From Pong to GTA VI: Play your way through 50 years of video games

Résumé détaillé

Video games are now a $200bn business. Play through the six games that tell the story of how they got there.

On November 19, Rockstar Games releases Grand Theft Auto VI, ending a 13-year wait for the sequel to one of the best-selling games ever made. Few games have arrived with more riding on them. Its first trailer drew more than 90 million YouTube views in 24 hours in December 2023, a record for a game reveal.

It arrives in an industry that generated $201.6bn in revenue in 2025, according to market research firm Newzoo. That business started with two paddles and a square of light.

Using AI tools, Al Jazeera built six short levels inspired by the games that defined each decade, from Pong to GTA VI. Play through 50 years of gaming and try to beat our times.

Choose a decade to jump ahead, or scroll down to play the whole journey.

Video games were not invented in 1972, but that was the year they began reaching a much wider public.

In 1958, physicist William Higinbotham wired a tennis game to an oscilloscope for visitors at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York. People queued to play Tennis for Two, but it was never sold.

In 1972, two machines brought video games to the public. The Magnavox Odyssey became the first home console, plugging into the family television. Months later, a young California company called Atari put a test version of Pong in Andy Capp's Tavern, a bar in Sunnyvale.

Within days, it stopped working. The coin box was too full of quarters.

Pong, with its two paddles, square ball and scoreboard, became an early commercial sensation, helping establish the arcade video game business.

Début de l'article, extrait de Al Jazeera. Pour lire la suite, ouvrez l'article chez le média.