Pong is widely considered the first commercially successful video game, but Atari's founder Nolan Bushnell aggressively stole the entire concept from a different console called the Magnavox Odyssey.

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Pong is widely considered the first commercially successful video game, but Atari's founder Nolan Bushnell aggressively stole the entire concept from a different console called the Magnavox Odyssey. Bushnell attended a demonstration of the Odyssey in 1972, played their electronic ping-pong game, realized it was brilliant, and immediately hired an engineer to build a vastly superior arcade version. Magnavox naturally sued the absolute pants off Atari for blatant patent infringement, resulting in a settlement where Atari had to pay licensing fees for their massive success. It set a beautiful, toxic precedent for the video game industry, proving early on that you don't actually have to be original to get insanely rich, you just have to take someone else's idea and make it slightly more addictive