For a long time, the most common answer to the question was Pong, Atari's 1972 arcade
game.
Pong was a phenomenon, and the first game to break through into popular culture. For that
reason, quite a few magazines from the 80s and early 90s cite it as the first ever game,
such as Sinclair User in 1986, a 1987 issue of Your Computer, the first issue of ST/Amiga Format in 1988,
and a 1990 issue of Amiga World.
Some do at least add a qualifier, such as Computer Gaming World's claim in 1982 that
Pong was the first computer game 'of renown'. Similarly, in a 1987 issue of Ahoy, as 'the first video
game for the masses'.
So there was at least some awareness of an earlier history, but not much in the way of
in-depth research.
It was a different era - Google wasn't a thing, and even a trip to a local
library wouldn't have been much help as video games weren't exactly well documented.
So with Pong being so prominent, it was generally accepted as an origin point, and while it
does mark the popular emergence of games, there lies a long and obscure history behind
it.
The interesting thing about Pong, however, is that it wasn't even Atari's first game, never mind the first
game ever.
Before Atari were Atari, they were called Syzygy Engineering, and along with manufacturer
Nutting Associates, they released a game called Computer Space in 1971.
Computer Space was never as popular as Pong, selling maybe 1,500 units as opposed to
the tens of thousands of Pong arcade machines, and the millions of subsequent clones.
But one of the co-founders of Atari, Nolan Bushnell, was certainly no stranger to publicity,
and in interviews during the early 1980s he was quick to point out that Pong wasn't
his first game.
Some of the gaming press picked up on this, reproducing his words verbatim. Big K in 1985 cites Computer Space
as 'the first marketed video game', which might be correct. And a 1993 Amiga Format Special was proud to reveal
that Pong wasn't the first video game after all, instead granting that accolade to Computer Space.
So for a long time, Nolan Bushnell was seen as the 'father of video games'. But here's
the thing. Computer Space wasn't exactly original. It was based on an earlier game that Bushnell
had played during his time at Stanford University, again, something that he freely admitted.
That game was called Spacewar!, and it first emerged in the computing labs of MIT by 1962.
Unlike Computer Space, it wasn't an arcade machine. It was never intended for commercial
release. It simply wasn't a viable option. It ran on an expensive minicomputer, the PDP-1, which,
even in a basic configuration, sold for $120,000. In the 1960s!
So, it was a purely academic exercise, but one that was surprisingly popular on campus,
at least amongst those with access to the computing lab.
The July 1971 issue of 'Analog: Science Fiction, Science Fact' describes it as 'the first true
space-age game', and they weren't wrong. This was just two years after the moon landings.
This is one of very few accounts that detail an interactive game before video games had
a meaningful impact on popular culture - it's interesting to see how they treat Spacewar
as a unique thing rather than as part of something else.
Spacewar! isn't seen as a video game: Spacewar! is just Spacewar!
Over its life, the game spread from institution to institution and became reasonably well-known
within the right community. But it wasn't until the early 1980s that the game started
to reach wider public attention.
In 1981, one of the game's co-creators, Martin Graetz, wrote an article for Creative Computing,
a fairly comprehensive 8-page history of its development and operation.
However, it was a 1984 book that did the most to bring Spacewar to wider public attention.
Steven Levy's 'Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution' detailed some of the exploits
of MIT engineers over the last couple of decades, with a whole chapter dedicated to Spacewar!
So, as time went on and more people learned about the game, it gained some recognition
as 'the first computer game': Byte magazine described it as such in 1990.
This reign would be short-lived, however, as another, earlier game came to light soon
after.
A game from 1958 called Tennis for Two.
Tennis for Two was the creation of a man named William Higinbotham, an American nuclear physicist.
While working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, he created a game designed to show off the
lab's instrumentation at their annual exposition.
Tennis for Two was shown to the public in 1958, and once again in 1959, before being
dismantled and largely forgotten about.
Until 1982, at least, where a mention of the game appears in an issue of Creative Computing
in an article titled 'Who Really Invented The Video Game?'
It details the hardware used - an analogue computer with a 5-inch oscilloscope display
- and goes on to describe the gameplay.
It was a tennis game, not dissimilar to Pong, with a ball following a realistic trajectory
as each player hits it back and forth.
It was quite a convincing simulation, but considering it was using hardware designed
to calculate the trajectory of ballistic missiles, that might not be too surprising.
Despite Higinbotham's subsequent radio interview with NPR in '83, the revelation of a video
game that dated to as early as 1958 passed most people by - most were still content in
thinking that Pong was the origin.
In 1993, author Ira Flatow sought to correct this as part of his book: 'They All Laughed'
- a collection of invention stories from throughout history.
The final chapter is all about Tennis for Two. Flatow had worked at NPR, so it's likely
he's familiar with Tennis for Two through Higinbotham's interview in 1983.
Sadly, William Higinbotham died in 1994 - but his obituaries detailed his achievements,
including his game: And subsequently, Tennis for Two became well-known - the new answer
to the question of 'what was the first video game?'
Perfectly satisfactory. Looks like Pong, dates to 1958. There can't be much earlier, can
there?
Today, if you look at Wikipedia's article on the 'Early history of Video Games' you'll
see mention of a 1947 invention:
The 'Cathode-ray tube amusement device'.
Sounds like a delightfully archaic term for video games, and we can verify its existence
in the patent record: number 2,455,992; submitted on the 25th of January 1947; and granted on
the 14th December 1948.
Its impact must have been limited - it's only recently come to prominence, roughly as long
as the existence of Wikipedia.
This re-emergence can be traced to Jed Margolin's 2001 article: 'The Secret Life of Vector Generators'.
Margolin was an Atari engineer familiar with the golden era of arcade games - and crucially,
is the named inventor on a number of patents relevant to early video game hardware.
This 1947 patent first came to light in a lawsuit: Magnavox vs. Bally, circa 1976. The
'amusement device' was cited as prior art in Bally's defense.
So someone working on Bally's behalf must have done the necessary legwork to uncover
this, after all, there was a strong incentive. Magnavox held a key patent on video games
that earned them $100 million dollars over its lifetime.
And according to the man behind that patent, Ralph Baer, video games were his invention.