What are the oldest electronic (electric?) arcade games?

What are the oldest electronic (electric?) arcade games? - Turned-on Red and Green Nintendo Switch

Up until now I was more than sure that the history of electronic or electric arcade games (played be teenagers in "game saloons") were around early seventies / late sixties of twentieth century. However, today I have found two suspicious (to me) parts in Stanislaw Lem's "The Investigation" SF book, written in 1957.

I don't have access to actual English text for this book, so both fragments are my free translation from Polish original:

A few short-haired youths watched as one shot blue sparks at the small plane circling through the window behind the glass.

The machine next to which he stood was a metal box with glass at the top, under the glass lay a miniature green landscape full of bushes and trees (...). Hottentots catch a kangaroo. There are no Hottentots in Australia, but what's the harm? (...) He pressed the knob. A tiny kangaroo jumped out of its black hole and collapsed into clumps of bushes. (...) three twisted black figures moved to the side. He manipulated the handle, bringing it closer to the suspicious place. At the last moment, the kangaroo jumped out, broke the line of the manhunt and fell back into the thicket. They travelled the entire plastic map several times, and the kangaroo always slipped out at the last moment.

As mentioned above, the original book's text was completed somewhere in 1957-1958 (published in Polish ten years later. I don't know, if it was ever translated and published in English).

My question is: does the above description shows arcade games that was actually available at the time of the book was actually written (1957, so 65 years ago)? Or is this a part of very accurate Lem's prognosis, but in the book itself it was a pure part of fiction (as no such games existed at such times in arcade game history)?






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What was the first electronic arcade game?

Arcade video games (1970s to present) After two attempts to package mainframe computers running video games into a coin-operated arcade cabinet in 1971, Galaxy Game and Computer Space, Atari released Pong in 1972, the first successful arcade video game.

What were the first arcade games?

Computer Space was the first commercial arcade game released by Palo Alto-based Nutting Associates in 1971.

What is the oldest arcade machine?

Computer Space is considered the first ever arcade machine, created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney (under Syzygy Engineering) in 1971. The machine is held up as the first commercially produced video game, and its creators went on to co-found Atari together in 1972.

What was the first successful arcade game?

In its first year alone Atari sold 8,000 Pong machines, making it the First commercially successful arcade videogame.



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