Bite-Sized Game History: Immortalizing Ralph Baer, Erasing Puck Man, and Capturing Neil Young’s Game Boy Camera

If you can believe it, Blizzard is just as well known for franchises like Diablo and Warcraft as it is for the monstrous statues that tower over the desks at its Irvine campus. It’s even become something of a tradition for newly-hired employees to pose in front of The Orc Statue on their first day.

But how do you immortalize an even more epic figure in video game history? How about with a nice park bench in the middle of New Hampshire…

You can find a lot of dedicated video game historians on Twitter, and in 280 characters or less, they always manage to unearth some amazing artifacts. Bite-Sized Game History aims to collect some of the best stuff I find on the social media platform.

Ralph Baer famously said that he came up with the idea for “The Brown Box,” a prototype for the first game console, while waiting for a bus in August 1966. After several years of further development, Baer was able to secure a patent for his groundbreaking innovation, and later licensed the technology to Magnavox, who sold it as the Odyssey beginning in 1972. He was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation for his role in creating the modern video game industry by President George W. Bush in 2004, and is widely referred to as “The Father of Video Games” today.

Baer’s bus stop daydream occurred in New York City, but his hometown of Manchester, New Hampshire immortalized that moment in bronze with the recent unveiling of a statue dedicated to the inventor. Located in Arms Park, Mayor Joyce Craig lifted the curtain on the Baer Square memorial last month:

While Ralph Baer was a major influence on the first decade of video games, the second belonged to Pac-Man. But everyone’s favorite dotmuncher went by a very different name when he made his debut in Japanese arcades in May of 1980… Puck Man.

Retro Gamer Daz recently shared some promotional artwork with the original title for its 39th anniversary (it’s believed that Midway requested the name change after realizing that pranksters could easily change the P to an F):

Finally, let’s reminisce about the Game Boy Camera, which Games of Your Lifetime recently reminded us was used to capture the images used on the front and back cover of Neil Young’s Silver and Gold. According to the album’s liner notes, the photographs were taken by Young’s teenage daughter Amber:

That’s all for this edition of Bite-Sized Game History. Thanks to Mayor Joyce Craig, Retro Gamer Daz, and Games of Your Lifetime for sharing these historical breadcrumbs and be sure to follow me on Twitter to see what else I can find.

Author: VGC | John

John Scalzo has been writing about video games since 2001, and he co-founded Warp Zoned in 2011. Growing out of his interest in game history, the launch of Video Game Canon followed in 2017.