20 Incredibly Important Video Games That Shaped The Industry

6. Pong

Why It Is Important: Pong brought gaming to the attention of the masses with its addictive multiplayer that made it the world's first popular video game. Released in 1972, Pong was the first massively popular arcade game despite basically being a rip off of a Tennis game on the Magnavox Odyssey. That's not to say Atari didn't make improvements, however. They added sound effects and a scoring system. On top of this, it was way more strategic as you could pull off angled shots. Tension was also increased thanks to the ball increasing in speed as rally's progressed. It may seem basic by today's standards, but Pong represents the humble beginnings of the medium. Being able to control a paddle on a screen and send a ball back and forth was seen as a technological form of witchcraft to people at the time. After all, there was only a select few that had played games before at this point. Thanks to Pong's pick-up-and-play nature and competitive multiplayer mode, it became a sensation that started the arcade industry boom of the 1970s. Atari went on to build Pong consoles in 1975 to huge success. Their example proved that there was a market for home consoles just waiting to be tapped into. People wanted to play games on their televisions, something that Atari took advantage of later when they released the Atari 2600. Pong wasn't original, but it took an existing idea and improved on it in numerous ways. In doing so it had a huge part in bringing the arcade and home console scenes to life.