The Surprisingly Long Road to Pong Doubles

As I promised in my last post, I’m now going to take a closer look at the actual Pong-like games that graced arcades in the ‘70s. Before we get to Pong Doubles, I want to step back briefly to revisit the original Pong.

Pong

I already laid out the essential components to making Pong, but I didn’t go to any great lengths to try to imitate the look of the original.

It’s easy to do so, however, because BrowGames gives a lot of freedom to customize the appearance of the game. Here’s what I get if I adjust the paddle size, the colors, the balls appearance, and the ball speed to match what you can see in videos of the original.
The BrowGames version of Pong, configured to look just like the Atari original.
Pretty close, right? OK, yeah, I had to add a center line and I used a special Pong-style font to render the score, but the gameplay hasn't changed. Probably the biggest difference between playing this and playing the original is the control scheme. The original Pong used paddle controllers, which are really hard to come by these days.

I did add mouse support to BrowGames, however. The advantage of using a mouse is that you’re not limited by the fixed speed imposed by keyboard controls. The disadvantage is that a mouse is fundamentally a two-dimensional controller, so you need to be careful about the direction of your motions if you want consistency in your movements of the paddle.

The Clones

When people talk about video game clones nowadays, they use the term very loosely. They might say that Braid is a clone of Super Mario Bros. or that Killer Instinct is a clone of Mortal Kombat. Sometimes merely releasing a game in the same genre as another successful game is enough to get accused of cloning.

But when it comes to Pong clones, the term is quite literal. The flood of coin-ops that hit the markets in early 1973 were nearly identical to the original. And while these clones were certainly an attempt to cash in on a new craze, they were also a consequence of a shortcoming in Atari’s business plan. The fact of the matter was that Atari was wholly unprepared for the success of their game and could not meet demand for Pong machines. So, other manufacturers stepped in to fill the void.

Among the Pong cloners were some of the most recognizable names from the arcade golden age, including Taito (with Elepong), Sega (Pong Tron), Midway (Winner), and Williams (Paddle-Ball). Interestingly, the two most successful cloners were Ramtek (Volly) and Allied Leisure (Paddle Battle), neither of which would survive into the arcade golden age.

Since these initial Pong clones were so close to the original (and video footage of them is difficult to come by), I won’t attempt to make separate BrowGames versions of them.

Pong Doubles

What was the first original video game to be released to arcades after Pong? Well, the Atari hit was released in October of 1972 and every arcade video game that I can find for the next nine months was a Pong clone. The first attempt to change anything substantial was Allied Leisure’s Tennis Tourney in July of 1973.

Now, when I say that they changed something substantial, I mean that in the loosest sense. All that Tennis Tourney did was to add two more paddles to make it a four-player game. Every other aspect of the gameplay was the same as in Atari’s original. Nonetheless, it was enough to spark another round of imitations, including Atari's own Pong Doubles.

Since Tennis Tourney is so close to the original Pong, I consider Atari's version to be the definitive one here. But regardless of who has bragging rights, the four-player versions of Pong ended up dominating the coin-op market for most of the rest of 1973.

What about the BrowGames version of Pong, can we produce our own clone? Yes, of course we can.
The BrowGames version of Pong Doubles, configured to look just like the Atari original.
In fact, this is not even a distinct program, I just added an option to add up to four players to BrowGames Pong. You can also access it by selecting “Pong Doubles” from the main game list.

I don’t think the mechanics of my Pong Doubles program are sufficiently different to warrant a dedicated analysis. The bounce physics are the same as in the original, and even the computer player[1] did not need to be changed.

Is this all there was in 1973?

As it turned out, the second half of 1973 did end up being more interesting than the first. While it’s true that Pong Doubles clones were a big part of the market, Atari had other tricks up its sleeve. In my next post, I will take a hiatus from ball and paddle games and take a crack at Atari’s second release, Space Race.

[1] Reminder: computer players did not exist in the original.

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