Skip to content

Video Games Day

When:
🗓️ July 8
&
September 12

Where:
🌐 Everywhere

Since:
1991

Created by David Earle,
(president of Kid Video Warriors)

Snack Man snacking

Since 1991 the date for Video Games Day has changed several times from 1994 until 1997 when the date of September 12 has remained the permanent date.
(so far)

Due to confusion from these changes, both the first initial date and the final date are currently celebrated.

👾🕹️

The date of Video Games Day is roughly similar with the official release of the video game Space Invaders in the summer of 1978.
This was the time that would be historically remembered as:
“The Dawn of the Golden Age of Video Games”.

💾

Technically, the first video games were made in 1950 to demonstrate the practical use of computers doing interactive simulations.
Computers in the fifties were almost large enough to fill at least half a room and were usually merely made for specific demonstrations. Simulations were usually made for military strategy and business management simulations.
In the early 70’s computers were finally also used for recreation when video games became accessible to the public in the form of coin operated arcade games. These machines were large and expensive, but also proved to be addictive to the public and motivated the development of more practical game machines and games that had even more potential for game addiction.In the late 70’s and early 80’s arcade machines with games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man could be found in arcade halls, snack bars and many other public places.
This ubiquitous exposure to video games could no longer be ignored nor dismissed and video game business exploded to the size we know today.

We are now in a time where almost everyone, even your great grandparents, carries at least one game in their pocket or can download them with the press of a key.
No doubt that both the development of hardware and software have been significantly accelerated by video games, seeing as gaming computers put increasingly gargantuan demands on the use of processor speed, memory and screen performance like no spreadsheet will ever do.

How to celebrate Video Game Day?
Of course by playing video games!

“Video games are bad for you?
That’s what they said about rock and roll.”
— Shigeru Miyamoto

Wild Calendar