In 1985, Nintendo sent a hero named Mario to North America and magically revived the industry. Although it was five years later that the plumber became "Dr. Mario", he had the perfect prescription for the disease - what I called the three elements of successful modern video games.
Pong was able to achieve success because it owned two of them.
As I wrote before, the first and most fundamental element is "instinctive Pleasure" or Fun. When it was released, the vast majority of people didn't know anything about the new kind of entertainment. So, the fact that they could control objects on a TV screen was simply a fun experience for them. Besides, the iconic "pong" sound amplified their pleasure.
But, that doesn't explain why Nolan Bushnell's first attempt, Computer Space, didn't go well. What made the difference was whether it had "crystal clear Rules" or not.
Of course, that's the second element.
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Here, the phrase "crystal clear" means easily understandable for anybody.
Some students at Stanford did enjoy playing the game. So, for those who could understand its rules, it was a fun game to play. But it ended up as a commercial failure because the rules were hardly understandable for ordinary people.
Every video game has two parts. To understand and remember new rules is the painful part and to enjoy gameplays is the fun part. Importantly, only those who endured the pain can have maximum fun. Therefore, unfortunately, they only experienced hardship and stopped playing it before getting any rewards for the effort.
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Playing a game is somewhat akin to investing in financial markets.
We reluctantly invest our precious time and money in a game anticipating it will eventually pay out some rewards which at least offset the cost. Currently we know from experience that most video games published by large companies are worth the cost, but people back then weren't so sure about it.
People tend to become cautious when they invest in an asset about which they know little.
Let's take Bitcoin for example.
Until first half of this decade, few people considered the crypto-currency had real investment value and no one knew how many dollars each Bitcoin should be worth. So, people had to invest their money keeping in mind that the asset might turn out to be completely worthless.
I assume those who played Computer Space should have felt the same way. They didn't know how much fun the game could provide. So they spent only a moderate amount of time to understand its rules.
But, the rules were not crystal clear. To enjoy it, they had to understand at least:
* How to control the spaceship with three buttons (rotate left, rotate right and thrust)
* How enemy UFOs behave
* How to shoot down UFOs with missiles
* How to avoid being shot by UFOs
There was no tutorial stage in the game and its arcade cabinet wasn't equipped with a handy instruction manual. Therefore, if they really wanted to enjoy it, they would first have to discover rules by conducting experiments like scientists and next would have to practice controlling the spaceship again and again like a trainee pilot. In short, it was far from an entertainment for everybody.
On contrary, Pong had only two essential rules to remember:
* You can move the racket vertically with a knob
* You'll never lose unless you miss the ball
After learning them, the fun part begins immediately. Moreover, there was no need for you to discover the rules because they were designed to be crystal clear at a glance. Its arcade cabinet had only one input device (the knob) and the second rule was written on its center as "avoid missing ball for high score".
Most people would have grasped the rules in their first attempts or by watching other people playing it. So, they only had to invest just a little time to enjoy maximum fun. Although Computer Space was much more fun and deep game, they preferred Pong because it was a sure investment for them.
Having crystal clear rules is especially beneficial for multi-player games.
In a game with easily understandable rules, it takes a relatively small amount of time and effort to learn essential skills. Moreover, it's almost impossible to fool your opponents because there are no vague or hidden rules you can exploit to gain advantages.
So, crystal clear rules provide level playing field for everybody.
Therefore, once a person played Pong and found the game fun, he would invite his friends to play with. Since the game provided only a few strategies and techniques, it would take just a little time before they caught up with him. After that, they were able to compete with him on a level playing field. It's not hard to imagine they would also invite their own fiends. So, that's why the game became a social phenomenon.
By the way, you may think the rules of Pong are easily understandable because of their simplicity, but that's not true. You can understand them easily because they are very intuitive.
In the case of Table Tennis, a predecessor of Pong, you can also move the racket horizontally. This too is apparently a simple rule. But it made the game much complex in a bad sense. It might not be the case if the game was made for NES. However, to play it on Magnavox Odyssey, you had to use two almost identical knobs to controls the racket, which was far from intuitive.
Like this, a bad combination of simple rules suddenly makes a game counter-intuitive and difficult to comprehend. Then, how can we set up crystal clear rules?
You can understand it by observing your body through the lens of a microscope.