Pong
Pong is a 1972 sports video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades. It was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were so surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work that they decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included on the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console; in response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.
Summary from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA, read 5 September 2026.
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- Released
- 1972
- Developer
- Atari, Inc.
- Platforms
- 1 systems
- Critics
- Not scored
- Steam Deck
- Unknown
- Download
- Not stated
The record
| First released | 29 November 1972 |
|---|---|
| Developer | Atari, Inc. |
| Publisher | Atari, Inc. |
| Platforms | Arcade |
| Genres | Sports |
Source. Catalogue facts from Wikidata Q216293, seeded 30 August 2026.
How long is Pong? How long to beat it
Total play time for Pong is about 0.2 hours to do everything, and around 0.1 hours to reach the end of the main story. These are player-submitted times from HowLongToBeat, not our own, shown with the number of players behind each.
| How you play | Hours | Players logged |
|---|---|---|
| Just the main story: straight through the critical path | 0.1h | 39 |
| Main + the extras: story plus the side content most people do | 0.3h | 2 |
| Completionist: everything: 100% the game | 0.2h | 13 |
Source: HowLongToBeat community submissions, read 2026-10-19.
Where Pong sits on the grid
The grid places every game in the catalogue on measured axes rather than on an opinion. This is where Pong lands on each map it has the data for, with the share of the catalogue it beats on each axis.
- Year
- 16ahead of 0% of the catalogue
- Reach
- 80ahead of 100% of the catalogue
Percentiles are against the games that carry a reading on that axis, not the whole catalogue: counting a game with no figure as a zero would flatter everything that has one. How the grid works.
What readers say about Pong
Reviews written by people who have played it. These are separate from the GamingPickz Score and are never averaged into it: that score comes from thousands of Steam reviews with a sample-size correction, and a handful of unverified ratings would distort it rather than improve it.
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Where Pong appears
The ranked lists and finder pages Pong qualifies for, from its own genre and platform to what it takes to run.
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Common questions about Pong
What platforms is Pong on?
Pong is available on Arcade. It first released in 1972.
Who made Pong?
Pong was developed by Atari, Inc. and published by Atari, Inc..
How long does it take to beat Pong?
about 0.1 hours for the main story, 0.3 hours with the main extras, 0.2 hours to complete everything, from HowLongToBeat's player-submitted times. These are community medians, so your own run may be shorter or longer.