My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Public Affairs for an advanced copy of this graphic novel history of the beginnings of the video game era.

"Success has many fathers..." is the start of a famous quote by President John F. Kennedy and when dealing with an billion dollar industry (a lot of my quarters were involved) many claimed paternity. But not even Maury Povich could help in deciding the true "Father of Video Game" as claimed by two men Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and inventor Ralph Baer in court rooms, books, interviews accusations and the public space. Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master: Pong, Atari, and the Dawn of the Video Game is a graphic novel telling of these battles and the early days of video game development and their legacys, written and reported by David Kushner, and illustrated by Koren Shadmi.

It begins with a dream about adding games to televisions giving them a selling point in a very competitive market. Or it began in the mind of a sideshow carnival man, filching coins from rubes. One helped create gaming boxes for televisions, the other might have borrowed the idea and put them in coin operated cabinets in bars. Both men had visions, but how they got there, and what they did with it were completely different. Ralph Baer had as a child fled the growing Nazi threat in Europe coming to America with nothing but a skill at inventing that made things more effective. Baer found himself in the growing market of television, with many different models all for sale, but with little differences to make any stand out. An idea, develope televisions that can play games, would he thought be a huge way of standing out from other cabinet televisions. Nolan Bushnell was a self trained inventor whose work on sideshows gave him a good sense of showmanship, and a looser sense of morality. A possible chance encounter with a game box, designed by Baer for Magnavox, gave Nolan an idea. Electronic pinball like games. Quarters rolled in as the company Nolan formed Atari began to make money and soon the lawsuits and accusations began to fly.

A look at pop culture that I was totally unaware of, though I lived through the rise of video games. I had a Pong, played on a 13 inch color television, moved up to Atari 2600 with the same television and loved it to this day. To read about its development and the men involved was very interesting, and brought up a lot of old familiar happy memories. The graphic novel is brief, but very complete, and makes me interested in knowing more about them. The writing was concise, and told both as a game competition between the two men, mixed with historical reenactments. This is a good way of telling the story as there would be just a lot of talking heads, the action helps the story move, and keep the reader interested. The art is quite good, with differnt color palettes for the characters and a nice kinetic feel to the videogame parts, even when it was only a blip on the screen.

Graphic novels are a form of storytelling that can convey quite a lot in a small package. This is a very good and complete history perfect for newbies to learn about the history of the medium and for older people like me to see what was going on when we were too busy playing games to notice. I learned alot and enjoyed both the story and the art quite a bit.

I requested this after reading "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorow" and wanting to read more about video games AND graphic novels. It was fun! A little cheesy but I learned a lot. The galley often didn't totally load the photos but I can't fault the publisher for that, must be a NetGalley app problem. I think the entire idea of this book seems extremely fun — a quick graphic novel on a reimagined history of an invention and the following feud. A hoot and a half. Would love to see it on more topics.

How do the early pioneers of video games argue about who was the father? Play ping-pong in a stadium, complete with arguments and historical facts! It is a great story, about innovation and creativity.

The writing in this short book was super awkward and difficult to follow. I didn't enjoy reading it.

This was an easy to follow history of the early days of video game creation, focusing on the rivalry between Noah Bushnell and Ralph Baer, both of whom are often referred to as the "Father of Video Games". While I found this book interesting, it was a bit too simplistic. I believe this is being marketed as adult, yet it felt pretty middle grade. Also, my eCopy was missing a significant amount of artwork, with only text bubbles on the page. This makes it hard to rate as so much of the graphic novel medium is in the artwork. I'd be interested in reading a final copy to get a fuller view of the intended story.

This is a history graphic about everyone's favorite ping pong video game, or games rather. Ostensibly, this is a back and forth story that seeks to answer the question: who is the father of video games? Is it Ralph Baer, the engineering genius who created one of the first television-computer games? Is it Nolan Bushnell, the creator of Atari and the world wide success of arcade games like Pong? The story is pretty fair to both men, though a bit too kind in some places to Bushnell's reputation. What starts out as a historical story quickly becomes a back and forth between the two both in their virtual ping pong game and in court for intellectual property rights.

For the most part, the story follows their invention and distribution processes. From firsthand accounts in iWoz, there are a few inaccuracies with the Atari workflows, especially the creation of Breakout. That could be due to the limited source work that this book used or it could have been a simplistic choice to make the narrative flow a bit better. Still, it is a bit of a name drop to have the Steves in the book working at Atari that felt a bit like a grab.

Other than that, the story was pretty good and I liked the ping pong frame. It was a fun choice.

I read an advanced reader's copy provided by Netgalley. This is currently set to be published on September 13, 2022.

This graphic novel focuses on the battle between Atari founder Nolan Bushnell and inventor Ralph Baer for the title of “father of the video game.” Baer developed the first TV video game console and created the first ping-pong inspired game, but Bushnell took the idea and improved on it, creating Pong and starting Atari, leaving Baer feeling overlooked. I have a couple of nitpicks - the ending seems really sudden and while I love the monochromatic color scheme used for the flashbacks, on my iPad screen at least, it washed out characters' faces more than I liked - but overall, I think this does a good job of summing up a lot of years and developments. For some reason, I had a lot of students this year asking for books about the history of computers and/or video games and this is a good, quick introduction.

This was a fantastic read. I didn't know that there was so much contention about the title of Father of the Video Game. I knew nothing about the two men, Nolan Bushnell and Ralph Baer. I loved reading about their histories and how they both brought different things to the table when it came to making video games. I really enjoyed going back and forth between the two men's perspectives as the story unfolded. Overall, I learned a lot and I really enjoyed it!

Easy to Learn, Difficult to Master has three parallel plots. Two tell the story of Ralph Baer, the inventor of Pong, and Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari. The third shows the two men battling against each other in the most epic match of every game. The latter is so apropos as IRL, they each claim to be the Father of Video Games.

Enjoyable read, and I'm definitely buying copies for the video game history nerds in my life.
The collaboration between Kushner and Shadmi in Rise of the Dungeon Master, is just as great in this book!
4.2/5

(3.75/5) This was a quick read graphic novel that I found really interesting! I had no idea that the title for the "Father of Video Games" was so contentious, and this short graphic novel made me want to learn more! While the length and pacing were fine, I would have happily read an even longer version. The art was also well done, though I did have some issues with the advance copy I got from NetGalley and had to switch between my phone and computer to see the images (showed up only on my phone on some pages and only my computer on others). I'm sure that the issues will be fixed before the final version is released in September of this year.

This graphic novel was super fun and super informative, two of my favourite things!

This comic was very enlightening for me. I have a decent amount of knowledge about the fallout of video games in the early 80s, but not of much before that, this has no informed me of the true beginning and I am happier for it. The way the history is presented is also very fun. There's a back and forth between the two father's of video games through the whole thing, and it pushes the events along really well, keeps you very interested. Also switching back and forth between the accomplishments of the two instead of doing all of one then all of the other is also a good way to keep people engaged.

The drawings are very nice, I enjoy the American comic style. There are a number of panels that are less detailed though, and I'm not 100% sure why. Either way, the use of colour to show whos point of view we were following at a given point was very helpful.

Overall cool memoir, I imagine this will be a graphic novel a lot of kids and adults interested in the history of video games like I am will be happy to read!