The first video games , which were developed in the middle of the 20th century, had little or nothing to do with those of today. Not only were they very rudimentary, but the machines capable of reproducing them were not available to users. In 1971, the American engineer Nolan K. Bushnell and his partner Ted Dabney devised an arcade version – a coin-operated arcade machine – of what is considered the first electronic entertainment title in a strict sense , the Spacewar spacecraft duel.
Although it was not very successful, it laid the foundations for the appearance of PONG on November 29, 1972. This game, released as an arcade by Atari, a company created by Bushnell and Dabney in the middle of that year, marked a before and after . It was a simple but super-addictive ping-pong simulator – each player controlled a stick that served as a racket – of which 10,000 units were sold in just 4 months and from which numerous variants and imitations emerged.
