Pong
The game that started an industry
Two paddles, one ball, endless quarters—Atari's Pong proved video games could be a business and launched an industry.
Overview
Pong wasn’t the first video game. It wasn’t even the first tennis video game. But it was the first video game that mattered commercially. Nolan Bushnell’s Atari installed the prototype in a bar in Sunnyvale, California. Within days, it was so stuffed with quarters it stopped working. An industry was born.
Fast facts
- Developer: Atari (Allan Alcorn, engineer).
- Release: November 1972 (arcade).
- Inspiration: Magnavox Odyssey’s tennis game (leading to lawsuits).
- Gameplay: two paddles, one ball, first to 11 points.
- Innovation: not the game itself, but proving arcade games could profit.
- Home version: Atari Home Pong (1975), sold through Sears.
- Clones: dozens of imitators flooded the market.
The creation
Bushnell had already failed once:
- Computer Space (1971): his first arcade game, too complex for bar crowds.
- Lesson learned: simplicity sells.
- The assignment: Bushnell tasked new hire Allan Alcorn with creating a simple tennis game as a training exercise.
Alcorn over-delivered. The ball physics, the sound effects (that iconic “pok”), the competitive hook—all emerged from what was supposed to be practice.
The bar test
The prototype went to Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale:
- Within two weeks, the machine broke.
- Cause: the coin box overflowed with quarters, jamming the mechanism.
- The owner called demanding Atari fix it immediately.
- Bushnell knew they had something.
The business model
Pong established arcade economics:
- Location-based entertainment: bars, arcades, bowling alleys.
- Coin-operated: pure profit after hardware costs.
- Scalable: manufacture machines, place them everywhere.
- Maintenance required: someone had to collect coins and fix breakdowns.
The lawsuits
Magnavox had released the Odyssey console with a tennis game in 1972:
- Ralph Baer’s design predated Pong.
- Bushnell had seen an Odyssey demonstration.
- Magnavox sued; Atari eventually settled.
- Other clone makers lost millions in Magnavox lawsuits.
The legal battles established video game intellectual property law.
Home Pong
Atari brought Pong into living rooms:
- Sears partnership (1975): sold as “Tele-Games Pong.”
- Dedicated hardware: one game per console.
- Massive success: best-selling item of the 1975 holiday season.
- Clone flood: dozens of competitors made home Pong variants.
Legacy
Pong proved the concept. Video games could make money. Lots of money. The simplicity that made it succeed—two paddles, one ball—also made it infinitely cloneable. But Atari got there first, and that head start funded everything that followed: the 2600, the arcade golden age, the industry itself.