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The First Video Game

Ahoy · 2.9M views · 2019-10-04 · 1:00:50

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Overview

An hour-long, carefully sourced video essay from Ahoy asking what counts as a video game and which one was truly first. It examines Tennis for Two, Spacewar, Pong, the Brown Box and a 1947 CRT device.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as the thorough, well-researched answer to the first video game question.

Recommended by 4 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2020–2026

Topics

Game history & retro gamingGaming culture & analysis
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first video gamespacewarpongralph baergame definition

What people said

icelancer · 2021-11 · Strong recommendation

Related: A great video documentary on The First Video Game, by one of the best YouTube producers in this field: [VIDEO]

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teddyh · 2026-03 · Recommendation

Ahoy did a comprehensive video about it: < [VIDEO] >, and a video is a more appropriate medium for discussing and demonstrating video games.

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twic · 2023-02 · Recommendation

Video games are like compilers, or computers themselves - there isn't really a first one. Far enough back, there are things which are clearly not video games; recently enough, there are things which clearly are video games, and in between, there is a parade of things which are not clearly video games or not. Here's an hour-long, meticulously sourced, rather thoughtful video on the question: [VIDEO] (which naturally concludes that video games are a British invention!)

Read the original HN comment ↗

Sources

Video by Ahoy, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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