8 Video Game Rip-Offs Better Than The Original

5. Pong (Table Tennis)

Streets of Rage Final Fight
Atari/Magnavox

In the broadest sense, Pong, the game which launched the commercial coin-op video game industry, is a superior version of the actual game of ping-pong, in that it's neither extremely exhausting nor does it necessitate running across a sports hall/working men's club to retrieve an errant ball. Curiously though, the Atari megahit isn't actually a rip-off of this table-bound sport (the game's name comes from the signature sound of hitting the ball). Rather, the concept was 'inspired' - that is to say, stolen - from a pioneering video game it just about beat to the market: Ralph Baer's Table Tennis.

Baer, a German engineer whose family had escaped to America at the outset of the Holocaust, first began exploring the possibility of a television game when working for Loral Electronics in 1951. The company weren't interested, but over the next decade he persisted, until one prototype caught the eye of electronics manufacturer Magnavox. The company joined forces with Baer to produce the world's first video game console: the Magnavox Odyssey.

To sell this new technology to hesitant stockists, Baer and his team demonstrated it at trade shows across America. Of the attendees was one Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, who just so happened to trial the Odyssey's Table Tennis game. Within a month, Pong was born, and so too was the commercial video game business. It was no coincidence.

Editorial Team
Editorial Team

Benjamin was born in 1987, and is still not dead. He variously enjoys classical music, old-school adventure games (they're not dead), and walks on the beach (albeit short - asthma, you know). He's currently trying to compile a comprehensive history of video game music, yet denies accusations that he purposefully targets niche audiences. He's often wrong about these things.