If you’ve never thought the thought, “Who made the first video game? Or “What was the first video game” you likely don’t spend enough time thinking about video games. To start this thoroughly researched article out, we should answer your questions – the first ever video game was technically a device called the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device. The first true video games though were Tennis for 2 and the games that were featured on a device called the Magnavox Odyssey.
I know, it’s confusing.
Who created the first video game?
As you can probably tell, the answer to the above question is actually a bit difficult to answer. The first ever documented video game was created by physicist William Higinbotham – a simple tennis game that’s considered to be similar to the popular game Pong.
Born on October 25, 1910, Higinbotham was born on October 25, 1920, in Bridgeport, CT and was raised in Caledonia, NY.
Higinbotham graduated from Williams College in the year 1932 and decided to further his education (gets doctorates in physics) at Cornell University. As a graduate student at Cornell, he worked as an electronics technician. He then decided to join the MIT Radiation Lab in 1941, a place where he worked on cathode ray tube displays for radar systems. In the year 1943, he decided to move to Los Alamos so he could work on electronics for the timing system for atomic bombs.
In the year 1948, he then joined Brookhaven’s National Laboratory instrumentation group. There he served as the head of the group from 1951 to 1968.
It was during this time, in October, when Brookhaven held annual visitors’ days where thousands of people would come so they could tour the lab. At this time Higinbotham was responsible for making an exhibit to display the instrumentation division’s work.
Higinbotham came to the realization (because most of the existing exhibits were dull) that he could better pique visitors’ interest by making interactive demonstration. He later remembered during an interview he had the thought that “it might liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific endeavors have relevance for society”.
Higinbotham then came up with the idea for a tennis game (this is where we’ll mention one of the first few games mentioned later in this article), and it only took a few days for him to piece together the remaining basic pieces. Higinbotham had no problem coming up with a simple game display since he had experience working on displays for radar systems and other electronic devices.
He then came up with a few drawings and developed blueprints. A technician named Robert Dvorak took about 2 weeks to build the actual device. And after a bit of debugging Tennis for Two was created.
This Month in Physics History – October 1958: Physicist Invents First Video Game (aps.org)
This is a little bit of backstory on Tennis for Two, a game that will be discussed in later paragraphs in this article.
Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device
This device was called the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device and was basically a device that had screen overlays which allowed the players to enjoy basic gameplay. The mechanics of the device were actually quite involved for that time period (1947). The idea behind the CRTA was that it was meant to simulate artillery shells arcing towards the opponents/targets on the Cathode Ray Tube screen. The device was controlled by having players move knobs so as to change the direction that the CRT beam spot display moved towards. The entire objective was for the players to be able to hit the plastic targets (objectives) that were overlaid on the CRT’s screen. This was an old school game – it was made using analog electronics.
*the funny thing about this gaming system is that while it was created for testing it never actually made it to market – leading one to question whether it can be really considered the “first video game.”
A little later we had the oscilloscope – featured game called Tennis for Two – a game that was created in 1958 by William Higinbotham.
Tennis for Two
Tennis for Two (or Computer Tennis) was created to be a sports game that was basically designed to be almost exactly like the game tennis (obviously it had its drawbacks but, consider it to be very much like Wii Tennis). The physicist William Higinbotham developed this game once he found out that the government had computer tech that had the ability to basically simulate trajectories with wind resistance (think the older Wii golf). UNlike the game mentioned above, Tennis was designed using an Oscilloscope and 2 custom-made aluminum controllers. While it was a very involved game (for something made in the late 1950’s) Tennis never made it past exhibition stages(letting people see and test the game). Due to some complications in court in regards to patenting issues the game Tennis was never able to really make it to the shelves. While it basically was the first real video game it had a competitor that made it past the development phase and went commercial.
Magnavox Odyssey
In 1967 the first ever real video game was commercialized and sold to customers. The Magnavox Odyssey was actually an older version of the Atari (at least in my opinion). Ralph H. Baer, the creator of this game system (along with his team) created a basic black and brown box with rectangular controllers attached by wires. The idea behind this game was that the game would have the ability to connect to a television set (you know those wires that we had before HDMI or anything like that) and would be able to show a display in a monochrome color scheme. To create visuals for themselves players would be able to place plastic overlays on their television screen (these were of course, removable).
Players would then use the remote control to control the dots (their character) on the screen. The game came with a number of preloaded games as well as with pre-packaged assistance objects as well such as die, fake cash, a few other things and a controller. This game system was sold for a whopping 99$ which would be converted to 593$ in today’s age.
What exactly was the first video game
So, the first ever commercially marketed video game was the Magnavox Odyssey. While there were definitely multiple predecessors for the video game but, this was the only game that was mass produced. This is why the Magnavox Odyssey is seen as the first ever video game in the world.
Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathode-ray_tube_amusement_device
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