 Today , however , the term " video game " has completely shed its purely technical definition and encompasses a wider range of technology . While still rather ill @-@ defined , the term " video game " now generally encompasses any game played on hardware built with electronic logic circuits that incorporates an element of interactivity and outputs the results of the player 's actions to a display . Going by this broader definition , the first video games appeared in the early 1950s ; they were tied largely to research projects at universities and large corporations , though , and had little influence on each other due to their primary purpose as academic and promotional devices rather than entertainment games . 
