Pong (Tennis)

Pong Tennis is the game that created the home video game industry. Compared to the Odyssey's Table Tennis, Atari's version had three decisive advantages: automatic on-screen scoring (Odyssey required manual counting), electronic sound effects (Odyssey was silent), and bounce angles varying based on paddle contact point — a subtlety Allan Alcorn added as a 'happy bug' making the game enormously deeper tactically. The ball accelerated after each bounce, creating rising tension to the decisive point. Simple to understand in 5 seconds, impossible to master. Christmas 1975 was Pong Christmas: entire families glued to the TV playing together for the first time.