1970s television show that became an ancestor of eSports

Nearly 40 years ago, at the height of disco-addiction, just a few months before the Space Invaders game launched its national obsession with electronic games, an almost forgotten event took place in Los Angeles that became the forerunner of modern e-sports. This experiment, launched when the video game mania was still in its infancy, was without a doubt one of the earliest ancestors of the eSport discipline. This event was broadcast live across the country through an integrated television network, with live players - and all this happened in 1978. The show lasted on US air until 1986, and in Europe and Australia until 1992. This was before the computer mania, before the modems began to unite users from all over the country, even before anyone could imagine such a thing like the internet.

And, no, I'm not joking.

Look at an excerpt from a program broadcast in Chicago in 1979:



Or in Los Angeles that same year:



Or this one from Tennessee:



Let me introduce you to the TV POWWW !, a game television show of the 70s and 80s, where players could compete for prizes in video games in front of an audience using only their phones (landlines, of course). The players called on television, and shouted “Pau!” Into the receiver to shoot a target on the screen, and all this was shown on TV. As far as I know, TV POWWW! Is the very first video game competition to be shown on television in North America.



How did all this happen? Honestly, the details are pretty vague, but, believe it or not, the idea came up with the idea of ​​two TV directors who spent a whole day off at a lesson that I did not expect from them - playing video games.

I’m not sure what kind of game system they had in their hands - someone says it was Magnavox Odyssey - but at some point in the early summer of 1977, when there were as many game programs on television as today - a reality show , two directors brainstormed on how to create something fresh, new, something that no one had seen before.

Looking back, it seems that it was only a matter of time - some director, keeping his finger on the pulse of the latest hobbies of the public, should have guessed that from the latest sensation, video games, you can make good television entertainment. Home game consoles were just starting to gain popularity, and everyone, including our hero, who spent all his childhood around the arcades of gaming machines, could imagine how it would all come together. Almost all Americans had a TV, and almost all American children and adolescents loved video games. A light came on above his head, and without realizing any obstacles, he realized his idea.

This man was the Florida producer and syndicator, Marvin Kempner, the son of the king of arcades, and undoubtedly the unsung pioneer of e-sports, to whom in the spring of 1977 a pair of disc jockeys from the radio station sold the idea of ​​a 30-minute game show.

Two DJs imagined a show where the stars competed in the studio with extras playing Magnavox Odyssey. The DJs already had an agreement with Magnavox when they met Kempner. They needed a television producer only in order to sell the idea to a syndicate of television networks and release a broadcast. Kempner liked the idea, but he was not sure of all the details of its implementation. Therefore, he talked with colleagues at work.

Bob Shanks, then a former vice president of software at ABC, became interested in the idea, but felt that since the market is already oversaturated with game transmissions, a short transfer such as Dialing For Dollars will be more successful. Indeed, Dialing For Dollars will become the template on which the TV POWWW broadcast will be built! ..

Shanks imagined how the callers would control the Magnavox Odyssey by phone, however, since voice activation was still in its infancy, some kind of trick was needed that created the illusion of that the system works with voice control. After that, Magnavox was no longer returned.



We will never know whether Magnavox refused the deal because we did not want their product to be associated with such nonsense as Dialing For Dollars. However, scattered information and rumors from the Internet suggest that Magnavox directors, who wanted to get good advertising at reduced rates from ABC, reasoned that since console video consoles were something completely new, and they were far from every house, such a show is unlikely it will take off if advertising does not make their Magnavox Odyssey product so popular that it will be at home for everyone. As a result, as they say, Magnavox tried to put pressure on ABC in order to bargain for it with more prime time before each episode of this new “game show”, but ABC rejected this offer for disadvantage. Who knows, was it really so? But the story is goodalthough similar to an urban legend.

As a result, Magnavox was unsatisfied with something and refused to transfer. What exactly, we do not know. For some time the concept of television video game competitions hung in the balance. However, Kempner, believing that the concept was working, continued to promote it.



In short, Kempner contacted Fairchild Semiconductor, which created the Fairchild Channel F game console and made a deal; Fairchild will create a special set-top box exclusively for television, for competitions using the phone, working with voice activation, and TV people will advertise its set-top box. Fairchild also had to create special simplified games exclusively for television - which could be played quickly, with simplified aiming, etc. Everything was fine, everyone was happy ... except for a trifle. When it came time to test the system, it turned out that it wasn’t working properly, especially for calls from the other coast of the United States trying to synchronize with the picture in real time. The delay was terrible, sometimes for 3-4 seconds. Nonetheless,Kempner rested and wanted to bring this idea to the end. But how?

A simple solution was found just before the demonstration of the system intended for future buyers of the show. It was clear that voice activation did not work. And then they did the following.

Two 21 "TV screens were equipped with telephone lines; one went to the transfer host, the other to the stage assistant, who was out of sight of the camera, who had a controller from Fairchild F. One of the creators of the program played the role of the host, and the other called On the phone, pretending to be a player, the host instructed the “caller” to shout “pau!” when it was necessary to shoot, and the assistant pressed a button on the controller, which created for the audience and players the illusion that the game system had voice activation. successful and the show was aired.



On October 1, 1978, KABC-TV in Los Angeles, hosted by Regis Filbin, aired TV POWWW for the first time! .. It was the first known television broadcast of video game competitions in North America. In Canada, the program was first shown in 1979, using Mattel's Intellivision prefix instead of Fairchild Channel F:



As a result, TV POWWW! sold 79 television channels in North America, and was also shown in other countries in the 80s. Each of the local interpretations of TV POWWW! was tailored to local tastes. Most of the programs were children's, but some were aimed at adolescents and young people.


Just three examples of the different looks of TV POWWW!

So the next time you think about how e-sports began and how it all started for the first time, you should not rummage in the 80s. The reference point of the concept should be considered the 60s and 70s, even before the advent of TV POWWW! .. Of course, it is difficult to find the real moment of the “big bang” until 1997, when Quake appeared, but the whole history of e-sports consists of small but crucial moments that led to its occurrence.

And yet, TV POWWW! and Marvin Kempner - these are the two earliest lost links of the American broadcast of competitions in computer games, which eventually turned into e-sports. They must be remembered for their influence on history.