Bushnell Bashes Modern Games

Logan Frederick

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Bushnell Bashes Modern Games



Nolan Bushnell, the father of Atari, talks about developing fun titles and traveling the entrepreneurial route.

During an interview with Electronic Design [http://electronicdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&AD=1&ArticleID=17133], Atari and Chuck E' Cheese founder Nolan Bushnell talked a length about the lack of fun and socializing in modern games. "Videogames today are a race to the bottom. They are pure, unadulterated trash and I'm sad for that," said Bushnell.

His daughter Alissa created Truth or Dare, a casual game for her father's interactive uWink restaurants. Bushnell said, "It's not really a game per se, but provides an experience where people have fun, do something a little embarrassing, but have a really good time doing it."

He continued, "Social games represent something that has been missing. Most of the board games are purchased by women for families. It is this gaming world that can be re-energized. We used to have families sit down and play a game together. A lot of videogames today are very isolated. You don't see mom and dad, sister and brother, sitting down like they used to play, say, Monopoly. That represented good mentoring time for families that just isn't happening now."

When pressed, Bushnell divulged his favorite game. "My personal favorite is Breakout. It is one of the games that everyone loved. It was very satisfying to play. It was like breaking down walls. And it was a metaphor. The world is better when you break down walls. Walls separate people. The more inclusive we can be, the better we can be as a species."

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Andy Chalk

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I call Grumpy Old Man.

Also, what the hell? Breakout as a metaphor for the evolving human condition? Props to Bushnell for his vision and accomplishments, but I think that's going a bit far.
 

strayjay

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Oct 10, 2007
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Wait... so "Breakout" encourages people to be social? riiiiiiight... I call hypocrite. Out of touch hypocrite at that.
 

Anton P. Nym

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Pure posturing. I know for a fact (as it was reported in the press, perhaps even here) that Bushnell has hosted at least one Halo LAN, so he has to know better; LANs (for most games, in my experience) are FAR more social than plunking a quarter into a Pong console. And that's even setting aside MMOs to conform to a meatspace-bias in his definition of "social", which I don't agree with.

-- Steve
 

Arbre

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Why does he need attention? Got something new to sell or something? Sounds like he's preparing the terrain for a deal between his daughter and Nintendo.

One point though. Mad and dad don't go to Halo LANs.
 

Anton P. Nym

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Arbre said:
One point though. Mad and dad don't go to Halo LANs.
Don't tell me, tell MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7133353/

Bushnell has hardly given up his passion for playing games, which began in earnest when he was working in an amusement park decades ago. He recently networked 16 televisions throughout his house to play a serious session of the futuristic shoot 'em up Xbox game "Halo" with his sons and their friends.
-- Steve
 

OrenA

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Theres a reason no one sits down to play Monopoly anymore. The reason is that Monopoly is perhaps one of the worst board games of all time. In my humble opinion anyway.
 

J.theYellow

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Wait, wait, has he got more than one uWink location? He's been running the one in California for years and made plans to open one in Dallas, which is Dave & Buster's territory and has GameWorks locations nearby. Did that even happen?

Whatever. It's not as though regular gamers don't constantly gripe about the state of gaming. Maybe he should play Psychonauts or Portal.
 

Tesahli

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Oct 24, 2007
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You know, I respect the guy for being a pioneer of video games, but I think he's completely lost touch with the video game industry that doesn't involve a ball and a paddle. Just because he no longer understands it, doesn't mean it's "unadulterated trash".
 

OrenA

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Well, to be fair a lot of it is unadulterated trash, but then again so was a lot of the stuff that was made in his time.
 

Arbre

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OrenA said:
Theres a reason no one sits down to play Monopoly anymore. The reason is that Monopoly is perhaps one of the worst board games of all time. In my humble opinion anyway.
Well, I and my friends like to sit down playing Jenga, because real world physics are thousand times cooler, especially with beer around.
But someone still thought it was worth a convertion for the Wii.
Uh-huh.
 

ProfessionalTroll

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I like Tetris best, because it's all about taking people of different shapes and colours, making them fit and putting them in their place, then making them go away.
 

Sylocat

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OrenA said:
Theres a reason no one sits down to play Monopoly anymore. The reason is that Monopoly is perhaps one of the worst board games of all time. In my humble opinion anyway.
FINALLY, someone else besides me who hates Monopoly.