 Two months after Galaxy Game 's installation , Computer Space was released . It was the first coin @-@ operated video game to be commercially sold ( and the first widely available video game of any kind ) . While it did well in its initial locations near college campuses , it performed very poorly in bars and arcades where pinball and other arcade games were typically placed ; while it was commercially successful and made over US $ 1 @,@ 000 @,@ 000 , it did not meet the high expectations of Nutting , who had expected to sell more than 1 @,@ 500 units . Bushnell and Dabney immediately started work on another game , using the same television set design as Computer Space , as well as founding their own company Atari , Inc. to back their projects . While initially this game was to be a driving game that Bushnell planned to design , their first employee , Allan Alcorn , took a prototype ping @-@ pong game suggestion of Bushnell 's and expanded on it to create a game the company immediately seized on . They were unable to find a manufacturer , but on the evidence of the success of their prototype installation , decided to produce the game cabinets themselves . Pong was released in 1972 , a year after Computer Space . It was immensely commercially successful , selling over 8 @,@ 000 units . It inspired copycat games to be sold in America , Europe , and Japan , and led to the popularization of the medium . 
