2. Pong (1972)
If we forget experiments like Spacewar!, Pong was the first video game. With it’s very simple and abstracted 2D graphics, ping pong mechanic, and arcade addictiveness, Pong was literally an overnight sensation. Ralph Baer designed it for the Magnavox Odyssey home video game system, but it really took off when Nolan Bushnell/Allan Alcorn engineered it into an arcade machine for Atari in 1972. They put it in Andy Capp’s Tavern, it looked like a pinball machine, some brave soul dropped in their coin without knowing what would happen and by the next day there was a line out the door. Salen & Zimmerman give a great retelling of this story on the first page of Rules of Play. For Christmas in 1975, Atari manufactured a home version of the game, sold only by Sears, and it was also a huge commercial success. To play, you controlled a paddle and try to hit a ball past the other paddle, controlled by another player (or now by a computer. But at the time it was super cute and social, you needed to sit hip to hip with someone). The goal is to get to 11 first. In some variants it speeds up as you go. It feels a lot like playing Breakout (1976, Atari), a later game in which you try to destroy rainbow blocks by hitting a ball into them. Incredibly simple, incredibly addicting. Breakout has a whole narrative attached to it (the aliens have created a rainbow shield and you need to break out to continue your space quest!) but Pong is just Pong. Because it was so successful and Atari didn’t patent it, tons of companies created Pong clones and basically overran the market. But Atari survived by coming up with creative new versions and the game’s popularity gave birth to arcade culture AND home video game culture.
Note: apparently at the time, pinball machines reminded the public of the mafia. Who knew?!
