Journey with us through the history of video games!

The video game has a long and storied history. From its humble beginnings as a primitive lightshow, to a titan of an industry serving as a vanguard of creative genius and technological innovation, video games march steadily onward into a promising future where anything is possible.

Join us, then, as we voyage through video gaming’s epic tale, in this article we’ve called The History of Video Games: 11 Interesting Facts You Didn’t Know.

1. 1940 – 1959:

The Prehistory of Video Games

Yes, it’s true. The ancestry of video games can be traced back to the 1940s.

In 1940, nuclear physicist Edward U. Condon built the Nimatron. This primitive computer machine played Nim, which is a simple game that tasks players with avoiding selecting the last matchstick. The Nimatron proved very popular and was played by thousands.

In 1952, as part of his analysis of the interaction between humans and computers, Alexander S. Douglas created OXO for the University of Cambridge’s computer, Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC). This was a simple game of tic-tac-toe.

1954 saw the programming of the first blackjack game for the IBM-701.

The U.S. military’s interest in video games began in 1955, when they developed the war game Hutspiel, in which players took NATO and Soviet sides, then battled each other for supremacy.

In 1958, physicist Willy Higinbotham developed Tennis for Two. This was a table tennis game that was played using an analog computer and an oscilloscope. Because it was built purely for its entertainment value, many historians consider Tennis for Two the first true video game. It would lay the foundation for a more well-known future video game: Pong.

Because Tennis for Two was meant to be played by more than one player, it was also the first multiplayer game.