COMMENT
Business Buzz
with Harry Pearson
The sweet pong of success
The recent Tees Business VelociTees awards featured a couple of Middlesbrough-based video game developers – Double Eleven and Radical Forge – scooping top prizes , while it was interesting to see that another Boro games specialist , SockMonkey Studios , is the subject of an international buyout .
Classic – If you ’ re a fan of Pong , like Harry , you can pick up a vintage Adman Grandstand Model 2000 on eBay for less than 20 quid . PICTURE : TINX / DEPOSITPHOTOS . COM
Though it ’ s hard to believe now , I ’ m proud to say that I was there at the birth of computer gaming .
Back in 1977 , I went round to my friend Brian ’ s house in Nunthorpe the day after his 15th birthday to have a go with his star present . It was in a bright blue box .
“ Realistic sound effects ,” the box proclaimed . “ Real sports action .” “ Automatic on-screen digital scoring .” What it didn ’ t add were : “ Black & white ” and “ Made in Harrogate .”
Inside the box was a rectangle of black plastic with silver dials and knobs . This was the future . This was an Adman Grandstand Model 2000 .
Little did I realise , as we sat with curtains drawn against the summer sun and the front room filling with a poisonous adolescent fug of hormones , Hai Karate and Odor-Eaters , that I was witnessing the start of what was to become a billionpounds industry .
In fairness , who would have done ? The Adman was what we would now call a “ classic pong game ”. It offered you the chance to play squash , tennis and football .
To the modern teenager raised on stuff like FIFA 23 and Call of Duty , the tennis game would look like something for the caveman age : two white oblong bats and a square ball that bounced about on the dark screen emitting a high-pitched “ poop ” (“ realistic ” only if John McEnroe and Björn Borg had been playing with a
whoopee cushion ). At beginner ’ s level , it sounded like the heart monitor of a comatose patient in Marcus Welby MD . Speeded up it produced a more insistent beat .
Indeed , a recording of our replay of the 1974 Wimbledon men ’ s singles final clash would later become the music genre known as Berlin Techno .
Yet , however fast or slowly the TV blooped that day , it would have been hard to guess that this rudimentary beast would spawn the PlayStation and the Xbox .
Mind you , the alternatives were even more primitive . Other sports fans have witnessed the golden ages of football , cricket and boxing – those of us who grew up in the late ‘ 60s and early ‘ 70s were privileged to live through the gilded era of slightly dodgy sports simulation games made of plastic .
Gradually , we have watched them all slide to extinction as video games have become ever more sophisticated .
Subbuteo table football limps on , but its brothers – table cricket and table rugby – have bitten the dust . The former was , admittedly , undermined by the bowling system : a figure propelled the ball from a metal triangle behind his back at a speed the Starship Enterprise would have struggled to match .
Rugby ’ s fatal flaw , meanwhile , was the oval ball that simply refused to move in a straight line . As a result , Gareth Edwards would burst to within a millimetre of the try line only to veer off and begin an inexorable and inexplicable charge back to his own 22 .
They were not the only miniature masterpieces to suffer under the crushing screen onslaught .
Down into the cupboard under the stairs of history went the Arnold Palmer Golf Game , which featured a miniature Arnie with a three-foot club handle protruding from the small of his back and promised “ all the elements of real pro golf ”, but singularly failed to deliver any enormous prize-money .
Also suffering a knockout blow was Battling Tops , the advert for which featured a teenage boy answering the question “ How do you do it , champ ?” with the ambiguous answer “ It ’ s all in the wrist action ”.
And then there was that game in which two robotic 12-inch heavyweights slugged it out toe to toe until one or the other ’ s head sprang off with a mechanical twang .
Compared to these games , the blooping Adman Grandstand 2000 with its F ’ Gamatic-7600 operating system was a work of true genius .
It ’ s my opinion they should feature a set at the futuristic new entertainment hub in Middlesbrough ’ s Captain Cook Square .
If nothing else , it would help show how amazing the work of Double Eleven , Radical Forge and SockMonkey Studios truly is .
Harry Pearson ’ s latest book The Farther Corner – A Sentimental Return to North-East Football is out now .
18 | Tees Business