Pixel Showcase

Pixel Pioneers - Pong!

By Xiomy Sam DIG 3043 | Fall 2024

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Every great story has a beginning, and ours starts in the glorious time of the 50s and 60s. Before we reach the time of Pong, we need to rewind to a few decades to the foundations of the game, and that starts with a sport known as table tennis. Back in the 50s and 60s, before people called goofy friends “space cadets”, table tennis was a cultural phenomenon. It was enjoyed by millions around the world, and tournaments were broadcast regularly. Think like how modern Americans tune into football. This simple sport of just two players hitting a ball back and forth with little paddles on a table was so monumental that it was even used as a turning point in US-China relations. https://www.stigaus.com/blogs/players-corner/the-fascinating-history-of-ping-pong?srsltid=AfmBOoqngBhiGq1BJHZiih8IHgFrbQrC53G5M38ysZ2BjeOCtHtXeyhV Image: https://www.voyagertennis.com/uncategorized/the-ultimate-guide-to-table-tennis/

1950s

This was when technology like the first robot in 1961, cassette in 1962, and GPS in 1967 were huge advancements in technology. I mean, televisions were just starting to become affordable enough to be the mainstay in most American homes. And yet, in 1967, a television engineer by the name of Ralph Baer thought, “What if we could do more with televisions?” And thus, the first-ever TV game called “Chase" was born. Mister Baer wanted to create simple games. Nothing complex like Call of Duty, but simple enough for the typical nuclear family could play. A game that needed eight different consoles to be made before the groovy times of the 70s to arrive. Image (Similar to Chase): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_%28video_game%29 60s Tech Timeline: https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/technology-in-the-1960s Ralph Baer Works: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/the-father-of-the-video-game-the-ralph-baer-prototypes-and-electronic-games

1960s

However, by the time Pong was released, it wasn’t under Mister Baer’s hand. He did lay the groundwork for it during his years inventing and patenting new home consoles, specifically the Magnavox Odyssey Game Unit in 1972, but he didn’t make it. A man by the name of Nolan Bushnell worked for a little company known as Atari Incorporated in California. Atari’s founder, Nolan Bushnell created Pong, based on both table tennis and Ralph Baer’s work. Oddly enough, when it first came out, it was released on an arcade cabinet. However, that didn’t stop the game from being “the bomb”! The game was such a success that 8,000 arcade machines were sold, and a lot of coin boxes were overflowing! Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pong Ralph Baer Works: https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object-groups/the-father-of-the-video-game-the-ralph-baer-prototypes-and-electronic-games

1972

It wasn’t until a few years later that Nolan Bushnell realized its potential and released it for television via a console system, just like Ralph Baer originally proposed. The sales for the home version of Pong skyrocketed. Hundreds, if not thousands of Pong sets were sold throughout many stores, including Sears! And because it was marketed as a game that could be played on any TV set, you can imagine how popular this game was overseas. Safe to say, it was off the hook! Thanks to Pong’s convenient compatibility and widespread popularity, it changed people’s lives for a solid five years before it became a cartridge game. It also made people incredibly familiar with video games, to the point where some even called them “TV games”. "TV Games" : https://uwm.edu/news/a-look-back-at-the-popularity-of-pong-and-rise-of-video-games/ Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atari_Pong_Console_logo.jpg

1975

Pong was so game-changing, that some even say that it launched what we now call the home video game revolution. In 1976, Atari was purchased by Warner Communications, and with that, they made a new console called the Atari 2600, with one of its first sets of games being Pong. Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/thomas46/2676232839 https://blog.gale.com/atari-founded-50-years-ago/

1976

As you can imagine, the demand for the 2600 console during the 1977 holiday season was to the max! Thanks to the new console, people didn’t need to go to an arcade anymore, they just needed to go out and buy some cartridges, especially one for Pong! https://blog.gale.com/atari-founded-50-years-ago/ image: https://atariage.com/cart_page.php?SoftwareLabelID=371

1977

In 1982, the New York Times saw that Atari was worth 2 billion (6.5 billion in 2024 dollars!) at the time and declared it the fastest-growing company in the nation. Thanks to Pong’s success, the job market opened! How else was Atari going to develop more games and become a commercial superstar? You didn’t need a few people in a spare room messing around, you need a whole building full of skilled people! Image: https://logoblink.com/atari-logo-history/ https://blog.gale.com/atari-founded-50-years-ago/

1982

Today

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Reflection

For starters, if it wasn’t for Pong, I don’t think we would have had the modern game consoles we have today. Or maybe we would, but not to the advanced degree they are today. Pong was brave enough to not only be an arcade game, but a home console game with simplistic graphics and sound. Sure, it got dated by the 90s, but we had to start somewhere, and it was Pong. If the people at Atari weren’t brave enough, who knows what type of games or consoles we would have today. Another thing is that if games like Pong didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have gotten games like Geometry Dash or Flappy Bird. Those games are wildly addictive, and yet so easy to play, just like a certain virtual ping-pong game! If Pong didn’t exist, I believe that we would be stuck with overly complex games like Call of Duty or Minecraft and not simpler ones that follow the “Easy to play, hard to master model.”. Pong opened a whole realm of games that didn’t need a complex how-to guide that came with the box. It made people who had no idea about games suddenly become Pong experts who would battle it out for hours, turned onlookers into participants looking for casual matches, and generated players of all ages with one goal: just have fun.

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Reflection

Now granted, Pong wasn’t all 10s across the board. I do believe that Pong was responsible for the “Console Exclusive” games we have nowadays, where only select players can experience the simple yet addictive game. Granted, it’s not the only one, but Pong was part of that responsibility. The number of online gaming discussions I’ve seen today over these console-exclusive games makes me irritated, and you can follow some of the threads back to Atari and Pong whether you like it or not. Sure, that sounds like most modern-day game debates but! Pong was and continues to be fantastic. Without it, we wouldn’t have some of the tenets of modern-day gaming: be interactive, functional, and fun. Sure, it was crude and simple, but it was interactive, and it worked. People wouldn’t have camped outside of arcades to play the game from open to close if it wasn’t fun. Pong also made gaming accessible, which is another tenant of modern-day gaming. You could go to an arcade and play, crash at a friend’s house, or even buy the game yourself if you wanted to. Outside of that, it turned an experience limited to the elites into a game anyone could play from almost wherever. This one game turned strangers into best friends, and improved technology as we know it!

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