Pong is a simple video game from 1972 that looks like electronic table tennis. Two players control paddles (vertical bars) on opposite sides of the screen, batting a square dot back and forth. If you miss the ball, your opponent scores a point.

Pong was one of the first video games to become commercially successful, helping launch the entire video game industry. The game had no complex graphics or stories, just basic shapes moving on a black screen with simple beeping sounds. Yet people found it captivating because they could actually interact with images on a TV screen, something most had never experienced before.

Today, Pong seems incredibly primitive compared to modern games with realistic graphics and complex gameplay. But in the early 1970s, it was revolutionary. Many arcade machines featured Pong, and it became so popular that Atari created a home version you could plug into your television. When people talk about “retro gaming” or the history of video games, Pong usually comes up first. The game proved that people would pay money to play electronic games, paving the way for everything from arcade classics like Pac-Man to modern console and computer games.