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Introduction

The term “Video Game” means a game that is reproduced or represented through a video system (monitor, television, etc...). Currently, video games are a subject known by everyone, even by the oldest people. It takes part in a lot of people’s routine who want to get a fun moment or just escape from life’s problems, since video games can be too realistic and easily confused with real life, nowadays.

But do these people know when it began, who was the responsible for this wonderful mechanism that changed and continues changing lives? We are here to smash your curiosity, so come with us to learn amazing facts about “Video Game History”.

There are people who think that video games were invented in the Super Nintendo/Mega Drive epoch. But, definitely, it started decades before. It all began in October 1958 when a physicist named William Higinbotham at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY invented a simple game that used cathode tubes and a light-sensitive screen produced by these tubes. That video game consisted of two players who, through controls that sent mechanical signals to the tubes, changed the direction of a ball on the screen from side to side, just like in a tennis game, it was called “Tennis for Two”. This was the first game in history to be reported.

But what matters is when video games began to be marketed and played by ordinary people. In the 1970s came the video game Pong, created by Atari Inc., which had the same idea as Tennis for Two, basically, but was completely electronic. Pong's machines were distributed through large boxes that had two coupled joysticks called “Arcades”, which were usually bought by bars or restaurants, as customers consuming the products of the establishments entertained them.

Tennis for Two

Pong Machine

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