Party video game

This article is about the genre of video games. For parties within role-playing games, see party (role-playing games).

A party video game is a genre of video game that stems from in-person party games, involving player-to-player interaction as the central gameplay element. These games are often defined by simple controls which can be easily picked up and understood by players of any skill level.

Party video games generally consist of short-term experiences which may be played in succession, and are sometimes characterized in the form of minigames. These experiences may be played singularly or in a group, and usually feature several players competing simultaneously.^[1]

History

The first party video game is thought to be Olympic Decathlon, releasing in 1980.^[2]

In 1983, Party Mix was released for the Atari, and consisted of an anthology of five multiplayer games, which began the format of party video games releasing as a series of individually-selectable minigames.^[3]

In 1995, You Don't Know Jack was released, the first of the You Don't Know Jack franchise and the precursor to the Jackbox Party Pack collection in 2014.^[4]

In 1998, Mario Party was released on the Nintendo 64.^[5] Its launch eventually brought about the rest of the Mario Party franchise, in wake of the game's success across markets. Mario Party 2 was released in 1999, and Mario Party 3 was released in 2000.

The launch of the Wii in 2006 led to the creation of Wii Play, a minigame collection that was bundled with certain copies of the Wii console.^[6] Years later, in the summer of 2010, Nintendo released Wii Party, which received a 7/10 on IGN, citing it as "a pretty good game to bring out during family game nights or videogame friendly cocktail parties."^[7]

See also

• List of party video games