Let's talk about Pong!

Unfortunately, I'm not old enough to have been around for the launch of Pong. Though a friend of mine had an upright pong cabinet (the one in your avatar) in their garage that we would play from time to time. I never had a dedicated Pong console, though I think I had the Atari 2600 cart that had pong on it, as well as some nice paddle controllers.

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The story behind Pong is definitely more interesting than the game...at least to a nerd like me.

Pong was developed in 1972 by Atari engineer Allan Alcorn. Atari founder Nolan Bushnell (he also founded Chuck E Cheeses) instructed Alcorn to build a game with one moving spot, two paddles, and digits for score keeping.

In 1974 Pong got the attention of Ralph Baer, the inventor of the Magnavox Odyssey. Baer & Magnavox sued Bushnell claiming Pong was simply a rip-off of electronic ping-pong created for the Odyssey. Fearing the lawsuit would bankrupt Atari, Bushnell settled out of court & accepted Magnavox's offer to become a licensee for $0.7 M. Other companies producing "Pong clones" would also be required to pay royalties to Magnavox.

It wasn't really until 2011 that Nolan Bushnell came clean and admitted Pong was entirely based off Baer's Ping-Pong game.

So...the most iconic & famous game ever was simply a stolen idea. And even Baer's idea was "borrowed" from the 1958 Tennis for Two.

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they should have hall of fames for games .. something like this every gamer should know about !!!

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I have played pong, but it was on one of the joystick things that you buy at wal-mart. My mom's cuz had one. What is it with simple classic games that is awesome?
Pong=Classic=AWESOME

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Not old enough and frankly i dont care about pong I kinda hate when people say if you dont like the classics you arent a true gamer.

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I'm not 40, so I didn't play Pong back then. To be honest, I never got into gaming (full time, if you can say that) until Original Xbox.

I remember this one racing game on Xbox had Pong as the loading screen. And yes, you played that while it was loading. Best loading screen EVER.

Pong definitely started it all, but I feel like Nintendo is the real company that pushed gaming to where it is now. Those old controllers for Pong looked like remotes, not controllers :P

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I've played Pong on my computer on one of Atari's arcade collection games but I haven't actually played it on the arcade machine. Unfortunately there aren't that many arcades anymore and buying an arcade machine is way too expensive for me. If I could afford it I'd have a big arcade room with all the classics (Pong, Galaga, Dig Dug) and a bunch of the newer ones (such as Time Crisis and the Star Wars Trilogy). Arcade games are much better with an actual machine than a game console. Also, yes, I think people should know what Pong is and should play it, though I don't think we should get real excited and make it a national holiday or anything like that.

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Yes, I played Pong. Not when it was new, but when it hit the Atari 2600...somewhere in the late 70s - early 80s. Believe me, things were really boring back then.

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Yeah I played it in the early 80's...and again when it was revamped and released for the psOne. Of course that one was a bit more fun, with soccer fields and other stuff instead of a plain screen. You got to use a spin move to hit the ball harder, and of course it had much better graphics!

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Pong actually saw its debut in homes on consoles like the magnovox Odyssey. I only know this because my mother still has it. This thing is so old that it actually has the controllers stuck to the console box itself. But it did start out as an arcade title. It was the first to offer mainstream appeal, even though it wasn't the first video game ever made.

Pong was before my time so I never really got a chance to play it. My introduction to gaming was the coleco vision.

Pong isn't really acknowledged because of the video game crash of 1983. In many ways Super Mario Bros has taken its place because it was the game that has defined what we see as modern gaming.

I do like your post though it has alot of thought put into it which I personally like :)

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I am 13 so of freaking course I never played pong, well not on one of those consoles or wooden boxes anyway... I did play it here though: virtualchip.com; Yeah the keyboard controls are a little clunky, but it is as addicting as one of those arcade games you find on GF. Great time waster believe it or not.

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