Why is "Pong" Still So Cool?

Ah, I think I long for the simpler life sometimes. I watch people I know, people who are *very* close to me, playing crazy video games killing people in the Godfather or running over people in Grand Theft. (Well I can't really say that I hate it, I mean Godfather is my favorite movie.) But what happened to the simplicity of Pong? Is it just too boring?

Well some major brands don't think so. Thank god they're breathing some new life into a retro product. Check out these ads that are fab!

American Express - Roddick vs. Pong
Even though he lost in the finals, he kills it here with this commercial. Go Andy!

HP Pavilion - The Computer is Personal Again
Starring Pharrell Williams, this one is great. I like the entire campaign that HP is doing here using these famous pop-icons like Jay Z, Shaun White and others.

For all you Pong lovers out there... Check out its history at PONG-Story.

So I wonder if VericalResponse can do some Pong inspired ads, maybe emails flying out of servers past email filters that look like Pong?  Hmmmm.

This was just a observation after watching some TV last long holiday weekend. Love to hear it if you've got any Pong stories.

Comments

[Nick Marden]

So I guess it's not just the geeks in the VR engineering department who love Pong after all...

Last year my son James came up with the idea of having a randomly-generated Pong board as the login screen for our of our Unix servers. So now when you log in to that server, you get this message (but the score, paddle position, and ball position changes every time):

                            NOTICE TO USERS
        
       
                               16 | 11
                                                                       
                                                                 |     
                                                                 |     
                                                                 |     
    |                                                                  
    |                                                                  
    |                                 *                                
                                                                       
                                                                       
                                                                       
                               PONG RULES!

[Amy]

Pong is still cool because all the people that grew up with Pong are now old enough to be nostalgic... including me :)

[David Saunders]

I think it's still popular because it is blissfully simply and harks back to a simpler time....

David