14 DAY TRIAL // Many of us have never heard about Ralf Baer, the man who was considered to be the inventor of video games. Mr. Baer was the first person who thought it would be fun to play games on a TV screen. That makes him the father of console gaming, a truly visionary figure with lots of patented inventions.
His first video game-related product was called the “Brown Box,” the precursor of all the video game consoles that appeared afterwards.
In order to understand what the “Brown Box” meant to the world and to the video gaming industry, it’s worth quoting Baer’s words from a 2007 interview saying that, while visiting a patent examiner to license its fresh invention and having to set up the prototype in his office, “within 15 minutes, every examiner on the floor of that building was in that office playing the game.”
The console was released for the general public back in 1972 after being renamed Magnavox Odyssey and licensed to Magnavox. Around 300,000 units were sold during that time, which was considered a huge success.
The light gun, the first peripheral for a video game console is also among Baer’s most treasured inventions. It was first released with a game expansion for the Odyssey.
A true inventor and visionary man, Baer's creations were decisive for the gaming industry
Ralf Baer also has the merit of speeding up creativity in the video game console business. Atari was one of the companies that were created specifically to compete with Baer’s gaming boxes.
The first arcade machine was developed by Atari and it was running Pong, obviously, an arcade game. But what many don’t know is that Atari’s owner Nolan Bushnell was heavily inspired by Baer’s Table Tennis concept.
Baer is also known for the creation of three games, which, again, many of today’s gamers never heard before: Simon, Super Simon and Maniac.
But that is not all, as Ralf Baer currently has more than 150 patents in his name, all of them in electronics, which proves that he was an inventor above all else.
We’re going to end the sad news with Baer’s own words: “All I did was come up with what I thought was a fun idea that was the result of a little box that was attached to a television set. It just grew and grew and grew.” Luckily, Mr. Baer did live to see how his idea developed and how much it grew. Still, the world has just lost a great man, rest in peace Ralf Baer.
