Pong, the first successful video game in history, turns 50

the famous arcade pongone of the first computer games in history, celebrates its 50th anniversary, consolidating itself as the game that gave rise to the beginning of the entire video game industry. video game given the great success it had among gamers since its release.

Pong’s design was the work of American computer scientist and electronic engineer Allan Alcorn, who worked at the Atari company, created in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell for the development of games and ideas.

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It was within this framework that Alcorn and Bushnell (in the process including some improvements to make the game more interesting) brought Pong to the market in the form of an arcade machine, installing the first one in a local bar and eventually building such a following that it crowned as the first successful commercial game.

Following this line, In 1973 Atari began manufacturing Pong arcade machines that were shipped throughout the United States and later to other countries. Two years later, the company created a home version of Pong that ended up selling more than 150,000 units, according to its own official page.

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It was thanks to this notoriety that Pong acquired that it was understood that the video game market generated a lot of income and that it was an important field to develop. Specifically, Atari sold more than 35,000 Pong machines and, as a result of its appearance, many similar machines began to be produced with other games that have also become classics such as Tetris or, later, Street Fighter.

The game has a very simple dynamic that is similar to table tennis. Simply, two paddles (simulated as a vertical stripe) and a ball (which is a point) are used. In addition, a vertical dashed line appears in the middle of the screen, separating the two fields.

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The goal of Pong is to defeat the opponent by being the first to accumulate ten points. To do this, the player has to get the opponent to lose the ball, which will get a point.

Pong can be played with two players or with a player version against the computer. But later, new versions were created like Double Pong, which was an update of the original game that allowed four people to play, where the board changes to a grid with two players on each side. Even so, he kept his design in black and white with simple geometric shapes.

Source: Elcomercio

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