<P> Today, however, the term "video game" has completely shed its purely technical definition and encompasses a wider range of technology . While still rather ill - defined, the term "video game" now generally encompasses any game played on hardware built with electronic logic circuits that incorporates an element of interactivity and outputs the results of the player's actions to a display . Going by this broader definition, the first video games appeared in the early 1950s; they were tied largely to research projects at universities and large corporations, though, and had little influence on each other due to their primary purpose as academic and promotional devices rather than entertainment games . </P> <P> The ancestors to these games include the cathode - ray tube amusement device, the earliest known interactive electronic game as well as the first to incorporate a cathode ray tube screen . The player simulates an artillery shell trajectory on a CRT screen connected to an oscilloscope, with a set of knobs and switches . The device uses purely analog electronics and does not use any digital computer or memory device or execute a program . It was patented by Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. and Estle Ray Mann in 1947 . While the idea behind the game was potentially to use a television set as the display and thus sell the invention to consumers, as Goldsmith and Mann worked at television designer DuMont Laboratories, the patent, the first for an electronic game, was never used and the device never manufactured beyond the original handmade prototypes . This, along with the lack of electronic logic circuits, keeps the device from being considered the first video game . Around the same time as the device was invented, the earliest known written computer game was developed by Alan Turing and David Champernowne in 1948, a chess simulation called Turochamp, though it was never actually implemented on a computer as the code was too complicated to run on the machines of the time . Turing tested the code in a game in 1952 where he mimicked the operation of the code in a real chess game against an opponent, but was never able to run the program on a computer . </P> <P> The earliest known publicly demonstrated electronic game was created in 1950 . Bertie the Brain was an arcade game of tic - tac - toe, built by Josef Kates for the 1950 Canadian National Exhibition . To showcase his new miniature vacuum tube, the additron tube, he designed a specialized computer to use it, which he built with the assistance of engineers from Rogers Majestic . The large metal computer, which was four meters tall, could only play tic - tac - toe on a lightbulb - backed display, and was installed in the Engineering Building at the Canadian National Exhibition from August 25 to September 9, 1950 . The game was a success at the two - week exhibition, with attendees lining up to play it as Kates adjusted the difficulty up and down for players . After the exhibition, Bertie was dismantled, and "largely forgotten" as a novelty . Kates has said that he was working on so many projects at the same time that he had no energy to spare for preserving it, despite its significance . </P> <P> Nearly a year later on May 5, 1951, the Nimrod computer--created by engineering firm and nascent computer developer Ferranti--was presented at the Festival of Britain, and then showcased for three weeks in October at the Berlin Industrial Show before being dismantled . Using a panel of lights for its display, it was designed exclusively to play the game of Nim; moves were made by players pressing buttons which corresponded with the lights . Nimrod could play either the traditional or "reverse" form of the game . The machine was twelve feet wide, nine feet deep, and five feet tall . It was based on an earlier Nim - playing machine, "Nimatron", designed by Edward Condon and built by Westinghouse Electric in 1940 for display at the New York World's Fair . "Nimatron" had been constructed from electromechanical relays and weighed over a ton . The Nimrod was primarily intended to showcase Ferranti's computer design and programming skills rather than entertain, and was not followed up by any future games . Despite this, most of the onlookers at the Festival of Britain were more interested in playing the game than in the programming and engineering logic behind it . </P>

When was the first video game released to the public