Two players. One ball. Pure glory.
Score points by getting the ball past your opponent's paddle. First to 7 wins.
Use W to move up and S to move down.
Use ↑ to move up and ↓ to move down.
Angle your paddle hit to trick your opponent. Anticipate, don't react.
Physicist William Higinbotham creates Tennis for Two on an oscilloscope at Brookhaven National Laboratory — a spiritual ancestor of Pong.
Atari engineer Allan Alcorn, under direction from Nolan Bushnell, develops Pong as a training exercise. The arcade cabinet debuts at Andy Capp's Tavern in Sunnyvale, CA.
Atari releases a home version of Pong through Sears, selling over 150,000 units in the first holiday season and kickstarting the home gaming industry.
Pong remains a landmark of game design — recreated, remixed, and referenced by developers across every generation.
Pong proved that video games could be a legitimate entertainment business. It gave birth to Atari, inspired an entire industry, and shaped the careers of luminaries like Steve Jobs — who worked at Atari before co-founding Apple. Its stripped-back design philosophy continues to influence game designers who embrace the mantra: "easy to learn, hard to master."
Born in 1943 in Ogden, Utah, Nolan Bushnell was a visionary engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded Atari in 1972 alongside Ted Dabney. Inspired by the Spacewar! game he encountered at the University of Utah, Bushnell set out to create coin-operated arcade games that anyone could pick up and play.
His philosophy was radical for the time: games should be simple, accessible, and fun above all else. Pong embodied that vision completely. Bushnell later founded Chuck E. Cheese and has remained an influential voice in technology and entertainment ever since.
"The best business decisions are made with simplicity in mind."— Nolan Bushnell
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