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It's a small class of video games that still draw interest or inspire an active community 20 years after their first release — even if we're now 40 years into the era of commercial video games. Games like Doom, the several iterations of Civilization, and the Mario Brothers franchise will probably be around and played in some form many decades hence. The X-COM family of games fits, too, having inspired various spiritual successors since its release in 1994. Now, an anonymous reader writes that the open source (GPL) " OpenXcom 1.0 is finally released, after 5224 commits, 1843 days, and 606 resolved issues since v0.9. 20 years of X-COM — XCOM oldschool lovers enjoy!"

theodp writes "Before there was Pong, there was Ping-Pong. Table tennis began in 19th-century Victorian England as a parlor game for the upper-middle class, with cigar box lids used as paddles. Today, as BusinessInsider half-joked, federal law requires all tech startups to have a functional ping pong table. Photographer Alec Soth discusses his love of the game in a NY Times interview and shares some vintage photos of the sport from his new limited-edition book Ping Pong. So, why do people — especially lots of computer programmers — get obsessed with Ping-Pong? Table tennis is 'a way to do a physical sport that has actual athletic qualities but is kind of contained,' explains Soth. 'There's a real mental element to it. It's not chess, but your brain is engaged. It's a break from neuroses.'" As workplace stress relief games go, a ping-pong table is also a lot easier to carry than an air hockey set-up or a bowling alley.

GreyGusMan writes "Ralph Baer was playing video games before many of us were born. CNN has an interview with the man who helped invent video games back in 1966, talking about how the idea came about - and getting his thoughts on what the industry has become. He doesn't like videogame violence, but he scoffs when asked if he thinks it's tied to real world violence." When the person talking not only created the Magnavox Odyssey, but also devised the tragically addictive 'repeat the sequence' handheld Simon (no relation), you'd better listen up.

sn0wdude writes "Who hasn't played PONG? Everything on PONG! Has pictures from all systems it was available on, even systems schematics (to make your own). The 'Make-It-Yourself Systems' (kid adverts), etc..." You see, Pong was the evil twin brother of the little duckling called Ping... oh, wait, wrong story. Seriously, this site has everything you never wanted to know about Pong.