Short answer:
The “first video game” doesn’t have just one clear inventor, but most historians credit American physicist William Higinbotham , who created the 1958 game “Tennis for Two,” as the inventor of the first true video game.

Quick Scoop: Who Invented the First Video Game?

If you ask, “Who invented the first video game?” you’ll get more than one name, because it depends on what you count as a video game. Still, one figure stands out.

The Leading Answer: William Higinbotham

  • In 1958 , physicist William Higinbotham built an interactive tennis simulation called “Tennis for Two” at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York.
  • It ran on an analog computer and used an oscilloscope as the screen, letting two players hit a simulated ball over a net by turning a knob and pressing a button.
  • It was made purely to entertain visitors at the lab’s open house, which is why many historians treat it as the first real video game designed for fun.

In modern terms, “Tennis for Two” was a simple party game in a physics lab — but it quietly lit the fuse for a trillion‑dollar gaming culture.

Other Key Names Often Mentioned

Because the question “who invented the first video game” is a bit messy, a few other pioneers are always part of the discussion.

Before Higinbotham: Early Experiments

  • In 1948 , engineers Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle R. Mann patented the “Cathode-Ray Tube Amusement Device.”
  • It used a cathode-ray tube display and physical overlays with targets like airplanes, controlled by knobs — more like an electronic shooting toy than a full video game.
  • Because the graphics weren’t fully drawn on-screen (you had to add paper overlays), many historians call it a predecessor rather than the first true video game.

Around the Same Era: Spacewar!

  • In the early 1960s, programmers at MIT created “Spacewar!” on a DEC PDP-1 mainframe, one of the earliest digital computer games with real-time graphics and player control.
  • It became hugely influential on later arcade and computer games, but it came after Higinbotham’s Tennis for Two.

From Lab Toy to Living‑Room Consoles

Even if Higinbotham is often credited with the first video game, Ralph Baer is widely known as the “Father of Video Games” for bringing games into the home.

  • In the mid‑1960s, Baer conceived the idea of playing games on a television set , then led a team at Sanders Associates to build a prototype console nicknamed the “Brown Box.”
  • Magnavox licensed it and released it as the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972 , the first commercial home video game console.
  • Because of that, Baer is often called the father of home video gaming , while Higinbotham is seen as the originator of the first on‑screen video game experiment.

Why the Debate Exists

Different definitions of “first video game” produce different “inventors”:

  • If you mean the earliest electronic game using a display , Goldsmith and Mann’s 1948 cathode-ray tube device is an early candidate.
  • If you mean the first interactive game fully displayed on an electronic screen for entertainment , Higinbotham’s Tennis for Two (1958) is the leading answer.
  • If you mean the first home video game console you could buy , then Ralph Baer and the Magnavox Odyssey (1972) take the spotlight.

So when people ask “who invented the first video game?” , the most accepted short reply is:

William Higinbotham invented Tennis for Two in 1958, widely regarded as the first true video game, while Ralph Baer later pioneered the first home video game console.

Mini FAQ

Was Pong the first video game?
No. Pong came out in the early 1970s and was heavily inspired by earlier tennis‑style games, including Tennis for Two and Baer’s ping-pong–like games on the Odyssey.

Why didn’t Higinbotham get rich from his game?
He didn’t patent Tennis for Two, and it was treated as a temporary exhibit, later dismantled and almost forgotten until legal disputes in the 1970s.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.