The first commercially available video game (LINK) was called “Odyssey,” and debut in 1972. It came complete with two sizes of colored Mylar sheets that primitively attached to your television screen to mark your gaming arena. In those days, this was novel stuff,  things like Wii Motion Plus and internet gaming being classified as nothing but if-only pipe-dreams or distant future delusions of grandeur. Now some 40 years later, video game sales in the U.S. alone were a whopping $17 billion in 2011 (LINK) with “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” topping the sales charts. Even though that amount was down 8 percent from 2010, there’s simply no denying the increasing evolution and exposure of this now dubbed gamer subculture.

How will you  celebrate “National Video Game Day” (LINK)? You could strolling through the annuls  of retro gaming on sites like VirtualNES (LINK) or SNESbox (LINK). Why not peak into the window from the past here (LINK) to see the original video game creator, Ralph Baer, testing out a prototype of ping-pong with his partner, Bill Harrison. One thing’s for sure. You really need to watch the brand NEW Wreck-It Ralph trailer, the Pixar salute to all things 8-bit and digital. Aside from proving that Disney may be able to purchase the known universe, it’s sure to bank a little more coin when it goes Donkey Kong on our wallets this November 2nd.