May 1976: The time has come to make or break
by Diamond Feit
Could anything on par with the Pong phenomenon happen again? Allan Alcorn did not invent video games with his electronic facsimile of table tennis, but the sudden popularity and proliferation of Pong in public spaces put the medium on the map. Indeed, evidence suggests that the term \"video game\" did not yet exist in 1972 when Pong and the Magnavox Odyssey debuted.
Speaking of Ralph Baer's groundbreaking console, a number of adults across America who discovered Atari's ball-and-paddle contest in their local pub or tavern later purchased the Magnavox version for their living rooms. This places one video game at the vanguard of both the arcade and home industry\u2014or more accurately, two competing versions of the same game developed independently but nonetheless forever associated with one another.
Of course, as soon as Pong became a national curiosity, everyone with the capability to do so released interpretations of Baer/Alcorn's tennis simulator. This went double for companies outside of the United States where the Odyssey and Pong would not reach the market for some time. Sega, Taito, and Nintendo all released Pong-likes as their first video games in the 1970s.
One problem common to all of these releases is that\u2014unless you're Forrest Gump\u2014most people can only play so much ping pong before they get tired of it. Hence why the Magnavox Odyssey and many competing variants sought to include additional games by altering the ruleset, even though the hardware itself could do little more than generate white squares on a black background. In the Odyssey's case, the console shipped with plastic overlays of other settings to aid players' imagination. It makes sense: Once you add an ice rink and a smaller goal, there's little difference between table tennis and hockey.
Yet you can only rearrange the pieces for so long before progress and capitalism demand a brand-new game. At Atari, Nolan Bushnell pitched an idea that involved similar gameplay\u2014another paddle and bouncing ball contest\u2014only it would pit one player against rows of targets to destroy. 50 years ago this month, the world discovered the addictive properties of demolishing masonry in Breakout.
Breakout distances itself from Pong right away with a completely different screen layout. Pong invited players into a void with just its interactive elements and a scoreboard in view. Breakout rotates the action vertically: Eight rows of 14 blocks form a barrier at the top while the paddle resides at the bottom. You can argue that Pong's minimalism helped communicate its function to an audience who had never seen a video game before, but Breakout's tower intimidates at a glance.
Pressing the Serve button summons a ball into existence, sending it directly towards the paddle \"video sledge hammer\" according to the arcade flyer. Players spin a dial to slide the hammer horizontally to smack the ball and keep it from slipping past them. The ball ricochets off every surface, whether it strikes the walls, the hammer, or a brick.
Each broken block scores points, with the higher rows awarding more points than the lower ones. Breakout color-codes the rows with a rainbow pattern to help players discern the blocks' value at a glance. Later versions used color graphics for this, but the 1976 original used pigmented transparencies laid atop a monochrome display to create the desired effect.
Strategically, the best move is to focus the ball on one side of the screen and carve out a large hole rather than picking off scattered bricks one by one. This way, a well-placed shot might slip the ball between the top of the screen and the bricks for rapid-fire bonuses. This maneuver carries a huge risk, however, as striking the ceiling with the ball shrinks the player's hammer dramatically which increases the difficulty.
In another groundbreaking move, Breakout actually ends. There's no story or characters here\u2014the flyer and the cabinet art suggest the player is forcibly escaping from jail\u2014but the game only offers two screens' worth of blocks. Successfully clearing the second round will not spawn a third, leaving the player to bounce the ball as long as they like but without any targets to hit. Perhaps that's what freedom means in Breakout: You get to walk away from the cabinet with the satisfaction of a job well done.
In the annals of computing history, Breakout rivals Pong as far as its sphere of influence is concerned. Players took an immediate liking to Atari's new game as competitors scrambled to cash in on the fad. Many creators of these second-run block-breaking games would iterate and innovate on the formula, leading to a wave of original games that shaped the industry as we know it. After all, what is Space Invaders but a player-controlled hammer at the bottom of the screen destroying symmetrical rows of enemies, albeit with bullets instead of balls?
Indeed, despite discovering video games in an era when Breakout would have still represented the peak of the medium, I'm not certain if I've ever played it for myself. I know I played Warlords, a four-player paddle game where you defend your bricks while trying to smash those of your opponents. I played Arkanoid, a science-fiction block-breaking game with enemies to defeat and power-ups to discover. I certainly played Alleyway, the Game Boy launch title that featured Mario piloting the hammer and patterns of bricks that resembled characters and icons from other Nintendo games.
To me, Breakout represents more than just one piece of hardware or software, it's a foundational concept that veered away from dedicated two-player machines to present individuals with a challenge designed to test their skills. Breakout was not unique in this matter\u2014plenty of other games tried similar tactics\u2014but it transfixed thousands of players, perhaps millions if we include its many clones and derivative works.
I'd go so far as to invoke the meme of Calvin's dad explaining how all video games fall into just two categories, in this case Pong or Breakout. Space Invaders is a Breakout, which means all space shooters are Breakout. Sports games are Pong, including Karate Champ, Yie Ar Kung Fu, and all fighting games. Doom is a Breakout, unless you're playing deathmatch, in which case it's Pong. Tetris, despite all those blocks, is actually Pong.
Writer/podcaster/performer Diamond Feit has written professionally since 2009 and contributed to Retronauts since 2018. Look up feitclub on social media or visit Diamond's lofi website.