Before Mario and Pong: The Forgotten Origins of the First Video Game
When you think of the first video game ever made, your mind probably jumps to Pong, that simple black-and-white tennis game that defined early arcades. But what if I told you Pong wasn’t even close to being the first? Long before Mario, Sonic, or even Space Invaders, a few curious scientists and hobbyists were already playing with pixels, cathode-ray tubes, and mathematical logic — laying the groundwork for what we now call gaming.
This is the untold story of the forgotten pioneers and their experiments that quietly created an entire entertainment industry.
🕹️ What Even Counts as the First Video Game?
Before we jump into the “who did it first” argument, we need to answer a tricky question: What makes something a video game?
Is it something that:
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Runs on a screen?
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Requires a player’s input?
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Has a set of rules or an objective?
Depending on your definition, the title of “first video game” changes hands quite a few times. Some historians trace it back to 1947’s “Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device”, others to 1952’s “OXO”, or 1958’s “Tennis for Two”.
Let’s take a trip back to the era before home computers, joysticks, and graphics cards — when “video games” were still a wild idea brewing in labs.
⚡ 1947 – The Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device
The earliest known ancestor of the modern video game was patented in 1947 by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann. It was called the Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device — a mouthful, yes, but revolutionary for its time.
It used an oscilloscope-style display where players could control a dot of light on the screen using knobs and dials. The goal? To simulate firing a missile at a target. That’s right — the first “game” ever was a missile simulation inspired by radar displays used during World War II.
There were no pixels, no microchips, and no computers. Everything was done through analog circuits. Yet, this humble contraption introduced something crucial: player interaction with a screen.
Unfortunately, it was never commercialized, and no playable version survives today. But it set the philosophical foundation for what a game could be — something played on a screen, controlled by a person, and guided by skill.
💡 1952 – OXO: The Digital Tic-Tac-Toe
Fast forward to 1952, and we meet Alexander S. Douglas, a Cambridge PhD student who was studying human-computer interaction. His project, known as OXO (or “Noughts and Crosses”), brought Tic-Tac-Toe to life on the EDSAC computer — one of the earliest electronic computers in existence.
OXO was the first digital game to use a screen for visual output. The gameplay was simple: a player versus the computer, taking turns to fill a 3x3 grid. The machine displayed the game using dots and lines on a small cathode-ray tube monitor.
Douglas wasn’t trying to invent a video game empire. He simply wanted to demonstrate how humans could communicate with machines. But in doing so, he accidentally made the first known digital video game.
Fun fact: the computer was so massive it took up an entire room — all for a game of Tic-Tac-Toe. Imagine needing an air-conditioned laboratory just to lose to a computer!
🎾 1958 – Tennis for Two: The First Game for Fun
Next came William Higinbotham, a physicist working at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. He wanted to create something fun for visitors to interact with during the lab’s annual open house.
So, in 1958, he built Tennis for Two — a game displayed on an oscilloscope where two players hit a glowing dot back and forth over a horizontal line representing the net. It’s often considered the first video game designed purely for entertainment.
Visitors were instantly hooked. They lined up to play, laughing and cheering as they tried to outsmart each other. For the first time, a computer wasn’t just calculating or simulating — it was entertaining.
Higinbotham later said he didn’t realize he had created something revolutionary; to him, it was just a clever demo. He didn’t patent it, and the setup was eventually dismantled.
Still, Tennis for Two captured something new: fun through interactivity, not just logic or science.
🚀 1962 – Spacewar! and the Birth of True Gaming Culture
Now we arrive at Spacewar!, created in 1962 at MIT by Steve Russell and his team. If the previous games were stepping stones, Spacewar! was the big bang of video gaming.
Running on a PDP-1 computer (which cost about $120,000 — roughly $1.2 million today), Spacewar! was a two-player dogfight between spaceships, complete with physics, gravity, and limited fuel. Players used toggle switches to rotate and thrust their ships, firing torpedoes at each other while avoiding being pulled into a central star.
What made Spacewar! special wasn’t just the gameplay — it was the community it created. Students began tweaking the code, improving graphics, adding features, and sharing it across campuses. It was the first time a game spread virally in the digital sense.
It inspired an entire generation of programmers and directly influenced Nolan Bushnell, who would go on to create Pong in 1972 — the game that finally brought this lab-born hobby into arcades and living rooms.
🧠 The Philosophical Side: When Did “Play” Become Digital?
If you think about it, all these early games — from OXO to Spacewar! — weren’t about money or fame. They were experiments. Their creators weren’t trying to entertain millions; they were exploring how humans interacted with machines.
Each invention answered a different question:
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Can a screen simulate real-world behavior? (1947)
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Can a computer play a logical game against a human? (1952)
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Can a digital display entertain people? (1958)
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Can people compete in a virtual space? (1962)
Put together, they form the DNA of modern gaming. What started as academic curiosity turned into art, sport, and industry — all rolled into one.
🧭 From Labs to Living Rooms: The Rise of the Gaming Industry
It took about 20 years for these lab experiments to evolve into commercial video games. By the early 1970s, companies like Atari, Magnavox, and Nintendo began transforming these ideas into accessible fun.
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1972: Magnavox Odyssey, the first home console, was released — directly inspired by the Tennis for Two concept.
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1972: Pong became a massive hit, introducing the world to arcade gaming.
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Late 1970s: Space Invaders and Asteroids brought gaming into pop culture.
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1980s onward: The golden age of gaming began, thanks to the groundwork laid by those early pioneers.
It’s fascinating how something built on oscilloscopes and toggle switches became an entertainment medium rivaling film and music in global reach.
🧩 Fun Facts About Gaming’s Earliest Days
💡 Did You Know?
- “Tennis for Two” was created just to entertain visitors at a science fair, not as a commercial project.
- OXO (1952) could only be played by one person against an AI — one of the earliest examples of artificial intelligence in gaming.
- Spacewar! (1962) was shared freely among computer programmers, inspiring early arcade and console developers.
- The first video game patent in 1948 was titled “Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device” — predating home consoles by over 20 years!
- In 1972, Pong was so popular that arcade machines often broke because players stuffed them with too many coins!
🎨 How the First Video Games Still Influence Modern Design
Even though decades have passed, the DNA of those early games can still be found in modern design principles.
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Simplicity is timeless.Tennis for Two and Pong show that even the simplest interactions can be engaging if the feedback feels responsive.
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Player input is sacred.From OXO’s logical moves to Spacewar!’s manual thrusters, the magic lies in making players feel in control.
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Innovation comes from curiosity.None of these inventors set out to create a billion-dollar industry — they just wanted to see what technology could do. That spirit of experimentation still drives indie developers today.
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Community makes creativity grow.Spacewar! thrived because it was shared and remixed by others. The same collaborative energy lives on in modding communities and open-source game projects.
🔮 What If They Knew?
Imagine if Goldsmith, Douglas, or Higinbotham could see the world today — where entire stadiums fill up to watch esports, and millions of players explore vast digital worlds from their phones.
Would they be surprised? Or would they smile knowingly, recognizing that spark of curiosity they once had when watching a glowing dot dance across a screen?
Gaming today is powered by cutting-edge engines, 3D modeling, AI, and virtual reality — yet at its heart, it’s still about the same thing: interaction, challenge, and joy.
🏁 Final Thoughts: From Oscilloscopes to Open Worlds
The story of the first video game isn’t about a single invention — it’s about a chain reaction of imagination. Each early creation built upon the last, turning military tech, academic research, and sheer curiosity into the world’s most popular art form.
So the next time you fire up a game — whether it’s an indie platformer or a massive online RPG — remember the glow of that first cathode-ray dot in 1947. That little flicker of light was the start of everything.
From a tiny blip on a screen, humanity found a new kind of play — and we’ve been pressing “Start” ever since.
🕰️ Quick Timeline of Early Gaming Milestones
| Year | Game | Creator | Platform | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1947 | Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device | Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. & Estle Ray Mann | Oscilloscope | First interactive electronic display game |
| 1952 | OXO (Noughts and Crosses) | Alexander S. Douglas | EDSAC Computer | First digital video game |
| 1958 | Tennis for Two | William Higinbotham | Oscilloscope | First game for public entertainment |
| 1962 | Spacewar! | Steve Russell & MIT team | PDP-1 | First widely shared computer game |
| 1972 | Pong | Nolan Bushnell & Atari | Arcade | First commercial hit video game |
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