8 Video Games That Changed The World

8. Pong - Bringing Video Games Into The Home

Want to thank one game for popularising the idea of a home console? Thank Atari for making the 2600, and Pong for existing.

Now, gaming historians will point to a tennis-style game with no name, invented by a Brookhaven National Laboratory physicist in 1958 as one of the first video games ever, but nothing made a splash in pop culture quite like 1972's Pong.

Centre of various TV and magazine adverts, the 2600's runaway popularity would go on to feature classics like Pitfall, Asteroids and Missile Command, with Pac-Man speaking for himself.

The whole thing was so successful, it would instead spell disaster for the gaming industry. Following scores of titles rushed to market to capitalise on the craze, E.T. was the straw that broke the camel's back, seeing the public turn on gaming as a medium.

It was thought that video games were a flash in the pan gimmick; not to be taken seriously, and it would take something mighty special to convince the masses otherwise...