I’ve been playing a lot of video games the past couple of days and I’ve been asking myself, “Who got the idea to make a game controlled by buttons and knobs while staring at a TV screen?” The answer is surprisingly complicated.
Image credit: Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device, via http://www.kotaku.com.au
Due to debate over the definition of what a video game is, most sources will give you a different answer for which was the first. The majority cite Tennis for Two, created by William Higinbotham using an analogue computer, an oscilloscope display and two boxy controllers in 1958. However, the very first account of a game created on some sort of technological device was the Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device (awesome name) in 1947. It was created by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr. and Estle Ray Mann (awesome name) and was a missile simulator where you aim the cathode ray onto an overlay that was printed and placed on the screen since they hadn’t developed graphics yet.
So the very first electronic entertainment game was a war game. Eerie.
Okay But Why 
i would have to agree with you the first being those two guys. I’ve always found it interesting that their names gets skipped over when any documentary over video games.
Weird…