Pong at 50: the video game that ‘changed the world’

Atari went on to sell thousands of Pong consoles, and “the sudden success of its first game” saw the company “scrambling to staff up”, said the New York Post. In 1973 Alcorn hired Steve Jobs, then “a young hippie in sandals” who arrived at Atari’s offices “asking for a job”. 

Alcorn told the newspaper that Jobs, who would go on to co-found Apple just three years later, was “kind of a pain to work with”, and he had a “real problem with body odour”, which saw him put on the night shifts. “It was better for everyone,” said Alcorn.

The “real game changer” for Pong came in 1975, said IEEE Spectrum, when Home Pong was released. This at-home console was marketed as being compatible to play on any TV set, and “hundreds of thousands of Pong sets were distributed through the department store Sears”, said the site. 

Steve Heighway, left, the former Liverpool footballer, tries out Pong in 1977

SSPL/Getty Images

“Striking while the silicon was sizzling”, Atari released “a slew of sequels”, said MacNeill in The Guardian, such as Pong Doubles and Quadrapong. But by the end of the 1970s “Pong was overtaken” as new games like Pac-Man and Space Invaders offered “more up-to-date” features and graphics, said MacNeill. 

But it had already made its mark as the video game that “changed the world”.

The next level

Pong “is still a touchstone” in the billion-dollar gaming industry, said Kotaku’s Smith.

And the game “still has a place in active research”, said IEEE Spectrum, and is used for “training AI algorithms, strengthening neural networks, and developing the brain-machine interface called Neuralink”. It’s also used to teach children how to code, said MacNeill in The Guardian.

Even “a bundle of lab-grown brain cells” has had a go at playing Pong, said The Guardian. In October, researchers at biological computing start-up Cortical Labs in Melbourne, Australia published a paper in the journal Neuron explaining how a grouping of 800,000 brain cells figured out how to play the game “in five minutes”. 

The mini-brain was “plugged into” the video game, said the BBC, which provided an “external environment” to test brain development. Once play got underway, the cells “often missed the ball” but the “success rate was well above random chance”. The researchers hope the technology could one day be used to trial treatments for neurodegenerative conditions.

It may be “the most boring video game of all time”, said IEEE, but 50 years since people first started playing it, gamers are still drawn to the “novelty factor” and, of course, its “nostalgia”.

The great Pele in an Atari ad in 1981

United News/Popperfoto via Getty Images

Article source: https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/technology/958675/pong-at-50-the-video-game-that-changed-the-world