1001 VG Book #02 - PONG

-  1970's
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#2 = Pong (1972)
- review by MK (Michael Kittymycack)
- Arcade

  - This entry was awful. First, I really hate it when they describe Pong as having "english". If you've ever played any actual racquet sport, or even Billiards, you'll understand that "english" is spin you purposely place on a ball to affect trajectory and bounce. Ping Pong, especially at high levels of play, has huge amounts of spin... and there is no equivalent in PONG. The only thing happening here is the angle the ball rebounds is affected by the location it hits the paddle.

  - Then there's the story about the game breaking shortly after it was installed due to a completely stuffed coin tray. It wasn't "shortly after" Pong was placed that Andy Capp's Tavern called… it actually took a couple weeks to fill the coin slot by all accounts. Still, it was doing high coin drop in short order. 

  - Sayng that as soon as Pong was a hit “an industry was born” is also inaccurate.  The coin-op industry had other hits going strong… Pong was an attempt at a new and novel variation of coin-op - a "video" coin-op amusement if you will, the industry shortly after adopting the term "videos" to describe this new category of game.  Pong clones went uber popular for a couple or three years there.. but the big switch to video games industry wide really only took off with Space Invaders in 1978+

  - Finally, the most egregious mistake is they describe PONG as having a computer AI opponent. What!?! Obviously they were not playing the original 1972 game, but some kind of port if they were playing against a computer opponent. Honestly, not needing an opponent to play against was at least one major factor in the success of future games like Breakout in 1976! This is the kind of error that prompts a project like the one you're reading right now.

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