1972 in video games

1972 saw the release of the first commercially successful video arcade game, Pong, and the first video game console, the Magnavox Odyssey.

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Events

• Pong was the first commercially successful video arcade game. It was first displayed in a prototype cabinet in a bar, Andy Capp's Tavern.[1]
• Following the poor sales of Computer Space, Nolan Bushnell leaves Nutting Associates to move his coin-op engineering and design firm with Ted Dabney in to a full-fledged company. When officially incorporating, Bushnell discovers that a roofing company had already been using their name (Syzygy). In its place, the new corporation is named "Atari".[2]
• May 24 – Magnavox unveils the Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game console, at a Burlingame, California convention. Nutting Associates, manufacturer of Computer Space, sends Nolan Bushnell to observe the launch. Bushnell reports back that he found the device underwhelming, and expresses no concern over the competition.[2]

Notable releases

Video game consoles

• September – Magnavox begins to sell the Magnavox Odyssey through its own retail stores.[2]
• November 29 – Atari releases its first arcade game, Allan Alcorn's Pong.[2]

Games

• Gregory Yob programs Hunt the Wumpus, an early progenitor of the interactive fiction genre, in BASIC for mainframe computers.[3]
• Don Daglow programs Star Trek on a PDP-10 mainframe computer at Pomona College. Note that this is a different game from the Star Trek game of 1971[4]

• Civilization (not related to the Sid Meier Civilization games) written on the HP2000 minicomputer at Evergreen State College. A rewrite of this game would come be to known as Empire Classic.[5]

References

1. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost (2009). Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System. MIT Press. p. 9. ISBN 9780262261524. The first Pong unit was installed in Andy Capp's Tavern, a bar in Sunnyvale, California. ...
2. Herman, Leonard; et al. (2002). "The Games Begin 1971–1977". GameSpot. Archived from the original on March 31, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2006.
3. Jerz, Dennis G. (2002). "Hunt the Wumpus -- Gregory Yob (c. 1972)". Interactive Fiction — Foundational Works. Retrieved February 15, 2006.
4. "Conclusion". Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, and Playtesting Games. Archived from the original on July 21, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2006.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
5. "Empire Classic homepage". Empire Classic website. Retrieved April 7, 2007.