From award-winning journalist and New Yorker contributor Simon Parkin comes the untold true story of the courtroom battle to determine who really invented the video game—and who would profit most from its billion-dollar future.

New York, 1988. A lawsuit between Nintendo and US television manufacturer Magnavox is playing out in federal court, unearthing decades of invention, betrayal, and buried history from the pioneering days of video games.

The trial takes us back to the computing labs of Stanford and MIT in the 1960s, where students created the earliest digital games, while on the opposite coast, a German-Jewish émigré was developing his own rudimentary systems. Before anyone understood this emerging technology, Magnavox secured a set of broad-ranging patents. When gaming took off in the US, they began raking in a fortune on licensing fees—imagine if Paramount owned the right to the concept of a movie. But when Nintendo gained traction in North America and Magnavox called to collect, the Japanese corporation responded with an explosive allegation that threatened to unravel the validity of the patents. The outcome of this trial—which has been kept secret for decades—would change the industry forever and launch the fiercest rivalry in gaming history.

Combining deep archival research, first-person investigation, and the gripping pace of a legal thriller, Trial of the Space Invaders excavates a story of ambition, betrayal, and the long shadow of intellectual property that has remained buried for more than thirty years.