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Game development can be defined as a vast field with a lot of creative as well as technical aspects. Game Development consists of a team of game developers, game analysts, testers and publishers. Game development is a lucrative business type and earns around 20 billion dollars on an annual basis worldwide. The field has its own risk factors, as projects can extend beyond the time limit and can cost the budget of the project.

The game development can be categorized into two basic categories namely – Mainstream and the Independent class. Mainstream can be defined as professionals who work for a game development company and are mostly are funded by a publisher or a client. Independent can be termed as those game developers who work on an independent or freelance basis and take sole projects at a time.

Game development dates back to 1952, when the first computer game type was introduced. It was known as the ‘OXO’ and was developed by Alexander S. Douglas. This was a replication of the Noughts and Crosses or the tic-tac-toe. OXO was the first of its kind and a digital graphical game which run on computers. Even though this was first of computer games, it did not gain much popularity.

Tennis for Two was the first electronic game with a graphic display and was developed with a Donner Model 30 Analog computer. It was developed in 1958 by William Higinbotham, an American Physicist. The game depicted Tennis or a Ping Pong, and was based on an Oscilloscope. SpaceWar can be described as the first digital game to provide a multi-player platform. It was developed in 1961 by a group of MIT students named - Steve ‘Slug’ Russell, Martin ‘Shag’ Graetz, and Wayne Wiitanen.

The commercial game development began by the 1970s and the first sale of a computer programmed game was sold out in 1971. The game was incorporated in a video game format. With the arrival of home based video games, there was huge impact in the game development arena. Programmers became more interested in the game field. Some of the first video games that became popular were- Zork, Air Warrior, and Adventure.

With the popularity of games, Game publishers made a huge success in the commercial markets. Some of the top game publishers of all time include- Take Two Interactive, Nintendo, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Sony, Square Enix, Sega, and Ubisoft. The game industry is a changing arena and developers need to understand the trend and the customer interest to make a successful game.

Author Bio:
Stacey is a copywriter with Zco Corporation interested in mobile app development and game development.