 Over the next few years , during 1957 – 61 , various computer games continued to be created in the context of academic computer and programming research , particularly as computer technology improved to include smaller , transistor @-@ based computers on which programs could be created and run in real time , rather than operations run in batches . A few programs , however , while used to showcase the power of the computer they ran on were also intended as entertainment products ; these were generally created by undergraduate students , such as at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where they were allowed on occasion to develop programs for the TX @-@ 0 experimental computer . These interactive graphical games were created by a community of programmers , many of them students affiliated with the Tech Model Railroad Club ( TMRC ) led by Alan Kotok , Peter Samson , and Bob Saunders . The games included Tic @-@ Tac @-@ Toe , which used a light pen to play a simple game of noughts and crosses against the computer , and Mouse in the Maze . Mouse in the Maze allowed users to use a light pen to set up a maze of walls on the monitor , and spots that represented bits of cheese or glasses of martini . A virtual mouse was then released and would traverse the maze to find the objects . Additionally , the wargame simulations from the early 1950s by the RAND Corporation had expanded into more complicated simulations which required little human intervention , and had also sparked the creation of business management simulation games such as The Management Game , which was used in business schools such as at Carnegie Mellon University by 1958 . By 1961 , there were over 89 different business simulation games in use , with various graphical capabilities . As the decade ended , despite several video games having been developed , there was no such thing as a commercial video game industry ; almost all games had been developed on or as a single machine for specific purposes , and the few simulation games were neither commercial nor for entertainment . 
