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Date of Award

Spring 5-5-2024

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science

Major

LACS: German Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Julia Assaiante

Abstract

Technology plays an important role in the history of any country. It has the power to change entire political landscapes and be the deciding factor in winning a war. The industry has remained at the forefront of societal development. Better technology means better quality of life, and more advancements in other industries, such as medicine, environmental science, and urban development. A subsection of this massive industry includes those who produce video games and other forms of online entertainment. Video games were one of the earliest uses for computers outside of mathematical computation. They were a way for programmers to express their creativity, devising new and exciting forms of entertainment. Games were also a useful way in getting the general populace to be interested in computers. Before video games, computers were almost exclusively used for research in the science and engineering fields. But video games made this technology accessible to all, and computers started appearing in every household. Today, the video game industry is worth about $365 billion dollars, and that number continues to grow. Germany in particular has an interesting history with technology. Before World War II it was at the forefront of technological development, creating some of the earliest computing machines. Unfortunately, the war had a mostly negative impact on this progress, as many engineers and scientists were drafted and were either sent to fight in the trenches, or develop new weaponry. Even after the war Germany was facing problems. It was divided into the East and the West, with the East being cut off from western technology while under the control of the Soviet Union. This means that computer and video game development were very different in these two regions. The hardware in the East was typically slower, with less computing power, and the code needed to run these computers was not used by the rest of the world. Still, people in the East worked with what they had and produced many games of their own. Under the rule of the Soviet Union however, video games were closely monitored by the Stasi, who viewed many of them as anti-Soviet. When Germany was eventually unified, eastern technology was rendered obsolete. Those in the East had no experience with western technology, which made it difficult for the two sides to integrate. There were many years of struggle, as the people of the East had to adapt quickly, and problems still persist to this day. In this thesis I will detail the history of computers and video games in Germany and how the industry changed before, during, and after WWII. I will also discuss the role this technology played in shaping the cultural and political landscape of the country, and finally, what the German video games industry looks like today.

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