 The first known game incorporating graphics that updated in real time , rather than only when the player made a move , was a pool game programmed by William Brown and Ted Lewis specifically for a demonstration of the University of Michigan @-@ developed MIDSAC computer at the University of Michigan in 1954 . The game , developed over six months by the pair , featured a pool stick controlled by a joystick and a knob , and a full rack of 15 balls on a table seen in an overhead view . The computer calculated the movements of the balls as they collided and moved around the table , disappearing when they reached a pocket , and updated the graphics continuously , forty times a second , so as to show real @-@ time motion . Like previous video games , the pool game was intended primarily to showcase the computing power of the MIDSAC computer . 
