King PONG
How Atari Bounced Across Markets to Make Millions
$42.02
- Paperback
224 pages
- Release Date
10 March 2026
Summary
Why and how Atari’s first video game PONG established an industry that shapes consumers’ relationships to technology to this day.
PONG is one of the longest- and most consistently circulating video games. Released in 1972, it remains at our fingertips as Android or iOS app, and even released as A Tiny Game of Pong for the Apple Watch. Despite its simplicity and ubiquity, Atari’s PONG encapsulates far more than the history of a video game and an iconic game company.
King PO…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780262051330 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0262051338 |
| Author: | Raiford Guins |
| Publisher: | MIT Press Ltd |
| Imprint: | MIT Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 224 |
| Release Date: | 10 March 2026 |
| Weight: | 369g |
| Dimensions: | 133mm x 203mm |
| Series: | Game Histories |
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Critics Review
ENDORSEMENTS
“King PONG is a well written, entertaining exploration of PONG’s early history and faithfully tells the story about how it revolutionized the beginning of video games.”
—Al Alcorn, Creator of PONG
“I thought I knew everything about PONG, but Guins’s book proved I knew almost nothing. This is the definitive story of PONG—the coin-op that started the video game revolution.”
—Ian Bogost, author of Play Anything and How to Do Things with Videogames
REVIEWS
“Guins tells us with infectious glee how the video game phenomenon all started in a bar in California…. Find someone who loves you the way Guins loves to examine even the smallest details of the creation story of video games.”
—The Washington Post
Raiford Guins
Raiford Guins is Professor and Chair of Cinema and Media Studies in the Media School at Indiana University, Bloomington. A few of his books include Atari Design and Game After (MIT Press). Guins also coedits the MIT Press’s Game Histories book series with Henry Lowood.
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