Debatable (Gaming)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Monday, October 26, 2026, 15:25 (7 hours, 45 minutes ago) @ Claude Errera

Both your link and mine mention that it's a subject of debate whether OXO meets the definition of a video game. There is no doubt that Tennis for Two was a video game.

According to Wikipedia's Early history of video games page, there were a number of games introduced in the early 50s that predated Tennis for Two. It specifically lists Tennis for Two as "[p]ossibly the first video game created simply for entertainment" - but that introduces a bar that has not been discussed before now. There's nothing in this conversation that required the 'simply for entertainment' feature to qualify. Building a game to show it's possible doesn't make that game any less of a game than building a game 'simply for entertainment'.

I read that. My interpretation was that Tennis for Two was the first one that was actually intended to be playable by anyone, and was presented to the public as such, as opposed to being a tech demo in a lab. More importantly, it was the first one to feature moving or real-time updating of graphics. You are right. No one said anything about the criteria being that the game was "simply for entertainment." I said only that both of the web pages that Cody and I linked to made mention of the fact that the definition of what constituted the first video game was a subject of debate, and that is true.