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Classic Games (Games) Patents The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

Ralph Baer - The Father of Videogames? 41

Posted by CowboyNeal from the credit-where-credit-is-due dept.
mcgeek writes "Lauren Gonzalez interviews Ralph Baer, co-creator of Odyssey over at the High Times website. Is he the 'father of videogames?' An interesting detailed interview, with comments on graphics versus game play, patents, Odyssey, the arcade business mafia, Ping-Pong, and the games of today." Mr. Baer seems to be all over the place lately.
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Ralph Baer - The Father of Videogames? More

Ralph Baer - The Father of Videogames?

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  • No. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by schild ( 713993 ) on Friday June 11, 2004 @02:06PM (#9400960) Homepage Journal
    I'm gonna go with Shigeru Miyamoto for having created Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong. Everything lept forward from there, the man was an innovator and an unparalleled genius when it came to designing simplistic, stripped-down games. I, easily and without question, classify him at the father of modern gaming.

    • Re:No. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      There were videogames for a decade before Miyamoto made his first successful videogame. How could he be the creator if he came into play after what he 'created'? I'm not trying to downgrade his importance in the industry, but the creator he isn't.

      This sort reasoning would makes just as much sense as an atheist who believes in God.

    • Re:No to your no. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TenaciousPimple ( 614571 ) on Friday June 11, 2004 @03:00PM (#9401534)
      While Miyamoto has created many great games, Baer is more fitting as the father of video games, as he had a hand in their actual, initial creation. While Miyamoto has made great contributions to video games, Baer was instrumental in creating the first 'interactive television game' back in the 60s. Without the first 'Pong', you might not have had your Donkey Kong.
      • Without the first 'Pong', you might not have had your Donkey Kong.

        Thats like saying without wright brother we wouldn't have aeroplanes. More then likely we would. They might look idfferent btu they'd still fly. He invented pong. It took off. I'm sure someone else would have inveted other games eventually as computers progressed. He was just first.
        • Thats like saying without wright brother we wouldn't have aeroplanes

          Thats fine, but the Wright Brothers are the 'Fathers of Fight'? Aren't they?
          • Fathers of Flight, I meant... sorry, haven't had my cocoa yet.

            The point being, it was an appropriate analogy to make.

            Anyway, all I know is that Pong still rocks it. You can still play Pong with your girlfriend. And thats saying something ...
          • Thats fine, but the Wright Brothers are the 'Fathers of Fight'? Aren't they?

            They invented a powered glider that bears little to no resemblance structurally to modern airplanes or even airplanes of the first world war. They were merely first and even this is arguable. Dozens of other people were working on anogous systems and many of them contributed to the creation of the airplane. Same with Pong. If not Richard Baer then someone else would have. It's completely anologous. His machine was a one off analog

      • Re:No to your no. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Lemmy Caution ( 8378 )
        Miyamoto could be considered the first video game auteur, but he's definitely not the "father" of videogames. I don't even think Miyamoto knows how to code: he's an artist, but the ground was laid for him earlier. Baer was early enough that he had to do everything, soup to nuts.
        • I don't even think Miyamoto knows how to code:

          A kind of a hazy recollection from a local Nintendo mag: I seem to remember some comment from around the release of Super Mario Bros 3 (regarding SMB1, I think?) regarding how the NES assembly code kept spinning in his head all the time through the development. Of course, I can't remember the source, the game, and I'm not even half sure of the developer in question. =) But yes, still, Miyamoto is more of a design god.

    • Re:No. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by johannesg ( 664142 )
      I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. He has been exceptionally influential and productive, but there were many years of videogaming before he ever arrived on the scene (around 1980 or so).

      • Re:No. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by johannesg ( 664142 ) on Friday June 11, 2004 @10:44PM (#9404686)
        ..."troll"? Get real. I'm making an honest point here, supported by arguments. To be the "father" of videogaming he would need to be part of the group that started it, and to do that he needed to be around at the time it started. He wasn't; therefore he isn't.

        He is an overal genius, but just like van Gogh is NOT the father of painting (seeing there were numerous genius pointers before him), Miyamoto is NOT the father of videogaming.

        Wait; I forget rabid Nintendo fan-boy'ism. What was I thinking...

    • "I'm gonna go with Shigeru Miyamoto for having created Zelda, Mario, and Donkey Kong. Everything lept forward from there..."

      Shigeru Miyamoto is definitely a well respected legend in the industry. But this title doesn't apply to him. Video games were going strong 10 years before he had anything to do with them.

    • Re:No. (Score:1, Troll)

      by Deadguy2322 ( 761832 )
      I'll go with MIYAMOTO IS A FRIGGIN HACK! He has only come up with a handful of ideas, recycled endlessly with greatly diminishing results. He makes EA Sports look innovative!

    • Re:No. (Score:2)

      by wdr1 ( 31310 ) *
      I agree, Mr. Miyamoto was much more influential. You'd have to be stoned to think... oh, well, that explains it.

  • Enough with the question marks! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lightspawn ( 155347 ) on Friday June 11, 2004 @02:21PM (#9401115) Homepage
    Video games do not have a father. They can have a "father", in which case it means whatever you want it to mean. It could be RB, it could be the person who first played pong-on-a-scope, or it could be some obscure SF writer who did a short story about them in the thirties.

    Asking the question in the title is completely meaningless.

    Mod this as a troll if you like, but I have to say it again: Question marks do not belong in article titles. If it's ask slashdot, fine, but otherwise...

    Let's try the slashdot treatment on the front page of CNN.com.

    Bidding farewell to Reagan?
    McDonald's gets low-carb Coke?
    Kimmel show pulled for comments?
    Florida drivers sue over records?

    See what I mean? It just doesn't work.

    Here, I'm posting with no karma bonus, so only two people have to mod me down to get to -1.

    • You make an excellent point. CNN *would* be better with question marks in the titles!
    • Just to test your theory, I went to the front page of CNN and looked around. Lo and behold, there is a question mark title, "Does war influence vote? [cnn.com]" under the "Campus Vibe" box and it's not a poll. Though, granted, the actual article title doesn't have a question mark.

      Anyway, your point is well made, but I think it's a different thing for Slashdot vs. CNN. On CNN, you can't read a story which asks you a question and then post your own response in a nicely threaded and moderated forum. In fact, they p
  • Father of gaming (producer/creator) - Shigeru Miyamoto.

    Father of the gaming business - Hiroshi Yamauchi

  • High Times? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bob Cat - NYMPHS ( 313647 ) on Friday June 11, 2004 @02:52PM (#9401449) Homepage
    Is that a new game site?

    DRUGS?! OH, CRAP! My company's evil-site-blocker has reported me to our IT security team! Now I'm in trouble!

    Good thing I'm in charge of IT security. :)

    Is it 4:20 yet? I'm jonesing for a binger.

    • Do those blockers really go and email someone? I interned at a place a few years back that had something like that setup, and it was sure sensitive- it would go off on a lot of Ruby sites, which largely were in japan. I guess every non-ruby .jp site must be porno or something, or at least it seemed to be thinking that way.
  • From the Article: It's unbelievable how different things are now. That system had maybe 128 MB of memory. But we were on the cusp of extreme and rapid change. We were two years away from dedicated microchips. Nobody has a clue how radically things have changed in the last fifty years.

    128K, maybe. There's no way an Odyssey had 128 megs, is there?

    GTRacer
    - I have one (well, an O2) I can scuttle!

  • It depends on how we want to define videogame, because if any old thing on a screen will do, then the guys who made that game with the oscilliscope "invented" videogames.
    If we want to make it digital, then that rules out Baer because as I understand it, the Odyssey was analog, not digital, so he isn't on those grounds either. The father of home videogames? Maybe. But again, if I am remembering correctly and the Odyssey was analog, then I think there is a difference there.
  • 1961-2, I believe, would qualify as the first video game. Not an oscilliscope per se...ah, here it is:

    http://lcs.www.media.mit.edu/groups/el/projects/sp acewar/readme.html

    and:

    http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa090198 .htm (with screenshot!)

    comment from the time period:

    http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/decuscope.html

  • I give him a ton of credit, but to say he's the father of video game is like saying Thomas Edison is the father of video game cause he invented the light bulb.

    • In a histroical side note: It's certain that his company invented the modern light bulb, it's uncertain if it was him or oen of his numerous staff for which he never credits.
  • The father of video games has to be Nolan Bushnell. The founder of Atari. Atari was the first company to release a commercial video game, Computer Space (1972)! Then they released the video game that launched the video game industry, Pong.

    Only Steve Russell, the creator of Space War in 1961, could be argued as the only other father of video games, IMO.

    But I think Bushnell is more deserving of the title. Because he was the driving force behind making video games the phenomenon they are today.
    • I guess bushnell is the father of commercial video games

      but Ralph Baer is the father of the concept

      he was the first person to come up with the idea he just ot beat to market because it took about 10 years to get anyone to belive he had a good idea

  • Article Text (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Apparently, some peoples' workplaces think "High Times" isn't appropriate for work. So here ya go:

    HIGH TIMES: SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2004
    "Video game pioneer Ralph H. Baer in his electronic dream factory."
    RALPH BAER INTERVIEW:
    The Father of Videogames
    HT Entertainment Exclusive]

    Interview by Lauren Gonzalez

    In 1951, Ralph Baer, an engineer for the military electronics company Loral, came up with the idea for interactive TV-based entertainment, but was under directive to focus on other things, like com

  • "Now I can do what I want. I can walk into meetings and tell them they're full of crap, tell them the bullshit they're putting on the board is just that. How do you pay for that? What is that worth?" - Ralph Baer

    Got that from a game magazine ages ago. Can't remember which one, but it's a great quote IMNSHO.
  • ... is it just me, or does it feel like maybe that entire High Times interview was recorded in an afternoon at Dampkring?

    Baer seems like a really grumpy old grandfather type, taking liberties with his age and hipness, and Gonzalez seems like a total stoner having a chat with his favourite god of all times, shooting shit about Simon, both of them with blunts of their own choosing ...

    (I printed to PDF, no way I'm not reading this one again some day...)

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