[On October
21st, 1997, DMA Design and Tarantula Studios released Grand Theft Auto, the controversial first game in what would
become one of the most popular (and
even more controversial) video game series of all time. So this week I’ll
AmericanStudy GTA and four other
seminal video games. Share your thoughts on these and any and all other games
for a crowd-sourced weekend post that requires no quarters or tokens to play!]
On two
lesser-known and telling moments in the history of the first blockbuster arcade
game.
While I’m sure
video game historians would point to many
moments and games as possible origin points for the genre, some as that
hyperlinked timeline indicates from as early as the 1940s, there’s no doubt
that high on any such list would be Atari’s 1972 arcade release Pong. Debuting in late November
1972, Pong would quickly become a national
and worldwide phenomenon, helping establish the viability of video game arcades in
commercial spaces (and then eventually in spaces all their own), contributing (if
in a complex way on which more in a moment) to the successful launch of the
first home gaming system (the
Magnavox Odyssey), spawning numerous sequels and
copycat games, and generally changing the landscape of not only gaming and
technology, but also entertainment, social spaces and interactions, and
childhood. If that seems like an awful lot to attribute to one video game,
well, that was the remarkable power of those two white paddles and that
frustratingly bouncy little white ball. Indeed, I would say that only Star
Wars measures up to Pong when
it comes to 1970s popular culture landmarks that have influenced the next
half-century of American and human life.
That overall
influence is pretty well-known, but in researching this post I learned about a
couple of a lesser-known and equally telling moments in Pong’s early history. For one thing, the game was the subject of a
1974 lawsuit
from Magnavox (and its parent company Sanders Associates). In May 1972
Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell had attended a Magnavox event and seen a
demonstration of the company’s
own table tennis game, and he himself later admitted that seeing the game
prompted him to ask his own employee, engineer Allan Alcorn,
to make a table tennis game for Atari; as Bushnell put it, “The fact is that I
absolutely did see the Odyssey game and I didn't think it was very clever.” Despite
protesting innocence from any patent infringement, Bushnell and Atari decided
to settle out of court with Magnavox, with the case
concluding in June 1976. I can’t really weigh in on the merits of the lawsuit;
the two games do look pretty similar to me, but I suppose all table tennis
games, especially in that very early era of game design, would likely seem
similar. What I can say, however, is that the subsequent history of video games
has been defined again and again by competing
games and systems, a trend very much foreshadowed by Pong’s controversial
relationship to Magnavox table tennis.
The other
telling moment is far less weighty than a lawsuit, but just as socially
significant I’d say. In describing why and how Pong became such an arcade hit, Bushnell
would later note, “It was very common to have a girl with a quarter in hand
pull a guy off a bar stool and say, 'I'd like to play Pong and there's
nobody to play.' It was a way you could play games, you were sitting shoulder
to shoulder, you could talk, you could laugh, you could challenge each other
... As you became better friends, you could put down your beer and hug. You
could put your arm around the person. You could play left-handed if you so
desired. In fact, there are a lot of people who have come up to me over the
years and said, 'I met my wife playing Pong,' and that's kind of a nice
thing to have achieved.” This is of course another important side to the flexible
and interactive qualities of video games that I highlighted in yesterday’s post—while
of course many games can be played solo (not Pong, though, at least not in its first arcade iteration—it was
two-player only), there is a fundamentally social element to gaming, and
perhaps especially to arcade gaming. The art is often created, that is, through
a communal experience, and one that, as Bushnell’s quote illustrates, links to
other communal experiences like social interactions, friendship, and romantic
relationships. All part of what Pong
helped initiate as well!
Next game
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other video games you’d highlight and analyze?
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