# The video game origin story: Why invention has many fathers

Video games weren't invented by any single person—they emerged through parallel innovations from multiple pioneers whose contributions built upon each other in the 1950s-70s. Ralph Baer created the first home console and holds the "pioneering patents" that courts recognized as foundational to video games, while William Higinbotham built the first entertainment-focused electronic game, and Nolan Bushnell commercialized and popularized video games through Atari. This complex origin story reflects how transformative technologies rarely have a single "inventor" but emerge through overlapping breakthroughs across different contexts—from government labs and universities to defense contractors and startups.

## The pre-history: From radar screens to electronic play

The earliest ancestor of video games can be traced to 1947, when Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann created the "Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device" at DuMont Laboratories. This analog device used principles from radar display technology to simulate missile fire at targets placed physically on a screen. Though patented, it was never commercially produced.

The 1950s brought several important developments in computer-based games. In 1950, Josef Kates built "Bertie the Brain," a 13-foot-tall computer that played tic-tac-toe against human opponents at the Canadian National Exhibition. The following year, the Nimrod Computer debuted at the Festival of Britain, designed specifically to play the mathematical game Nim.

In 1952, A.S. Douglas at Cambridge University created "OXO" (also known as "Noughts and Crosses") for the EDSAC computer. This implementation of tic-tac-toe featured what may be considered the first true digital graphical display in a computer game, though Douglas created it for his PhD research on human-computer interaction rather than entertainment.

None of these early experiments were called "video games" at the time—they were viewed as technical curiosities or research demonstrations rather than the birth of a new medium.

## Tennis for Two: Engineering entertainment

**October 1958** marked a significant turning point when William Higinbotham created "Tennis for Two" at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Unlike earlier computer projects, Higinbotham explicitly designed his game for entertainment during the lab's annual visitor day.

Using a Donner Model 30 analog computer connected to an oscilloscope display, Tennis for Two showed a side view of a tennis court with a net. Players used controllers with buttons and rotating dials to control the angle of their swings and hit a bright dot (the ball) back and forth across the net.

"I knew from past visitor days that people were not much interested in static exhibits," Higinbotham later recalled. "I thought it might liven up the place to have a game that people could play."

The game proved wildly popular with visitors, who sometimes waited in line for hours to play. Despite its success, Higinbotham never patented the invention, believing it wasn't particularly novel. After two years, the components were repurposed for other projects, and Tennis for Two was largely forgotten until the 1970s when it was rediscovered during video game patent disputes.

## Spacewar!: The digital breakthrough

In 1962, a group of MIT students and employees, led by Steve Russell, created what many consider the first influential computer game. "Spacewar!" ran on the university's PDP-1 minicomputer and featured two spaceships ("the needle" and "the wedge") that battled around a gravitationally accurate star.

The game's innovations included:
- A complete digital computer program with physics simulation
- Multiplayer competitive gameplay
- Strategic depth with multiple systems (rotation, thrust, weapons)
- Vector graphics displaying multiple moving objects

Spacewar! spread to other research institutions with PDP-1 computers, creating a small but enthusiastic following. DEC even began shipping the program with their computers as a diagnostic tool. Among those who played it was college student Nolan Bushnell, who would later adapt its concepts for the commercial market.

Despite its influence, Spacewar! remained confined to university computer labs and inaccessible to the general public due to the PDP-1's **$120,000 price tag** (over $1.2 million in today's currency).

## Ralph Baer: Bringing games to television

The path to mainstream video games began in 1966 when German-born engineer Ralph Baer, then working at defense contractor Sanders Associates, wrote a four-page proposal outlining his vision for interactive television games. His concept was revolutionary: transform the 40 million passive television sets in American homes into interactive entertainment devices.

Baer's background uniquely positioned him for this innovation. Born to a Jewish family in Germany in 1922, he fled Nazi persecution at age 16, eventually coming to America where he studied television engineering on the G.I. Bill after serving in World War II.

With support from Sanders Associates, Baer and a small team (Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch) developed several prototypes between 1966 and 1969, culminating in the "Brown Box"—a multipurpose game console that could play various games including table tennis, volleyball, and target shooting using a light gun.

Baer meticulously documented his work and secured multiple patents, including U.S. Patent 3,728,480 for "Television Gaming and Training Apparatus," which courts would later recognize as the "pioneering patent of the video game art."

After several failed attempts to interest television manufacturers, Baer's system was licensed to Magnavox, which released it as the **Magnavox Odyssey in 1972**—the first commercial home video game console.

## Nolan Bushnell: Creating the arcade revolution

In parallel with Baer's home console development, entrepreneur Nolan Bushnell was pursuing a different path: bringing video games to public spaces through coin-operated arcade machines.

After playing Spacewar! in college, Bushnell and colleague Ted Dabney created a coin-operated version called "Computer Space" in 1971—the first commercial arcade video game. Using custom circuits rather than an expensive computer, they made the game economically viable, though its complex controls limited its appeal.

In 1972, Bushnell and Dabney founded Atari. Their breakthrough came when engineer Allan Alcorn created "Pong" as a training exercise. The simple tennis game, with its innovative features like segmented paddles and increasing speed, became an instant hit when tested at Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, California—the machine reportedly stopped working because it was jammed with too many quarters.

By 1974, Atari had sold approximately 8,000-10,000 Pong units, establishing arcade video games as a viable business. Bushnell's entrepreneurial vision expanded the industry in several dimensions:
- In 1975, Atari partnered with Sears to release Home Pong
- In 1976, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for $28 million
- In 1977, Atari released the cartridge-based Video Computer System (later Atari 2600)

Bushnell transformed video games from technical curiosities into a mainstream entertainment industry through an exceptional combination of technical knowledge, business acumen, and marketing savvy.

## The legal battles: Defining ownership of an idea

The question of who invented video games moved from academic circles to courtrooms in 1974 when Magnavox filed patent infringement lawsuits against Atari and other companies.

Central to these cases was the fact that Bushnell had attended a Magnavox Odyssey demonstration in May 1972, months before Pong's development. Though Atari's lawyers believed they could win on technical grounds, Bushnell chose to settle in 1976, paying $1.5 million for a perpetual license.

Over the next two decades, Magnavox won over $100 million in settlements from various companies, firmly establishing Baer's patents as foundational to the video game industry.

The legal situation came to a head in 1985 when Nintendo challenged Magnavox's patents, citing Higinbotham's Tennis for Two as prior art. The court ruled that Tennis for Two didn't qualify as a "video game" because it didn't use video signals, and upheld Baer's patents.

These legal battles helped establish who would be officially recognized as video games' inventor, with courts consistently supporting Baer's claim.

## Why the debate continues: Different definitions, different inventors

The reason the "who invented video games" question remains contentious is that different definitions yield different answers:

- **First interactive electronic game with a visual display**: Goldsmith and Mann's 1947 Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device
- **First digital computer game with graphics**: Douglas's 1952 OXO
- **First electronic game designed specifically for entertainment**: Higinbotham's 1958 Tennis for Two
- **First widely distributed digital computer game**: Russell's 1962 Spacewar!
- **First patented and commercially produced home video game system**: Baer's work leading to the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey
- **First commercially successful video games with cultural impact**: Bushnell's Pong and Atari's later innovations

The video game industry has generally recognized this complexity by honoring multiple pioneers with specific titles:
- Ralph Baer is considered the "Father of Home Video Games"
- Nolan Bushnell is recognized as the "Father of the Video Game Industry"
- William Higinbotham is sometimes called the creator of the "First Video Game"

## Timeline: The evolution of early video games

- **1947**: Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device (Goldsmith & Mann)
- **1950**: Bertie the Brain computer (Kates)
- **1951**: Nimrod Computer plays Nim (Bennett & Stuart-Williams)
- **1952**: OXO/Noughts and Crosses on EDSAC (Douglas)
- **1958**: Tennis for Two at Brookhaven National Lab (Higinbotham)
- **1962**: Spacewar! at MIT (Russell & team)
- **1966**: Ralph Baer begins TV game development at Sanders Associates
- **1967**: Baer's team develops ping-pong game prototype
- **1968**: "Brown Box" prototype completed (Baer, Harrison, Rusch)
- **1971**: Computer Space released (Bushnell & Dabney)
- **1972 (May)**: Magnavox Odyssey released
- **1972 (June)**: Atari founded by Bushnell and Dabney
- **1972 (November)**: Pong released by Atari
- **1975**: Home Pong released through Sears
- **1977**: Atari Video Computer System (2600) released

## Conclusion: A collective achievement

The invention of video games represents a case where technological innovation emerged through multiple parallel streams of development rather than from a single breakthrough moment. From government laboratories and university research to defense contractors and Silicon Valley startups, video games evolved through contributions across different institutional contexts.

What's clear from this complex history is that no single person "invented" video games in the way that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. Instead, the medium emerged through incremental innovations, with each pioneer building upon and refining earlier concepts. This pattern of distributed innovation has continued throughout video game history, with new technologies, mechanics, and forms continually reshaping what we understand "video games" to be.