The Power Of Pong
My son received Test Drive, a Playstation II game for Christmas. The game was released by Atari, and one of the cool features is that you can play Pong while waiting for the more elaborate game to load.
Will tried the game for the very first time yesterday evening. I was surprised and delighted to see the Pong game pop up. And I was amazed to see Will instinctively move the paddle to catch the "ball." I asked him if he had ever played the game before. "Nope." Ever seen it? "Nope." Ever heard of it? "Nope."
I'm not claiming that my son is amazingly smart (although he is.) I'm more taken with the notion that Pong holds some kind of instinctual computer gaming space and that Atari chose exactly the right game to start the videogaming craze. No, not that they chose it - rather, it's the atom of videogaming. Newton's First Law of videogaming, maybe.
I do remember meeting people who just couldn't grasp the concept of Pong, though. Those people scared me.
"Just hit the ball back!"
"What ball?"
"OK, that little dot? It's like a ball. Hit it."
"With what?"
"The paddle."
"I don't see a paddle."
"That line. It's like a paddle."
"How do I move it?"
"By twisting the knob. It's the only thing on the whole machine that you can move, so I thought you would instinctually grab it and start twisting it."
"..."
"OK, sorry, that was uncalled for."
"How do I make it beep?"