How a Refugee from the Nazis Became the Father of Video Games

Ralph Baer's Life Is a Classic Tale of Scrappiness and Perseverance

It’s perhaps fitting that the man recognized as the father of the video game, that quintessential American invention, was a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, whose personal story converged with America’s at a critical time in the nation’s history.

“I had the misfortune of being born in a horrendous situation,” Ralph Baer told the Computer History Museum, of his birth to Jewish parents in 1922 in southwestern Germany. When the Nazis came to power, Baer was still a young child. They threw all Jewish students out of school, forcing him …

Three Reasons Why I Bought My Kid an Xbox

I Thought Gaming Was a Gateway Vice to a Life of Ruin. Now I’m Grasping to Find Some Redeeming Educational Purpose.

The purchase was so out of character for me that my credit card company wanted no part of it.

“Martinez is buying an Xbox? Sure he is … This’ll be the …