Sport and games

History
Beginnings of sports games
In 1958, William Higinbotham created a game called Tennis for Two, a competitive two-player tennis game played on an oscilloscope. The players would select the angle at which to put their racket, and pressed a button to return it. Although this game was incredibly simple, it demonstrated how an action game (rather than previous puzzles) could be played on a computer.
Video games prior to the late 1970s were primarily played on university mainframe computers under timesharing systems that supported multiple computer terminals on school campuses. The two dominant systems in this era were Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-10 and Control Data Corporation's PLATO. Both could only display text, and not graphics, originally printed on teleprinters and line printers, but later printed on single-color CRT screens.
Around that time, electro-mechanical sports arcade games were being produced. Examples include Taito's Crown Soccer Special (1967), Sega's racing game Grand Prix (1969), and Chicago Coin's racing game Speedway (1969). In the 1970s, arcade video games began to appear, many of them centered around the sports genre, after it was popularized by the first commercially successful video game, Atari's Pong (1972).
In 1973, Taito released an early team sport video game, Davis Cup, a tennis doubles game with similar ball-and-paddle gameplay but played in doubles, with both players controlling two paddles each. That year, Taito also released another early team sport video game, Soccer, based on association football; it was also a ball-and-paddle game, but with a green background to simulate a playfield, allowed each player to control both a forward and a goalkeeper, and let them adjust the size of the players who were represented as paddles on screen. Both Davis Cup and Soccer were designed by Tomohiro Nishikado of Space Invaders fame. Early hockey video games were also released in 1973: Sega's Hockey TV, and Taito's Pro Hockey, which had similar gameplay to Pong, but with boundaries around the screen and only a small gap for the goal.
In 1974, Taito released Basketball. It displays images both for the players and the baskets, and is an early attempt at accurately simulating a team sport. Each player controls two team members, a forward and a guard. The ball can be dribbled and passed between team members before shooting, and the ball had to fall into the opposing team's basket to score a point. That same year, Sega released an association football game, Goal Kick, which was played like an early vertical ball-and-paddle game. The first driving video games were also released that year: Taito's Speed Race (1974) which introduced scrolling graphics, and Atari's Gran Trak 10. In 1976, the driving subgenre was extended into three dimensions, with the forward-scrolling third-person perspective of Sega's motorbike racing game Moto-Cross, soon re-branded as Fonz that same year, and with the first-person perspective of Atari's Night Driver.
In 1975, Universal Research Laboratories (URL) released an early four-player multiple-sports game, Video Action, which featured several different sporting minigames, including Pong-style variants of tennis, hockey, and association football, as well as an early volleyball game and a unique four-court tennis game. Video Action was also an early example of cooperative gameplay, as each sport could be played in teams of two. That same year, Nintendo released EVR-Race, an early horse racing simulation game with support for up to six players. In 1976, Sega released an early combat sport game, Heavyweight Champ, based on boxing and now considered the first fighting game. In 1978 Atari released Atari Football, which is considered to be the first video game to accurately emulate American football; it also popularized the use of the trackball, having been inspired by an earlier Taito soccer game that used a trackball. Taito also released an early bowling game in 1978, Top Bowler, followed by an early baseball game in 1979, Ball Park.
1980s
Between 1980 and 1984, Atari and Mattel's Intellivision waged a series of high-stakes TV advertising campaigns promoting their respective systems, marking the start of the first console wars. Atari prevailed in arcade games and had a larger customer base due to its lower price, while Intellivision touted its visually superior sports games. Sports writer George Plimpton was featured in the Intellivision ads, which showed the parallel games side by side. Both Atari and Intellivision fielded at least one game for baseball, American football, hockey, basketball, auto racing and association football.

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  Activision Tennis (1981)
  
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  Track & Field (1982)
  
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  Pole Position (1982)
  

In 1981, Taito released Alpine Ski, an early extreme sport game, based on winter sports. It was a vertical scrolling game that involved maneuvering a skier through multiple events: a downhill ski course, a slalom racing course, and a ski jumping competition. That same year, Sega's Turbo introduced a third-person perspective into the genre, with Namco's Pole Position then popularizing the now common rear-view racer format and introducing AI opponents the following year.
In 1982, Taito released an early golf game, Birdie King,^[30] Tehkan released an early swimming game, Swimmer, and Data East released an early fishing game, Angler Dangler. That same year, ZX Spectrum released the first association football management simulation, Football Manager, while Konami released an early Olympic-themed athletics game, Track & Field, which featured multiple Olympic track & field events (including the 100-meter dash, long jump, javelin throw, 110-meter hurdles, hammer throw, and high jump) and allowed up to four players to compete. In 1983, EA produced their first sports game Dr. J and Larry Bird Go One on One, which was also the first licensed sports game based on the names and likenesses of famous athletes. The inclusion of famous real world athletes would become one of the most important selling points for sports games.

One of the various angles of Intellivision World Series Baseball, one of the earliest sports game to incorporate multiple camera angles in a manner resembling a television broadcast.
Also in 1983, Alpha Denshi's arcade release Champion Baseball published by Sega displayed the playfield using several different camera angles, including a close-up shot of the player and batter, and gave players the option of selecting relief pitchers or pinch hitters, while an umpire looks on attentively to make the game calls. The game was very popular in Japanese arcades at the time. That same year, Mattel released Intellivision World Series Baseball (IWSB) by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower, possibly the earliest sports game to use multiple camera angles to show the action in a manner resembling a television broadcast. Earlier sports games prior to this had displayed the entire field on screen, or scrolled across static top-down fields to show the action. IWSB mimicked television baseball coverage by showing the batter from a modified "center field" camera, the baserunners in corner insets and defensive plays from a camera behind the batter. It was also, along with Champion Baseball, one of the first sports games to feature audibly-speaking players (as opposed to text), using the Mattel Intellivoice module.
Another early sports game to show multiple camera angles in 1983 was Irem's MotoRace USA, a motorbike racing game that switched between vertical-scrolling and third-person views depending on the player's location on the map, switching to third-person view when near a city and to a vertical-scrolling view when on country roads. Another early sports game to feature digitized voices from that year was Alpha Denshi's Exciting Soccer, an early influential soccer football game, which let one or two players choose from six teams, featured a control scheme where they could tackle, shoot, short-pass, and long-pass, featured an overhead view, and had realistic touches like corner kicks, throw-ins, penalty shots, and cheerleaders. Other early soccer football games from that same year were Data East's Pro Soccer and Commodore's International Soccer. Two early water sport games, both based on waterskiing, were also released that year: Taito's Water Ski and Irem's Tropical Angel, the latter also featuring a female player character. That same year, Taito released Joshi Volleyball, an early volleyball game, and they released Irem's 10-Yard Fight, an American-football game that featured an early career mode, where the player progresses from high school, to college, professional, playoff, and Super Bowl, as the difficulty increases with each step. Meanwhile, Kaneko released Roller Aces, an early roller skating game played from a third-person perspective. An early wrestling game, Technōs Japan's Tag Team Wrestling, was also released that year, and was followed by another wrestling game, Sega's Appoooh, the year after.
In 1984, several early sports laserdisc video games were released, including Universal's Top Gear which featured 3D animated race car driving, while Sega's GP World and Taito's Laser Grand Prix featured live-action footage. Sega also produced a unique bullfighting game, Bull Fight, and a multiple-watersports game Water Match (published by Bally Midway), which included swimming, kayaking and boat racing; while Taito released a fully third-person motorbike racing game Kick Start, an early female sports game based on high-school track & field, The Undoukai, and an early dirt track racing game Buggy Challenge, featuring a buggy. Other early dirt racing games from that year were dirt bike games: Nintendo's Excitebike and SNK's motocross game Jumping Cross. Nintendo also released an early four-player racquet sport game, Vs. Tennis (the Nintendo Vs. System version of Tennis), while SNK released an early horse racing game, Gladiator 1984.
That same year, early ice hockey games were also released: Alpha Denshi's Bull Fighter and Data East's Fighting Ice Hockey. Data East also released a unique lawn sports game Haro Gate Ball, based on croquet, while Nichibutsu released a unique game based on roller derby, Roller Jammer. Meanwhile, Technos Japan released a unique game based on sumo wrestling, Syusse Oozumou, and the first martial arts combat-sport game, Karate Champ, considered one of the most influential fighting games. That same year, game designer Scott Orr founded GameStar, a game publisher specializing in Commodore 64 sports games, and served as its lead designer. GameStar was the most successful sports computer game company of its era, until Orr sold the company to Activision in 1986.
In 1985, Sega released Hang-On, a popular early Grand Prix style rear-view motorbike racer, considered the first full-body-experience video game. That same year, Nintendo released an early arm wrestling game, Arm Wrestling, while Konami released a table tennis game that attempted to accurately reflect the sport, Konami's Ping Pong. That year, Tehkan also released Tehkan World Cup, one of the first multiplayer soccer football games featuring a trackball controller, where a button was used for kicking the ball and the trackball used for the direction and speed of the shot, with gameplay that was fairly realistic. In 1988, EA released Earl Weaver Baseball again developed by Don Daglow and Eddie Dombrower, which for the first time combined a highly accurate simulation game with high quality graphics. This was also the first game in which an actual baseball manager provided the computer AI. In 1996 Computer Gaming World named 'EWB the 25th of its Best 150 Games of All Time, the second highest ranking for any sports game in that 1981–1996 period (after FPS Football).
1990s
The 1990s began in the 16 bit era, as a wave of fourth generation video game consoles were created to handle more complex games and graphics.
In 1989 Electronic Arts producer Richard Hilleman hired GameStar's Scott Orr to re-design John Madden Football for the fast-growing Sega Genesis. In 1990 Orr and Hilleman released the game that is still recognized today as Madden Football, the best-selling sports game in North America up until that time. They focused on producing a head-to-head two-player game with an intuitive interface and responsive controls.
Also in 1990, Taito released Football Champ, an early soccer football game to allow up to four players in both competitive and cooperative gameplay. It also let players perform a number of actions, including a back heel, power kick, high kick, sliding tackle, super shot, and fouling other players (kicking, punching, and pulling shirts), which the player can get away with if the referee isn't looking, or get a yellow or red penalty card for if he is. In 1991, the American football game Tecmo Super Bowl was the first mainstream sports game to feature both the league and player association licenses of the sport it emulated; previous titles either had one license or the other, but Tecmo Super Bowl was the first to feature real NFL players on real teams.
Orr joined EA full-time in 1991 after the success of Madden on the Sega Genesis, and began a ten-year period of his career where he personally supervised the production of the Madden Football series. During this time EA formed EA Sports, a brand name used for sports games they produced. EA Sports created several ongoing series, with a new version released each year to reflect the changes in the sport and its teams since the previous release.
In the 1990s, 3D graphics were introduced in sports arcade games. In particular, Sega's Virtua Striker in 1994 was the first association football game to use 3D computer graphics, and was also notable for its early use of texture mapping.
Meanwhile, Sierra Online released Front Page Sports Football in 1995 for the PC. The following year Computer Gaming World named it twelfth of the Best 150 Games of All Time, the highest ranking sports game on the list.
In 1997, Electronic Gaming Monthly reported that sports games accounted for roughly 50% of console software sales.