Videogames Turn 40

May 15th marks the 40 year anniversary of the first games hooked up to the television. An article on the 1up site tells the story of Ralph Baer, Bill Harrison, and Bill Rusch working at the Sanders Associates company on a little game called Pong. They go into a great deal of detail on the development of the console, going so far as to include a number of the group's original notes on the project. "Baer kept the tiny lab, a former company library in Sanders' early days, locked at all times. Only two men had keys: Baer and Harrison. The room would remain the base of operations for their controversial video experiments for years to come -- experiments that, had they been known about widely at the time, might have garnered intense ridicule from other employees of the prominent defense contractor. Pursuing them was an utterly audacious move."

Played my first arcade game in 1972

[rbanzai]

I was just a little boy but there was a "Computer Space" arcade game at the Target my family went to in Oklahoma City. Most people just walked right past it but I was fascinated by it, even though I was barely tall enough to press the buttons.

And here we are in 2007 and video games still catch my interest.... :)

This isn't fact!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because Jack Thompson decided that Video Games are a NEW threat for our beloved children.

So get you facts straight and don't argue with 40-something fantasy numbers you children-hating-son-of-the-devil!

Praise the lord! See you in court!

Re:Video game used to teach lesson on ..

[Anonymous Coward]

i find it rare that i am actually moved by a comment, but yours did just that.. mainly, because things like that don't happen often anymore (real, concrete, needful values taught using technology and videogames as a catalyst).

look at what has become of games?
banal and needlessly vulgar.
i used to be really good at counterstrike (1.4+ and source..).. i mean really good.. good as in admins kicked me constantly under suspicion of cheating. i found maybe 3 people each month that could school me, and when i did, i was awestruck. anyway, i digress. i stopped playing cs because one day my 5 year old sister was behind me, without me knowing it, then i heard her say something to the effect of 'shoot him! kill him!' or something equally as disturbing. i wondered 'how the hell does she have any idea what the object of this game is at her age?'...before that, the only game she had seen me play was mario.

  ive come to the conclusion that we're desensitizing ourselves and our children to violence and vulgarity, and this is something i could have never pictured myself saying even 5 years ago. sure, as 'mature adults' we can play stuff like CS / GTA and clearly distinguish between game life and real life, between what is proper to do in real life, and what is funny to do in videogames (funny, simply because its so far off course with what would be done in real life), however, i do not believe that children are as capable of this advanced level of discernment. it seems as if though we have recreated the roman arena on our screens. sure, people aren't actually dying, but hey, to some degree i bet the spectators didn't consider the gladiators 'people' in the normal sense. (in other words, i bet if a tons of villagers were going about their everyday tasks, and a tiger suddenly appeared and killed one of their fellow villagers, im sure there would have been a sense of grief, loss, and sadness in general amongst them. yet, these same villagers would have cheered on the death of another human to the very same tiger inside of the arena.)

people are quick to become infuriated if someone offers a contradictory opinion to theirs on various topics and quickly say "don't force your opinions on me!", yet, look at what we do to the upcoming generations-- are not all our examples left to inspire, influence, and mold the future generations, for centuries to come, long after our deaths?

Re:Video Games have Changed!

[2008]

Yeah, and a starving man will appreciate stale bread whereas I complain at a restaurant if the main course is cold.

Re:The good ol' days

[mgabrys_sf]

There was also a lot - and I mean a LOT of chaff. First there were a million space-shooters that were clones of Space Invaders, Galaxian and Galaga. Then there were Maze-Games galore. Each winning game had sequals - lots of them in the case of games like Asteroids. And oh yes - plenty of games that sucked. I collect games and the most rabid contingent is the Laser-Disc game group and 90 percent of those games were terrible.

Bushnell IS the beginner

[Rosebud128]

What is harder to make? An invention or a business model? Since there are more working inventions than working business models, it is definately the latter. It is salesmen and entrepreneurs that change the world, not cranky inventors despite whatever mythology one believes. As nerds, we like to think our "intelligence" and "creativity" is the mover and shaker of things. It isn't. This is why I suspect Woz sees himself in Baer.

Bushnell was responsible for making the video-game arcade as well as popularizing the home console. Baer was not. In terms of the beginner of the video-game industry as a working, incredible profitable business, Bushnell is responsible. Bushnell's video-game products SOLD, Baer's video-game products did not. And Baer had the home video-game market completely to himself for many years and still couldn't make it work.

Baer has been suffering sour grapes for a long time. Baer should learn from Steve Russell, the inventor of Spacewar, when he said that, "If I didn't make Spacewar, someone else would. I just happened to get there first." Baer got there first but he (and his company) lacked the ability to sell the product.

The time the article spent trying to 'justify' Baer over Spacewar and Bushnell really indicates how weak Baer's importance is. If you have to base so much of the article on reasons of justification, then that justification probably doesn't exist. Movers and shakers are self-evident and need no lofty defense.

Speaking about beginning the game business, Bushnell could have easily started the PC business. It has to burn him up that Steve Jobs was his employee, that put Jobs underneath his wing, and could have been a major shareholder in Apple. Bushnell could have been Steve Jobs or Bill Gates.

But Baer? No. History will remember Baer. But Baer's insistence that he is the fountainhead of video-games is as absurd as Steve Russell saying he is the fountainhead of game arcades. Russell has the humility to admit that he wasn't, that if he didn't make Spacewar than someone else would have. Baer lacks that humility (and while chastizing that Bushnell "stole" his tennis game, he sits the Simon proudly on his desk without telling us where he *really* got that from).