Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: When was the first Age of Empires video game released?
"Age of Empires", released on October 26, 1997, was the first game in the series, as well as the first major release from Ensemble Studios. It was one of the first history-based real-time strategy games made, utilizing the Genie game engine. GameSpot described it as a mix of "Civilization" and "". The game gives players a choice of 12 civilizations to develop from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. The expansion pack, "The Rise of Rome", published by Microsoft on October 31, 1998, introduced new features and four new civilizations, including the Romans. Although the two games had contained many software bugs, patches resolved many of the problems.
Prior to the first "Civilization" video game, an existing 1980 board game of the same name had been developed by Francis Tresham, published in Europe by his company Hartland Trefoil and licensed for publication in the United States by Avalon Hill. The board game and video game share many common elements including the use of a technology tree, and while Meier stated he had played the board game, he stated it had far less influence in his video game's design compared to the significant influence of "SimCity" and "Empire". When MicroProse opted on the name "Civilization" for the video game, the company worked out a deal with Avalon Hill to allow them to use the "Civilization" name.
There is no consensus on what the earliest open world game is, due to differing definitions of how large or open a world needs to be. Ars Technica traces the concept back to the free-roaming exploration of 1976 text adventure game "Colossal Cave Adventure", which inspired the free-roaming exploration of "Adventure" (1980), but notes that it wasn't until 1984 that what "we now know as open-world gaming" took on a "definite shape" with 1984 space simulator "Elite", considered a pioneer of the open world; Gamasutra argues that its open-ended sandbox style is rooted in flight simulators, such as SubLOGIC's "Flight Simulator" (1979/1980), noting most flight sims "offer a 'free flight' mode that allows players to simply pilot the aircraft and explore the virtual world". Others trace the concept back to 1981 CRPG "", which had a free-roaming overworld map inspired by tabletop RPG "Dungeons & Dragons". The overworld maps of the first five "Ultima" games, released up to 1988, lacked a single, unified scale, with towns and other places represented as icons; this style was adopted by the first three "Dragon Quest" games, released from 1986 to 1988 in Japan.
The history of video games spans a period of time between the invention of the first electronic games and today, covering a long period of invention and changes. Video gaming reached mainstream popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, when arcade video games, gaming consoles and home computer games were introduced to the general public. Since then, video gaming has become a popular form of entertainment and a part of modern culture in most parts of the world. The early history of video games, therefore, covers the period of time between the first interactive electronic game with an electronic display in 1947, the first true video games in the early 1950s, and the rise of early arcade video games in the 1970s ("Pong" and the beginning of the first generation of video game consoles with the Magnavox Odyssey, both in 1972). During this time there were a wide range of devices and inventions corresponding with large advances in computing technology, and the actual first video game is dependent on the definition of "video game" used.
20th Century Fox commenced work on what it planned to be the first ever "Planet of the Apes" video game in 1983. The game was developed for the Atari 2600; John Marvin served as programmer. Marvin completed enough of the work to bring the prototype game through initial playtesting, but he left Fox for a new job at Epyx before finishing the project. The game remained unfinished when Fox closed its video game division three months later amid the video game crash of 1983, and "Planet of the Apes" never saw release.
An expansion pack titled Grand Ages: Rome - The Reign of Augustus (known as "Imperivm Online" in Spain and Italy) was released on November 26, 2009 in Spain, December 1, 2009 in Italy and in January 2010 worldwide. It is sold worldwide online and sold in retail stores only in Italy and Spain.
At the computer science department at Aarhus University, three students, avid players of XPilot and of Sid Meier's "Civilization", which was a stand-alone PC game for MS-DOS, decided to find out whether the two could be fused into an X-based multiplayer Civilization-like strategy game. The students—Peter Unold, Claus Leth Gregersen and Allan Ove Kjeldbjerg—started development in November 1995; the first playable version was released in January 1996, with bugfixing and small enhancements until April. The rules of the game were close to Civilization, while the client/server architecture was basically that of XPilot.
The development of "Doom", a first-person shooter video game by id Software, began in November 1992 and continued until the game was released in December 1993. Seven people worked on "Doom", which is considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history. The initial development team was programmers John Carmack and John Romero, artists Adrian Carmack and Kevin Cloud, and designer Tom Hall; late in development Hall was replaced by Sandy Petersen and programmer Dave Taylor was added to the team. The music and sound effects were created by Bobby Prince.
In 1971, the arcade game, "Computer Space was released." The following year, Atari, Inc. released the first commercially successful video game, "Pong", the original arcade version of which sold over 19,000 arcade cabinets. That same year saw the introduction of video games to the home market with the release of the early video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey. However, both the arcade and home markets would be dominated by "Pong" clones, which flooded the market and led to the video game crash of 1977. The crash eventually came to an end with the success of Taito's "Space Invaders", released in 1978, sparking a renaissance for the video game industry and paving the way for the golden age of video arcade games. The game's success inspired arcade machines to become prevalent in mainstream locations such as shopping malls, traditional storefronts, restaurants and convenience stores during the golden age. "Space Invaders" would go on to sell over 360,000 arcade cabinets worldwide, and by 1982, generate a revenue of $2 billion in quarters, equivalent to $4.6 billion in 2011.
Enlight Software is a developer and publisher of video games. The company was founded by Trevor Chan in 1993, and their first project was the economic strategy game "Capitalism", which was published by Interactive Magic in 1995. In 1997, they released "Capitalism Plus" (an updated version of "Capitalism") and the real-time strategy game "Seven Kingdoms". Later games include "Virtual U", "Capitalism II", "", "", "Restaurant Empire", "Zoo Empire", "Marine Park Empire" and "Restaurant Empire II".
Monopoly is a Sega Master System video game based on the board game "Monopoly", released in 1988. Developed by Nexa Corporation and published by Sega itself, this title was one of many inspired by the property. According to Game Freaks 365, the game was "one of the first real boardgames that was programmed" into a video game.
1998's "Half-Life"—along with its 2004 sequel "Half-Life 2"—enhanced the narrative and puzzle elements. In 1999, the "Half-Life" mod "Counter-Strike" was released and, together with "Doom", is perhaps one of the most influential first-person shooters. "GoldenEye 007", released in 1997, was a landmark first-person shooter for home consoles, while the "Halo" series heightened the console's commercial and critical appeal as a platform for first-person shooter titles. In the 21st century, the first-person shooter is the most commercially viable video game genre, and in 2016, shooters accounted for over 27% of all video game sales. Several first-person shooters have been popular games for eSports and competitive gaming competitions as well.
Near the same time that Epic released "Fortnite" into early access, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" had become a worldwide phenomenon, having sold over 5 million copies three months from its March 2017 release, and drawing strong interest in the battle royale genre. Epic recognized that with the "Fortnite" base game, they could also do a battle royale mode, and rapidly developed their own version atop "Fortnite" in about two months. By September 2017, Epic was ready to release this as a second mode from "Save the World" in the paid-for earlier access, but then later decided to release it as a free game, "Fortnite Battle Royale", supported with microtransactions. This version quickly gained players, with over 10 million players during its first two weeks of release, and leading Epic to create separate teams to continue the "Fortnite Battle Royale" development apart from the "Save the World" mode, outside of common engine elements and art assets. This allowed "Fortnite Battle Royale" to expand to other platforms otherwise not supported by the "Save the World" mode, including iOS and Android mobile devices and the Nintendo Switch.
Doom (typeset as DOOM in official documents and stylized as DooM in other media) is a 1993 first-person shooter (FPS) video game by id Software. It is considered one of the most significant and influential titles in video game history, for having helped to pioneer the now-ubiquitous first-person shooter. The original game was divided into three nine-level episodes and was distributed via shareware and mail order. The Ultimate Doom, an updated release of the original game featuring a fourth episode, was released in 1995 and sold at retail.
Grand Theft Auto is an action-adventure video game developed by DMA Design and published by BMG Interactive. It was first released in Europe and North America in October 1997 for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. It was later re-released on 12 December 1997 in Europe and 30 June 1998 in North America for the PlayStation. It is the first instalment of the "Grand Theft Auto" series, to be followed by 1999's "Grand Theft Auto 2". The series, which has led to five main entries and several special edition games over 16 years, has sold more than 150 million units as of September 2013. The story follows a group of criminals in three fictionalised versions of US cities as they perform bank robberies, assassinations, and other illegal activities for their respective crime syndicates.
The history of game making begins with the development of the first video games, although which video game is the first depends on the definition of "video game". The first games created had little entertainment value, and their development focus was separate from user experience—in fact, these games required mainframe computers to play them. "OXO", written by Alexander S. Douglas in 1952, was the first computer game to use a digital display. In 1958, a game called "Tennis for Two", which displayed its output on an oscilloscope, was made by Willy Higinbotham, a physicist working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 1961, a mainframe computer game called "Spacewar!" was developed by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology students led by Steve Russell.
As Jarvis worked on pinball games at Williams in the late 1970s, "Space Invaders" was released, sparking great interest in microprocessor video games. Jarvis wanted to try making a video game. When thinking of design ideas with famed pinball designer Steve Ritchie, they developed the concept for "Defender" — a side-scroller with the player flying over the surface of a planet. "Defender" (1980) was Jarvis's first video game and turned out to be a huge hit, helping kick off the golden age of arcade games and eventually becoming one of the highest grossing video games ever. Williams expanded greatly with the success of "Defender", but Jarvis left to found an independent game development firm called Vid Kidz with Larry DeMar in February 1981. After four months of tag-team programming between DeMar and Jarvis, they produced Vid Kidz's first game: "Stargate" (1981), an enhanced sequel to "Defender" that they sold to Williams.
Throughout the rest of the 1960s, digital computer games were created by increasingly numerous programmers and sometimes sold commercially in catalogs. As the audience for video games expanded to more than a few dozen research institutions with the falling cost of computers, and programming languages that would run on multiple types of computers were created, a wider variety of games began to be developed. Video games transitioned into a new era in the early 1970s with the launch of the commercial video game industry in 1971 with the display of the coin-operated arcade game "Galaxy Game" and the release of the first arcade video game "Computer Space", and then in 1972 with the release of the immensely successful arcade game "Pong" and the first home video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey, which launched the first generation of video game consoles.
With the arrival of the seventh generation of video game consoles, the first "next-gen" "Grand Theft Auto" clones were released in 2006, beginning with "Saints Row" from 2006 and "Crackdown" from 2007 both introduced online multiplayer to the genre, a feature that had been requested by many fans. "Crackdown" attracted attention for being created by David Jones, the developer of the original "Grand Theft Auto", and featured the ability to develop the player character's superpowers in a semi-futuristic setting. Meanwhile, "" and "" entered the market in 2006, and attempted to apply the "Grand Theft Auto" formula to popular movie franchises. Still, reviewers continued to measure these games against the standard set by the "Grand Theft Auto" series. "Grand Theft Auto IV" was released in April 2008 and featured a large, detailed environment, redefining gameplay and even adopted the GPS navigation system seen in "Saints Row". The game broke numerous sales records, including the record for the fastest selling game in its first 24 hours. Since its inception, this genre has evolved to include larger settings, more missions, and a wider range of vehicles. In 2010, Rockstar Games published "Red Dead Redemption", an open world Western themed game. On the day of "Grand Theft Auto V" 's release on September 17, 2013, Volition released a free downloadable content pack for "Saints Row IV" titled "GATV", purposely playing the similarity in the abbreviated titles to promote their game due to the confusion raised on various social networks.
That same year saw the release of the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console which could be connected to a television set. The inventor, Ralph H. Baer, had initially had the idea in 1951 to make an interactive game on a television set. Unable to do so with the technological constraints at the time, he began work on a device that would attach to a television set and display games in 1966, and the "Brown Box", the last prototype of seven, was licensed to Magnavox to adapt and produce. They announced the console in May 1972, and it went on sale that September. The console and its games featured numerous innovations beyond being the first video game device for home consumers: it was the first game to use a raster-scan video display, or television set, directly displayed via modification of a video signal; it was also the first video gaming device to be displayed in a television commercial. It sold for US$100 and shipped with several games, including "Table tennis", which Bushnell had seen a demo of and which "Pong" had been based on. The Odyssey sold over 100,000 units in 1972, and more than 350,000 by the end of 1975, buoyed by the popularity of the table tennis game, in turn driven by the success of "Pong". "Pong" and the Odyssey kicked off a new era of video gaming, with numerous other competitors starting up in the video game industry as it grew in popularity.
Information on "Origins", then titled "Assassin's Creed Empire", first leaked in January 2017, showing several screenshots of a character on a boat and in front of a cave. The game was officially revealed on June 11, 2017. It was developed using the latest iteration of the AnvilNext engine. During production of "Assassin's Creed III" in November 2011 Ubisoft conducted a fan survey exploring potential settings for future titles. Ancient Egypt was one of the most popular choices, but Alex Hutchinson, the creative director of "Assassin's Creed III", dismissed the results as he considered Ancient Egypt—as with the other two chosen settings, feudal Japan and World War II—as being "the worst choices" for a setting. The development team hired Egyptologists to assist in making the open world more accurate to the time period.
"Age of Empires" was also successful worldwide, according to Microsoft. It was released in 55 countries during its first four months, and over 650,000 copies were shipped globally by December 12. Microsoft reported that it was consistently the top-selling computer strategy title in the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom through January 1998. Globally, the game sold-through 850,000 units by February.
Age of Empires III is a real-time strategy video game developed by Microsoft Corporation's Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios. The Mac version was ported over and developed and published by Destineer's MacSoft. The PC version was released on October 18, 2005 in North America and November 4, 2005 in Europe, while the Mac version was released on November 21, 2006 in North America and September 29, 2006 in Europe. An N-Gage version of the game developed by Glu Mobile was released on April 28, 2009. It is the third game of the "Age of Empires" series and the sequel to "".
Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs is the first expansion pack for the real-time strategy game "Age of Empires III". It was released on October 17, 2006 in the United States. The expansion pack was bundled with the full game of "Age of Empires III", called "Age of Empires III Gold Edition" on October 23, 2007. The Mac version was ported over, developed and published by Destineer's MacSoft. The full game for Mac was released on June 12, 2007 in the United States. It was followed by a second expansion pack to the original game called "".
Originally touted as "Civilization" meets "Warcraft", some reviewers felt that the game failed to live up to these expectations when it was released. Despite this, it received generally good reviews, and an expansion pack, titled "", was released in 1998. Both the original "Age of Empires" and the expansion pack were later released as "The Gold Edition". A sequel, "Age of Empires II", was released in 1999. "Age of Empires: Definitive Edition", a remastered version of the game, was released on February 20, 2018.