History

Walking through video game history

The roster is the backbone. The track starts at the dawn of gaming — when games were simple enough that a small model has a real shot — and adds one game per round, moving forward in time. The rising difficulty is exactly where each model's ceiling shows up. What you see below is chapter one, not the whole story: more rounds are coming.

1952 · the dawn

  1. 1972

    Pong

    Round 1 · Atari

    Live

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  2. 1976

    Snake

    Round 2 · Gremlin

    Live

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  3. 1976

    Breakout

    Round 3 · Atari

    Live

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  4. 1978

    Space Invaders

    Round 4 · Taito

    Live

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  5. 1979

    Asteroids

    Round 5 · Atari

    Live

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  6. 1980

    Pac-Man

    Round 6 · Namco

    ▶ Now

    Play this round →

  7. 1980

    Missile Command

    Round 7 · Atari

    ▶ Now

    Play this round →

  8. 1981

    Frogger

    Round 8 · Konami

    ▶ Now

    Play this round →

  9. 1985

    Tetris

    Round 9 · Alexey Pajitnov

    ▶ Now

    Play this round →

→ present · more rounds coming

Live — a past round, votes openNow — the current round, votes openUpcoming — not yet built