page_title: Early history of video games
section_title: A new industry
hierarchical_section_title: Early history of video games / A new industry
caption_attribution_description: Galaxy Game 1971, first arcade game ever, Computer Space, 1971 was 1st commercial onefirst arcade game evar
context_page_description: The history of video games spans a period of time between the invention of the first electronic games and today, covering many inventions and developments. Video gaming reached mainstream popularity in the 1970s and 1980s, when arcade video games, gaming consoles and home computer games were introduced to the general public. Since then, video gaming has become a popular form of entertainment and a part of modern culture in most parts of the world. The early history of video games, therefore, covers the period of time between the first interactive electronic game with an electronic display in 1947, the first true video games in the early 1950s, and the rise of early arcade video games in the 1970s. During this time there was a wide range of devices and inventions corresponding with large advances in computing technology, and the actual first video game is dependent on the definition of "video game" used.
  Following the 1947 invention of the cathode-ray tube amusement device—the earliest known interactive electronic game as well as the first to use an electronic display—the first true video games were created in the early 1950s.
context_section_description: At the beginning of the 1970s, video games existed almost entirely as novelties passed around by programmers and technicians with access to computers, primarily at research institutions and large companies. The history of video games transitioned into a new era early in the decade, however, with the rise of the commercial video game industry. In 1971, Bill Pitts and Hugh Tuck developed a coin-operated computer game, Galaxy Game, at Stanford University using a DEC PDP-11 computer with vector displays. The pair was inspired to make the game by Spacewar; Tuck had remarked in 1966 while playing the game that a coin-operated version of the game would be very successful. Such a device was unfeasible in 1966 due to the cost of computers, but in 1969 DEC released the PDP-11 for US$20,000 (equivalent to $140,000 in 2019); while this was still too high for a commercially viable product, as most games in arcades cost around US$1,000 at the time, the pair felt it was low enough to build a prototype to determine interest and optimal per-game pricing. Only prototype units were ever built, though the second prototype was adapted to run up to eight games at once; a few months before the initial installation at Stanford in November 1971, the pair met with Nolan Bushnell, who informed them of his own game he was making for a much lower price.
  That game was Computer Space, developed by Bushnell and Ted Dabney. They had found the Data General Nova, a US$4,000 computer that they thought would be powerful enough to run four games of Spacewar at once; the computer turned out to not actually be powerful enough for the project. While investigating the concept of replacing some of the computer with purpose-built hardware, however, the pair discovered that making a system explicitly for running such a game, rather than general programs, would be much less expensive: as low as $100. By 1971 when Bushnell met with Pitts and Tuck, a prototype version had been successfully displayed for a short time in August 1971 in a local bar, the design was nearly finished, and the pair had founded a company around it called Syzygy. Bushnell had also found a manufacturer for the game, Nutting Associates, who would make the final game cabinets and sell them to distributors. Bushnell felt that Galaxy Game was not a real competitor to Computer Space, due to its high price. Pitts and Tuck believed, however, that despite the economic argument their game was superior, as they felt that Galaxy Game was a true expansion of Spacewar, while Computer Space just a pale imitation. Some players at the time, however, believed Galaxy Game to actually be just a version of Spacewar!. Galaxy Game's prototype installation was very popular, though at a low price-per-game, and the pair developed a second version to display at the same location; they were never able to enter production, though, as they eventually had to abandon the idea after spending US$65,000 developing it due to the high cost and lack of business plan.
  Around the same time as Galaxy Game's prototype installation, Computer Space was released. It was the first coin-operated video game to be commercially sold (and the first widely available video game of any kind). While it did well in its initial locations near college campuses, it performed very poorly in bars and arcades where pinball and other arcade games were typically placed; while it was commercially successful and made over US$1,000,000, it did not meet the high expectations of Nutting, who had expected to sell more than 1,500 units. Bushnell and Dabney immediately started work on another game, using the same television set design as Computer Space, as well as founding their own company Atari, Inc. to back their projects. While initially this game was to be a driving game that Bushnell planned to design, their first employee, Allan Alcorn, took a prototype ping-pong game suggestion of Bushnell's and expanded on it to create a game the company immediately seized on. They were unable to find a manufacturer, but on the evidence of the success of their prototype in
caption: Galaxy Game was one of the first arcade video games.
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