Games that changed the industry #2 Ball

Ball. Yes, that’s the game, Ball. No, I’m not talking about playing with a dog (though the person that thought that one up should have something written about them as well). I mean a video game, and to top that, one that opened the door for one of the biggest games manufactures today.

It’s important to point out before anything else that the gameplay in Ball isn’t the most exciting, revolutionary or otherwise unique that you might have come across up to this point. To sum it up briefly, you played as Mr Game & Watch, juggling balls aiming not to drop them by using your characters’ two arms. As I say, not what anyone would consider mind-blowing. However, the impact and legacy is something that could not be ignored.

Released in 1980, Ball was significant for so many reasons. Perhaps the most important is that Ball was the first successful game to be released by Nintendo. Nintendo had forayed into the early gaming industry before 1980, creating games as early as 1974, but to little success. Shipping somewhere around a quarter of a million units, Ball sent Nintendo into the big time allowing for more games to be produced on the platform.

source:wikipedia

What a platform it turned out to be, Ball was the first title in Nintendo’s revolutionary hand held, Game & Watch series. Each game came in its own, self contained unit so at the time it was possible to pick up several mini hand held gaming devices for every game you bought.

Even though Ball wasn’t the most exciting invention seen by early gamers, the pathway it laid down has seen it come to critical acclaim in recent years, with Nintendo remaking the game in its original form in 2010.

So, I’m not going to recommend searching for an emulator for this one, but next time you pick up your 3DS or decide that Wii Fit needs to come out of the box, spare a thought for where it started and thank Mr Game & Watch.

Games that changed the Industry: Pong

The first in a series of articles I'm writing: games that changed the industry:

Finding a place to start in this column was difficult. There are plenty of games out there that should get onto an industry-defining list, but finding where to start left me feeling a certain weight of responsibility. All things must have a beginning, and so it was with games, yet I’m going to skip a couple of games and bring us to the magnificent year that was 1972.

In 1972, the Olympics were held in Munich and Ben Affleck was born but more importantly, the game that would lead to the industry we knew today was released.

Pong was essentially table tennis in an arcade box. Created by Allan Alcorn with a wooden cabinet and a black and white TV, the aim, simply, was to move your paddles vertically to stop your computerized opponent scoring and in return score against them. How did you win you might ask? Score 11.

This though was not the first game ever created, in fact a quick Google search will tell you that a patent was filed for a ‘Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device’ in 1947. In fact it wasn’t the first game even appear in an arcade box for mass production (have a search for Computer Space from the previous year, go on, you want to).

What it was though was a game that lots of people wanted to play. It was exciting with the bonus of also being accessible to the masses and in 1974 a home version of the game was released as a standalone console, with 2500 units on order before release. Atari went onto sell 35000 copies of the game, with many thousands of imitations also sold.

Perhaps most significantly, Pong set the marker for games through the rest of the 1970’s. Though simplistic, it held it still holds it’s appeal now, remaining popular online and through smartphones. Being a game changer doesn’t necessarily mean being timeless, but in Pong’s case it certainly is.