Atari released Pong in 1972, making it one of the first commercially successful arcade video games.
Nolan Bushnell and Al Alcorn developed Pong for Atari, which Bushnell had co-founded in 1972. The game used a simple two-dimensional representation of table tennis: players moved paddles vertically to hit a square ball across the screen.
Pong was not the first electronic tennis game, and it was not Atari’s first prototype. Its importance came from its accessible controls, cabinet design, and strong public response. A famous early test at Andy Capp’s Tavern in Sunnyvale, California, revealed the game’s popularity when the machine stopped working because its coin box had filled with money.