.

Thanks to the new acquisition, the TurboGrafx-16 featured more memory, improved sound reproduction and a lower price. Among other things, according to the Guinness Book of Records, PC Engine received the title of the smallest game console, its dimensions are only 14 cm x 14 cm x 3.8 cm. 10 million copies sold.

4. The first 32-bit gaming system. 1993

The first 32-bit video game console was actually the Amiga CD32, released in September 1993, but its sales did not exceed 100,000 units. Sales of the Atari Jaguar (released in November 1993) failed in the same way - only 500,000 copies were sold. Squeezed between them was Panasonic's first console, the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer, which enjoyed slightly greater success among buyers. But it’s difficult to call it the first 32-bit console: production was limited until 1994, and the cost of $700 left a negative imprint on console purchases.

At the end of 1994, development in Japan ended on the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation, game consoles that surpassed their predecessors. PlayStation became the first console in history to sell over 100 million copies.

3. A game console that displays “real” three-dimensional graphics. 1995

In 1995, Nintendo released a home video game console, promising to bring “virtual reality to the virtual world.” Virtual Boy is a console on a thin stand with an eyepiece resembling red and blue glasses. This “projector” transmitted a three-dimensional image to each eye, and can be called a simplified or unfinished version of a modern 3D film.

True, the console was inconvenient to use and posed a considerable danger to vision, not to mention the fact that all games were displayed in red. As a result, sales of the Virtual Boy ceased the following year. However, the first experience of 3D reality was quite successful, what do you think?

2. 64-bit and 128-bit gaming systems. 1996 – 2002

The Nintendo 64 gaming system, although developed during the era of 32-bit consoles, is actually a 64-bit system (hence the 64 in the name), it was just a little ahead of its time. The era of 128-bit systems began in 1998 with the introduction of the GameCube, PlayStation 2, as well as the Xbox and Sega Dreamcast consoles, released two years before the development of the PlayStation 2, which holds the title of “the best-selling video game console of all time.”

1. Control without a controller. 2004–present

EyeToy was the first video camera to use pattern and color recognition technology, allowing players to communicate commands using their own movements. The camera was intended for use with the PlayStation 2. The technology is certainly good, but the games with which EyeToy was used were not very diverse, and the camera did not always respond to the player’s movements.

But still, EyeToy made a real revolution in the world of interactive entertainment. Another innovation: Project Natal. Microsoft employees have announced an accessory for the Xbox 360 that allows you to play without a controller, control the game using gestures, various objects, even your voice and facial expressions. You can decide that these are all empty words and lies (what company doesn’t want to attract customers), but the video provided above will confirm all our words.

Read the second part of the top.

Review of the "Nes30 Pro" controller

Review of the best NES style game controller from the creator of the site

Initially, the computer was conceived as an electronic computing machine. Only later did people think about equipping the car with additional functions. And, since humanity cannot do without games, software developers, among others, began to make attempts to create computer games.

History of computer games

The first attempt to turn smart technology into a gaming device was made in 1952. The breakthrough was one of the simplest board games– “ ”, with the minimum possible field of 3 x 3 cells. It may seem funny now, but at the time it was a revolutionary innovation.

After 6 years, programmers pleased users with a new prototype. It was the video game “Tennis for Two”. The virtual tennis player had to be controlled not step by step, as in previous analogues, but in real time. Despite the simplicity of the functionality, this game became another breakthrough in the emerging world of gamers.

However, the real virtual explosion occurred in 1962. DEC has developed game controller and together with the PDP-1 computer began to distribute the previously unparalleled game SpaceWar as a test program! It was the first computer game to become truly popular.

However, computers at that time continued to be bulky. It was still oh, so far away from affordable personalization... Almost 10 years passed before compact boards based on transistor circuits appeared. Thanks to this invention, the game moved from a computer to a coin-operated arcade machine under the name Computer Space. And in May 1972, the Magnavox Odissey was introduced - the first game console for television.

From that moment on, the computer gaming world began to advance by leaps and bounds. Development proceeded in four main directions:

• computers directly;
• television game consoles;
• electronic slot machines;
• pocket electronic games.

In 1979, the American company Milton Bradley released the first pocket game console, which included 12 games at once. In 1980, Japanese Nintendo, having modernized games on a calculator, mass-produced simple monochrome consoles with a series of Game&Watch games. In the Soviet Union, these consoles became the prototype for the Elektronika company’s products—the games “Secrets of the Ocean” and “Well, Just Wait!”, which literally everyone was captivated by.

The next stage was the appearance of the Tetris game in 1989. Officially, the authorship of the “cubes” belongs to the Nintendo corporation, although debate continues over who the true creator is.

Features of computer games

As technology developed, the virtual world was filled with sound, graphics were improved, and video was added. Today, anyone can download games to their computer for every taste:

• shooting games, fights;
• racing, sports games, simulators;
• arcade, strategy, adventure;
• logical, educational, educational games.

You can choose a game for an adult, a teenager, or a child who has barely learned to sit. There are both pros and cons to this.

On the one hand, play is necessary for humans. This is a way of understanding the world, psychological relaxation. The ability to create your own game world is a way to express your aspirations and fears, complexes and ideas about a “perfect” world in the virtual space. Computer games are an opportunity to throw out aggression and get the necessary dose of adrenaline.

Educational and developmental games are favorable for children and are often used by conscious parents, educators and teachers. Both downloaded games and an Internet connection help remove physical boundaries and freely explore the space of the planet. Today, educational and educational games for adults are becoming more common. They are used by the military and businessmen, becoming an effective tool for improving personnel skills.

On the other hand, psychologists and teachers say that it is observed everywhere, especially in adolescents. As they say, “too much is good and not good either.” Often, immersion in the virtual world becomes an obstacle to real life - communication, personality development. If a child’s passion for computers can be controlled by parents, then for an adult, dependence on the “constructed world” can become a real problem. Here, the result of passion depends only on a person’s ability to manage his consciousness, to control his behavior through volitional effort.

And yet the process of development of computer games is unstoppable. They are becoming more diverse and exciting. Personal games have been replaced by browser games, where you can communicate online and jointly solve virtual, but important tasks. Such games, in addition to entertainment, provide an opportunity to master and develop communication and socialization skills, and broaden their horizons. The world of computer games still gives more positive effects, rather than negative. It is only important to choose the right games for yourself and correctly dose the amount of time spent in front of the monitor.

In this article I will tell you, as you understand from the title, the history of the emergence, formation, and development of computer video games from and to, from 1947, when a patent for the use of a cathode ray tube was registered, to the present. Let's capture the history of the creation of the first most popular gaming consoles, the first mega-games of all times. Young people aged 25-35 will be especially interested in plunging into such a recent childhood. And if you want to get a sea of ​​positivity from your favorite games along with this article, you can click.

1947 - The first patent was filed for the use of a cathode ray tube (oscilloscope, the first type of computer display) for gaming purposes. The patent was filed by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Astle Ray Mann on January 25, 1947, and received on December 14, 1948. The patent described the idea of ​​a controller controlling the position of luminous dots on a screen.

1948 - A computer chess algorithm was created. The authors of the algorithm are Alan Turing and his colleague D. G. Champernow. (An algorithm is not quite a program code, but just a logical verbal description of actions, divided into separate lines).

1952 - The first logical computer game “OXO” was created - a computer implementation of “tic-tac-toe” (a field of three by three cells, the user made his move, after which the computer made a counter move). The game was created by A.S. Douglas during his doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge (UK). Douglas wrote his dissertation on the topic of human-computer interaction, and used the game as a visual illustration. The game existed in a single copy on a large computer - the EDSAC mainframe.

1958 - The first tennis simulator was created. The creator is William Higinbotham, one of the scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory (New York, USA). The game was called "Tennis for Two". In this game, two people controlled moving platforms to hit a ball. The computer did not participate in the game, but only displayed the results of the players’ actions on an oscilloscope in real time. This game existed in one single copy.

1962 - In April 1962, DEC began selling the relatively small PDP-1 computers. The basic package of these computers included the game “SpaceWar!” as a test program. Thus "SpaceWar!" became the first game to be released into circulation.

1966 - Ralph Baer, ​​having learned that his idea of ​​interactive television, voiced in 1951, was already being implemented in the form of computer games, began developing new game prototypes. He created 7 experimental games.

1968 - Ralph Baer develops his experimental console called “Box Brown”. It was possible to play all the games he invented. There were also simple arcade games - “Chase Game”: two squares chasing each other on the screen; and a completely new type of “Target Shooting games”: you had to shoot at the screen with a light gun.

1970 - The computer mouse is invented. Douglas Engelbart received a patent for the "system X-Y indication position on the monitor." This system looked like a square wooden mouse with large wheels. But the mouse began to be used in computer games much later.

1977 - The Atari 2600 game console goes on sale. It was thanks to this console that the popularization of computer and video games switched to completely new level. The Atari 2600 was sold from 1977 to 1983, and during this time more than 40,000,000 copies of this console were sold!

On July 5, the first home computer, the Apple II, goes on sale. Along with computers intended for the masses, computer games are also spreading significantly.

1981 - IBM begins selling its first personal computer.

1982 - The Internet (global network) was created. More precisely, a unified network data transfer protocol has been created - TCP/IP. This standardization made it possible to unite disparate local networks into a single global network - the Internet. (The very idea of ​​a single TCP/IP protocol appeared back in 1974).

1983 - The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console was created. (In the USSR this prefix is ​​known as “Dendy”). In Japan, and then throughout the rest of the world, a new console boom began. Following the NES, other third-generation consoles began to appear.

1985 - the legendary game “Super Mario Bros.” was created. The game was released on the NES console, created by Shigeru Miyamoto. Main character games - Mario becomes the official symbol of Nintendo. Although Mario as a character had previously appeared in two more games (Donkey Kong 1981, Mario Bros. 1983), real fame came to him only in the third game Super Mario Bros. Games about the plumber Mario have become the most popular game series over time.

1985 - The game “Battle City” (better known as “Tanks”) was created.

1989 - The GameBoy pocket game console from Nintendo is released. One of the most famous games on this console is Tetris. It was thanks to GameBoy that the Russian game Tetris gained worldwide fame and fame. “GameBoy” sold a huge number of copies around the world – more than 120,000,000 copies of the console were sold.

1994 - Sony releases its first, but very successful gaming console, PlayStation. It became the best console of the 5th generation. Games for this console were distributed on CDs. Most games on the PlayStation had 3D graphics. Console sales exceeded 102,000,000 units.
The strategy “Warcraft: Orcs and Humans” from the company “Blizzard” has been created. The Warcraft series of games has become a leader in the real-time strategy genre over time.

1995 - The first specialized exhibition of the computer video game industry was held - Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

1998 - The game “Half-Life” is released. Despite the fact that the game was made in the 3D-Action genre, it had a full-fledged plot that developed as the game progressed. The game was filled to the brim with plot events and colorful secondary characters. Before the advent of Half-Life, the plot existed only in quest and role-playing games, where it was most often presented in the form of text. With the advent of Half-Life, games have become much closer in content to movies. This game created a precedent, after which more and more large games began to be created with a plot.


The strategy game StarCraft from Blizzard has been created. The game was made so well that it continues to be played to this day. StarCraft has hosted many global e-sports competitions.
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The game "Grand Theft Auto" (GTA) is released. The game created an entire living city with a top view, where people walked peacefully and traffic flowed through the streets. The player had complete freedom of action, but the main story missions were related to stealing cars and working for bandits, because of this, the game received angry criticism from society.


The game “Unreal” is released in the 3D-Action genre. A little later, in 1999, the game “Unreal Tournament” was released, focused on multiplayer battles between players.

2000 - The PlayStation 2 console is released. The console has the ability to play online and connect to the Internet. To date, this console remains the most popular in the world. “PlayStation 2” sold 140,000,000 copies worldwide.

2005 - The new 7th generation console, Xbox 360, was released.

2007 - The most popular Russian-language game “S.T.A.L.K.E.R.” is released from the Ukrainian company "GSC Game World". The game tells about the life of adventurers in the Chernobyl radioactive zone. The game has an open world and many factions fighting among themselves.
Revival of the classics

2008 - Coming out role-playing game"Fallout 3". The great role-playing game series is being reincarnated, but now in three-dimensional form. (After this resounding success, developers from other companies are starting to revive many old forgotten game series and characters).

Also coming out this year is Grand Theft Auto IV. The imitation of a game city reaches a new qualitative level.

Of course, several volumes can be written about the modern gaming industry - this is the emergence of the latest games, and the creation of XBOX-One, and PS4, and much, much more. But these are modern realities, and what I wanted to talk about, to reveal the history of all this, it seems that I brought it to you.

Do you know that... For the New Year 2012, it was added to the game. Moreover, it was created two years earlier (in 2010). After the map was released to the main servers, a bug was noticed: the prop of the tower from the inside was easily shot through by the Shaft cannon. Two days after the map was opened, measures were taken, and the use of this bug became punishable, and a week later the bug was completely fixed. In 2009-2010, there was a party called “KPTO” (“Communist Party of Tanks Online”). This party was developing various programs for maintenance. In 2011, the developers decided to organize a competition-race in which they had to constantly turn the tower. For this purpose, a map called . It was carried out by a special association of players - “KPTO” (“Communist Party of Tanks Online”). It was assumed that it would not be possible to use supplies on the map (either purchased or falling from the sky). The party collapsed and the card was never released. It is worth noting that the map was developed by the legendary map maker Figishe. The Ricochet gun project appeared back in 2009. they planned to call it "Vulcan". The cannon shots were originally not supposed to bounce off surfaces and were blue in color. At that time, the Vulcan/Ricochet was a machine gun, but at the testing stage the idea of ​​bouncing balls arose, which later developed into a full-fledged gun, now known as Ricochet. When they first started testing the Hornet hull, it consisted of: a central part and four side parts, each of which was located lower in level to the central block, and on each side block there were tracks. The Hornet was then modified to its current state due to its too futuristic design and difficulties with gravity and traction. The appearance of the Shaft cannon in June 2011 caused a real sensation among tankers. After the release, Shaft was purchased at a rate of 3 pieces. per second! Later its characteristics were edited and resists were introduced. But a day later it was confiscated, the crystals were returned, and the description was changed. On the first day of the test on the test server, the maximum damage of Shaft in aimed mode was 150 - 175 - 200 - 250 units (for M0 - M1 - M2 - M3, respectively), on the second day - 200 - 225 - ~275 - 300. The first film about Tanki Online appeared together with the Fairy Tale Adaptation competition in 2011. It used organized materials from the game and had its own plot. Short films may have existed before this point, but they were not as well known. Player FAK19 created the most popular film series - "B-mashina". A total of four films were made. Subsequently, FAK19 decided to make a remake of “B-mashina” under the name “New Evil”. FAK19 movies are filled with a lot of special effects. Editing was carried out in the 3D Studio Max program. YouTube channel: MrFAK12 The first gold in Tanki Online was worth 1000 crystals. Initially, no one knew where and when this bonus fell. The first gold fell on the Kungur map, with a fund of 700 crystals, it was taken by a tanker with the nickname Noosya. Later, gold boxes began to drop on almost all cards, but their value was reduced to 100 crystals. Now there are gold box drop points on all maps. In 2010, a special modification of Smokey's weakest gun was introduced, called Smokey XT. This modification cost 3,950 crystals. It was available for purchase for exactly a week. The Smokey XT was better in every way than the regular Smokey M3. It was assumed that a good player would be able to recoup the cost of Smokey XT. In 2009, the developers decided to create a gun that could inflict damage on opponents and at the same time heal tankers from their team. This is how the Isis gun appeared. The first concept of Isis only treated and looked like a model from the game “Half-Life”. Later it was converted into a two-pronged turret for a tank. Isis also allowed him to heal himself when shooting into the void. This ability was too strong and was removed. In November 2014, the visual effect of the shot was redesigned, and on February 16, 2017, the gun lost its vampirism. During beta testing (May 2009), Tanki Online received an award at the Game Developers Conference (KRI 2009) in the category " Best game without a publisher." This suggests that already in the testing phase the game has earned recognition in the gaming industry. Main article: History of the game In November 2009, Tanki Online made it to the finals of the popular vote “Runet Award” and took 17th place. This is despite the fact that the game was only six months old. In the summer of 2012, an event was held at Tanki dedicated to the European Football Championship. During this promotion, the denomination of gold boxes increased several times, and in the end it was estimated that in just under a month, players caught gold worth 90 million crystals - in the current economy, this is almost a billion crystals! On September 27, 2012, an unusual battle called “Kasim vs Sun” took place, in which community manager Maxim Khusainov and technical support specialist Ksenia Ignatieva fought against each other on “vasposmoks”. Maxim won with a score of 22:19. Players could support Maxim or Ksenia by purchasing special paint worth 100 crystals in the garage. 47,341 paints were purchased for Kasim, 18,004 for Sun, 4,844 for both players at once, each person who bought paint for Maxim gained 59 crystals. Every year on October 31, Tanks celebrate Halloween. In 2012, during the promotion, the special card was created 59,597 times, and the special gold box was dropped 12,008 times. There were some interesting coincidences: on October 30, 2012, tanker number 16,666,666 registered in the game, and the tweet about the holiday special edition of the video blog became the 666th. In 2014, there were 45 ghosts on the special Halloween map. And in 2015, on October 31, tankers spent a total of 196 years in the game and caught 440,000 gold, and the Halloween map was created 184,652 times. The winner of the competition for the best gold catcher - a player with the nickname Ti-To - caught 195 boxes and received VikoGrom XT as a reward. The first mention of the mysterious player Godmode_ON can be seen in Vlog Issue #61. The second time he appeared in video blog No. 64, and in video blog No. 80 he even ended up in the “Question of the Week” section. To destroy Godmode_ON it then took 59 shots from Smokey, of which 5 were critical. Thus, taking into account the current parameters of Smokey and Mammoth at the time of the release of the video blog, protection from Smokey in Godmode_ON paint was about 85% at a minimum. In Vlog Issue #103, a mysterious man appeared who "collected all the mines on Silence" - perhaps it was Godmode_ON? In question of the week No. 118, Godmode_ON drove along a path of mines and was blown up only on the 41st - taking into account the current parameters of the Mammoth at the time of the release of the video blog, the protection against a mine in the Godmode_ON paint was at least about 95%. In video blog No. 130, Godmode_ON caught a gold box worth 5001 crystals, although the maximum denomination of the April Fool's gold was 5000 crystals. Godmode_ON's next appearance was in question of the week #133, where he was shot at by six tanks at once. And in Question of the Week #146, Godmode_ON used Hornet rather than Mammoth for the first time. Who is this mysterious player? An indirect answer to this question can be found in video blog No. 145, where Nikolai Kolotov’s profile says “Not Godmode_ON.” A hint to the contrary or just a joke? It looks like we will never know the truth... It took four and a half months to create the first test version of Tanks. The first player registered in Tanki who is not a developer is GlebNikitin. And the very first to register in the game was Alternativa server programmer Alexey Quiring (arts80). The first map in “Tanks” was the prototype of Tribute. By mid-2010, the game had approximately 200,000 registered players. On December 19, 2010, the one million registration mark was reached. June 6, 2011 - registration number 3 million (player with the nickname katyana). January 4, 2012 - seven millionth registration (player with the nickname stepan1234567891). March 25, 2012 - the milestone of 10 million registrations was crossed (player with the nickname lYonsl). On Tankman Day 2012, an account was registered under number 15,000,000 (player with the nickname adilov.amir). February 5, 2013 - twenty millionth registration (player with the nickname tolik755). End of July 2013 - thirty millionth registration (player with the nickname nadja8201). The game "Tanks Online" is most popular in its homeland - in Russia. This is followed by Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Germany, Moldova, Georgia, the USA and Saudi Arabia. The official Tanki Online VKontakte group appeared in January 2011. One day, community manager Maxim Khusainov promised to swim in an ice hole if the number of subscribers in the group exceeded 500,000. On September 27, 2014, this mark was passed, and on New Year Maxim fulfilled his promise - he started his first video blog of 2015 from an ice hole. The most spacious map is Dusseldorf (40 players), Berlin can accommodate 36 players at the same time, Temple and Madness - 32 each. In turn, Temple is the most spacious map, Berlin is just a little behind, and Dusseldorf closes the top three. The smallest maps are Island, Hill and Ping Pong. In the summer of 2014, the FIFA World Cup was held in Brazil, and “Tanks” could not stay away from this event. In the “Football Fever” promotion, players were offered to purchase one of 32 colors that symbolized the countries participating in the championship. Those who bought paint for a country that was among the top three winners received back up to 50% of the crystals spent on purchases during the promotion period. A total of 555,502 paints were purchased, of which 111 thousand were purchased for Russia (the most popular paint), for Germany, which became the champion, 38,007, for Argentina - 17,641, for the Netherlands - 15,819, and the most rarely purchased paint was Cot-D “Ivoire - only about 1000 pieces. About 887 million crystals were distributed as prize money for the promotion. A little about the names of items: a long time ago, the Rail was called Fear Machine, Ricochet could be called Vulcan, Hornet - Raptor, Viking - Centurion, and Hammer - Magnum. As for Vulcan, game designer Semyon Strizhak (known as Orek) jokingly promised that “the machine gun will never be called Vulcan, otherwise I will grow two extra fingers on my hand.” By the way, the artillery cannon was eventually named Magnum. The observer mode (spectator) in the game did not exist from the very beginning. And the first fight broadcast with the help of a spectator was the quarterfinal of the upper bracket of TOF Dream Team III between the International and “Heavy and Difficult” teams. In the summer of 2014, the Tanki Online team visited the gaming exhibition gamescom in the German city of Cologne. In honor of this event, the “Cologne” card was briefly introduced into the game, on which golds with a double denomination fell. During the promotion period, 191 million crystals dropped in gold boxes, and about a million players visited the map. The video blog is usually filmed on Wednesday, although plot preparation begins much earlier. Thursday and Friday are spent on video editing. The birthday of Tanki Online is June 4, 2009 - the start date of open beta testing. The first player to reach the maximum rank (at that time it was Marshal) was the legendary T7000. In April 2010, the Chinese server began operating. And on April 16, 2014, Tanki Online was launched in Brazil. The first Generalissimo in the Brazilian locale is a player with the nickname limadj2, he reached the 1,400,000 experience mark on September 2, 2014, spending about four and a half months on leveling up. As a reward for his speedy completion, limadj2 received a fully upgraded Viking M3, Ricochet M3 and Zeus paint. Main article: History of the game Sometimes, in honor of certain holidays, the funds in the game increase. The most large funds were in the game on August 2, 2015 - five times. On May 9, 2015, you could purchase a subscription for endless supplies for just 70 crystals, which was valid until the restart on May 10. On that day, it was almost impossible to find a player in the game who would ride without a “garland” - except perhaps for those who played in PRO battles with supplies turned off. The first players to see and try out the early demo of “Tanks on Unity” were German players at a tank meeting in the town of Wildflecken, which took place in early July 2014. In June 2015 to the demo version new game players from five Russian cities touched as part of the “TO Motor Rally” event. And in October 2015, DJAGERnout228, a well-known video blogger among players, visited the office of Alternative, who not only played the beta version of the game, which had already received the final name Tanki X, but also talked about his impressions in a video blog. During the 2014-2015 New Year holidays, a login to Tanki Online was registered from North Korea, a country where Internet access is strictly limited. Who could it be?.. A long time ago, the game had a so-called “Hall of Fame” - an in-game window that displayed the statistics of all players: experience points earned, the number of tanks destroyed and their own deaths, wealth and rating - a conditional number calculated based on a complex formula. The higher the rating, the higher the tanker was in the Hall of Fame. At the same time, one of the components of the rating formula was the number of crystals purchased for real money, so the top positions in the “Hall of Fame” were occupied by donors who specifically invested considerable sums in order to get ahead of their rivals. Hall of Fame was later removed from the game due to technical issues. For Halloween 2011, there was a Pumpkin Tank Hunt contest. It was necessary to find three different players in the game with special pumpkin guns (they were given to administration assistants) and post screenshots of them in a special topic. And for the New Year 2011-2012 a competition was held “ New Year card", the winners of which received a unique snowman cannon for several days. Both the pumpkin cannon and the snowman cannon were essentially Smokey M3s with a unique texture. The maximum number of tanks that can be destroyed with one shot is 39. To do this, you need a fully micro-pumped M3 Rail and 39 players who will line up on the Dusseldorf map in mode. In ancient times, it was impossible to have more than 32,766 units of each consumable. This was due to the insufficient dimension of the data type of the variable in which the number of consumables was stored. This bug has now been corrected. In Tanki Online there are maps whose names repeat the names of real geographical objects. In particular, many of them are named after objects in Perm or cities in the Perm region (the office of AlternativaPlatform, the developer of Tanki Online, is located in Perm). Aleksandrovsk is a city in the Perm region; Barda is a village in the Perm region; Gubakha is a city in the Perm region; Kungur is a city in the Perm region; Molotov is the former name of Perm; Osa is a city in the Perm region; Solikamsk is a city in the Perm region; Esplanade is a square in Perm. Nauru, Kiribati and Guinea-Bissau are the most “tankless” states in the world. Only one Tanki Online player lives in each of them. The most popular task to complete in the game is to take first place in the battle. In second place is to collect N repair kits, in third place is to collect N accelerations. Right now, open testing of the game's HTML5 client is underway on the main servers. Currently, only a small number of new users are being directed to the new version, but as development progresses, more and more players will gain access. If you have opened the HTML5 version of the game, but want to return to the stable Flash version, follow the link. From time to time, the game hosts a promotion called “Crazy Weekend”, the essence of which is to score frags. For destroying a certain number of tanks in standard battles, participants are given valuable prizes. From November 16 to November 23, 2017, the game hosted a real battle between the social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. To participate in it, you had to buy paint for one of the social networks in the Garage for 1000 crystals, install it on your tank and go into battle to destroy enemy tanks wearing paint for the opposing side. 122,000 paints were purchased for VKontakte, 39,000 for Odnoklassniki. The VKontakte faction won the event with a score of 52.54%. At the end of the promotion, the paints remained with their owners forever. In the fall of 2017, Tanki Online held a video competition “#IWANTTO,” the participants of which had to tell why developers should invite them to the TO office. The winner was the tanker Sochi-Areda, his competition work can be viewed at link. Video report about the trip: part 1 Part 2 . On November 24, 2017, on Black Friday, containers appeared in the game - boxes with previously unknown contents. They were sold in the Store and also dropped in battles instead of regular gold boxes. Containers were removed from the game on November 28, and on December 24, during the New Year holidays, they returned on a permanent basis. Now they can be purchased in the Store, caught in battles, or received as rewards for chains of daily quests. The “Assault” mode was introduced into the game on December 13, 2017, although it appeared in the game earlier - during the New Year celebrations of 2015-2016 and 2016-2017. The essence of the mode is this: one team defends, and the other attacks. The blue team needs to defend their base, which is designated as a point in mode, and the red team needs to deliver flags to the blue base. It's simple, and most importantly - a lot of fun! The highlight of the mode is that the red team has several flags at its disposal at once, which means the blue team needs to repel attacks from several sides simultaneously.

On June 4, 2018, the Tanki Online game celebrated its ninth birthday. Over nine years, many events have happened and valuable experience has been accumulated. New game objects and modes were added. The technology platform Flash was actively developed. An important event for the project was the appearance of a technical support service. This took it to the next level. The project continues to develop, and you can read about what happened before, what periods there were in the life of the game, what their results were in this article.

The material was prepared thanks to tankers sokol290 and Pashik-10.

“Tanks for two” (late 90s)

About sixteen years ago, the oldest ancestor of Tanki Online appeared - the game Tanki for Two. It was developed as an experiment by young Anton Volkov (wolf) and Alexander Karpovich (karp) - the founders of the Alternativa Games company and the Tanki Online project. A small store, graphics like in old java games for mobile phones and only two players - that’s all the simple functionality of “Tanks for Two”.

Thanks to this project, the idea of ​​​​creating an arcade tank action movie appeared.

The story of how the game was created can be found in the article by Alexander Karpovich on the official blog of Alternativa Games.

"Tanks" (late 2008 - early 2009)

Two months before the start of active development of Tanki Online, Alternativa Games employees developed a demonstration of the capabilities of the server platform. Demo codename: "Tanks".

It was a multiplayer action game about tanks in the Flash environment. The demo was developed using the Alternativa3D 5 graphics engine.

"Tanks" became the prototype of "Tanks Online".

The garage here was much more diverse than in “Tanks for Two.” There were three types of tanks: light, medium and heavy. There was only one gun. To hit a weak corps, one hit was required, a medium one - two, and a heavy one - four.

There was only one map and it existed in the form of a solid 3D model (in Tanki Online, maps consist of blocks - props). There was water. That card became the prototype of the current Tribute.

Archival video of “Tanks” gameplay:

As a result, prototypes of the Smokey gun and Hunter hull appeared. The idea of ​​a multiplayer action game about tanks began to materialize.

"Tanks online"

Beginning (2009)

"Rudiments" of parkour

Developer tanks (from left to right: antonio, zykov, danilova, arts80, Karp)

• On May 8, 2009, closed beta testing of the new game “Tanks Online” began.

It is noteworthy that at this moment the game received an award at the Game Developers Conference (GDC 2009) in the category “Best Game Without a Publisher.” This suggests that already in the testing phase the game received recognition in the international gaming industry.

• A month later, on June 4, open testing began.

Speech by Anton Volkov, in which he invites all interested users to take part in open testing of the game:

«	Closed testing of our project took place for almost a month. About 600 people took part in it, caught over 200 bugs and helped a lot with their advice and comments. However, a lot still needs to be done: there are bugs, there are a lot of ideas and improvements. We will continue to work closely on all this in the coming months. We invite you to participate in open testing of Tanks Online! And may the server endure! :)	»
- Anton Volkov

Before the opening of Tanki Online, the developers of Alternativa Games gave an official interview to the famous gaming site GameStar.

Here is a small excerpt from it:

«	G.S.: In mid-June, open beta testing of the new browser-based action MMO “Tanki Online” began. Key Feature The game is the fact that it is based on a three-dimensional engine built in the Flash environment (details in our review). In a recent interview with Gamestar, developers Alternativa Games shared their views on the present and plans for the future. Gamestar: Who is the target audience for Tanki Online? AP: Yes, almost any Internet user - an office worker, a schoolchild/student or a housewife. We do not target a specific age or gender. We think that the game can be a good substitute for a “kerchief” or a smoke break with colleagues. A positive reaction from the fair sex was noticed. As it turned out, girls also need to throw out their accumulated aggression somewhere.	»
- gamestar.ru

• Beginning of summer 2009 - the game was released on the main server.

The audience of players was just beginning to form. Everyone knew each other. The developers played together with the first users. During that period, the most “avid old men” of the maintenance project came.

In those days, prices for goods in the garage were different, and various glitches and lags were constantly discovered. In general, the chaos of primordial existence reigned...

It was then that the beginnings of parkour in TO appeared.

The idea of ​​introducing a racing mode arose. Mapmaker Avocado created the Monte Carlo map, which was supposed to be one of the arenas for the racing mode. Over time, this feature was abandoned, but the card remained. Now it is quite popular among tankers. Avocado gave an interview to the Tankov Online newspaper, in which he talked about how the Monte Carlo map was created.

In one version of this map, the skybox was made in blood red tones. At the same time, if you fall into the abyss, you could see that a city is depicted at its “bottom”.

• On July 31, 2009, the Capture the Flag (CTF) game mode was added.

Since then, Tanki Online has changed a lot, and now there is little that reminds us of those times.

The era of “DikoReli in Digital” (late 2009 - mid 2010)

First concept of Isis

Bugs with physics

Killer93 - moderator of the "Gazebo" section on the forum; Avocado - map maker, author of the Monte Carlo and Düsseldorf maps

By that time, about 200,000 people had already registered in the game.

In 2010, a large number of new cards appeared. The appearance of the game has changed beyond recognition. During this period, the number of registrations began to increase sharply: on June 24, 300,000 tankers were registered, on August 15 - 400,000, on September 19 - 500,000, and on December 19, the millionth player registered in the game. There was a wave of cheating. Cartoon farming began to flourish.

Demand for first-generation equipment has dropped significantly. There were rumors about a mysterious Shaft cannon.

In the process of balancing the new guns, the developers came to the conclusion that Frieze and Ricochet needed serious adjustments. Thus, it was noted that Ricochet is too powerful compared to other guns, and Frieze, on the contrary, is only suitable for freezing, but not destroying. Therefore, in the fall of 2010, all Freezes and Ricochet were removed from the garages, and the crystals for them were returned to the players' accounts so that they could purchase the rebalanced guns again.

A large number of new competitions were held: a video competition, the first “Mr. and Miss Tanki Online”, a short story competition. More details in the Competitions section.

Tankman Jeck_Aubrey started making FFFUUU comics on the theme of “Tanks” and created one of the most popular topics on the TO forum in the “Your Creativity” section.

In April 2010, the Chinese version of Tanki Online was launched. The Chinese servers were separate from the main ones and had a separate database (and remain so to this day). Here's what Ivan Zykov, art director of Alternativa Games, said about this:

• On May 7, 2010, Tanki Online became the site of the day at the Favorite Website Awards.

Old newsboy paint texture "Reporter"

• On July 7, 2010, Tanki got its own newspaper. It was created by enthusiastic players with the support of the administration. The newspaper existed for a long time until it merged with the News portal. For more details, see the article History of the creation of the Tankov Online newspaper.

• At the beginning of September 2010, "Tanks" celebrated Tankman's Day. The administration's gift to the tankers was a 25% discount on all goods in the garage - the first discount promotion in the history of the game.

• On November 25, 2010, the results of the Runet Prize were summed up, and the Tanki Online project entered the top ten. To mark the occasion, all items in the garage were given a 25% discount.

• For the New Year 2010-2011, “Tanks” pleased their players with another 25% discount on all goods in the garage, as well as a New Year’s card and festive decorations. Since then, not a single New Year in “Tanks” can do without these attributes.

2011-2012

“Tanks” entered the new year 2011 with a serious desire to build on the successes achieved in the past. Work continued on Tanki Online 2.0 (which was destined to end soon), new competitions and events appeared. The “battle of players versus developers” format was tested for the first time: on February 7, news about the upcoming “300 Tankers” competition appeared on the game’s main page. There were so many applications that the competition was renamed “3000 tankers.” The battle itself took place on February 15; a randomly selected team of players did not hold out against the developers equipped with M3 weapons.

On February 12, another significant event took place: the one and a half millionth registration. And on Valentine's Day, February 14, the famous Smokey XT gun was released to the main servers. She was stronger and more expensive than the standard Smokey. Within a week, any tanker with the rank of Warrant Officer 1 or higher could buy a gun and use it until February 22. The next day, the damage of Smokey XT was increased, and the duration of the promotion was extended for two more days. The event caused a considerable resonance among tankers (by the way, such innovations had never existed in the game before). On the forum and in the game, Smokey XT became the number one topic of discussion. On February 24, 2011 at 8:00 Moscow time, the Smokey XT gun was permanently removed from the garages.

On April 1, the developers presented another unusual competition. It was called “Goon Race,” and in it participants were asked to go through a special race track, competing with rivals in speed. A prerequisite was the constant spinning of the tower. The winner had the opportunity to receive any item available for purchase in the garage for free.

Also on April 1, an unusual object appeared in the store - the “Blue Ball”. The price tag amazed the imagination of the players: 100,500 crystals! This was equivalent to a quarter of the cost of the entire garage at the time, and at today's prices this amounts to 1,005,000 crystals. Of course, only a few tankers could afford to spend such a huge amount on an April Fool's joke. According to rumors, those who bought the Blue Ball received cheating superpowers for a while, and when the item was removed from the garages, everyone who bought it received a double refund. At the end of 2015, the rumors were officially denied in one of the video blog episodes.

• On June 2, the second thematic battle of developers against players took place - “1000 tankers”. This time they decided to play on VaspoSmok, and the result of the battle was a draw.

• On June 6, the project celebrated a new milestone - registration number 3 million. The lucky one was a tanker (or tanker?) with the nickname katyana.

• On July 8, the German localization of the game was launched.

Shaft Appears

Intriguing anticipation of the long-awaited gun

The first "shaft drivers"

sokol290 and Pashik-10

• On October 14, “Tanks” reached the milestone of 5,000,000 registered players, and a little more than a month later - on November 27 - tanker number 6,000,000 registered in the game.

• According to tradition, in November “Tanki Online” took part in the “Runet Award” and took ninth place in the “People’s Ten” nomination.

The year 2012 began for the project with new achievements. On January 4, the seven millionth player registered in the game under the nickname stepan1234567891. The popularity of the game grew like a snowball - not even a month passed between eight and nine million registrations. And on March 25, the number of game accounts exceeded 10 million. Nickname of the anniversary registered user - lYonsl.

The game gradually gained popular popularity. The following is a video sent by the player Virtvirt, in which his two-year-old son Stas ( BOECtankist) skillfully controls his tank, destroying opponents from his Shaft:

In addition, Stas took part in the competition “Mr. TO 2012” and took an honorable third place in it.

On June 4, the project celebrated its third birthday. A few days later, a large-scale event was launched dedicated to the European Football Championship that was taking place at that time. Players were catching football gold boxes, the denomination of which was significantly increased. You can read more. On June 28, the “1000 Football Players” battle took place, in which a team of tankers defeated the developers on the Stadium map.

Item "1000 experience" in the garage

The summer of 2012 was marked by many innovations: these were improvements to the maps, a test of the new FTC mode (CTF with an inverted arrangement of bases; however, the matter did not go further than the test) and the disabling of the rating (previously, the set of experience points depended on the rating - the higher it was, the fewer points were awarded for any action, which slowed down the development of experienced tankers-"benders" and gave rise to the phenomenon of artificially lowering the rating through automated self-destruction), and the sale of experience (1000 units for 100 crystals), and new graphic effects, and the introduction of display " cards conquered by clans during the Card Capture tournament.

Release 1.100 (second half of 2012)

• On July 3, the first episode of the video blog was released:

In it, Tanki Online community manager Maxim Khusainov spoke about all the events taking place in the game at that time: tournaments, competitions and releases. In particular, it was on this day that the option to report violators appeared in the game. Subsequently, the video blog became one of the main means of communication between players and developers. From issue to issue, new sections appeared (“Interview with the developer,” “Hello,” etc.). Community manager Nikolai Kolotov, who joined the company in the summer of 2012, brought the quality of the video blog’s images to a new level. The entire technical part from filming to publication on video hosting is in his hands.

At the beginning of August, players had the opportunity to take part in another “sports” competition - “Tankiada”. It is not difficult to guess that the competition was timed to coincide with the London Olympics. As part of the "Tankiada", players fought with project assistants.

Having exhaled after introducing new physics and micro-levelling into the game, the developers got busy with the maps and on January 31 rolled out a large-scale update that, to one degree or another, affected almost all game arenas. Some of them have been significantly changed. The most important event was the return to the game of the hit of all time - the “Madness” card, which has undergone a total rework. A week later, a topic appeared on the forum in which it was reported that several unpopular cards would be removed soon. Tankers could only “save” two of them, but the surge in gaming activity caused by the doubling of gold boxes on these maps changed the minds of the developers, and the decision to remove them was canceled.

The next milestone on the path of progress was the move of game servers to a powerful data center in Amsterdam. Servers located almost in the center of Europe, and not in Russia, allow players from all over the world to quickly and easily enter the game and not feel the discomfort associated with high ping.

Around the same time, team kick was removed from the game.

First Brazilian Generalissimo

On April 10, the Brazilian version of Tanki Online was launched. It uses its own database (just like the Chinese version) and operates on a separate server located directly in Brazil, so that players do not have to worry about transferring game data across the ocean. Along with the Brazilian localization, a new map “Rio” appeared in the game, made in a unique style. The map does not lose popularity to this day thanks to the thoughtful arrangement of game elements and room for maneuver. The visiting card of the map was the seemingly impregnable skyscraper - there was even a special competition dedicated to its conquest. The German parkour team GTT was the first to “saddle” the roof of the high-rise building.

"Tanks" is 5 years old!

• On June 2, an updated mode was introduced into the game, as well as a number of useful updates: linear distribution of the fund at the end of the game, the ability to add a player to the blacklist through the chat menu, and the ability to turn off chat.
• On June 4, Tanki Online celebrated its fifth anniversary.
• On June 24, the game application was launched on the VKontakte social network -