Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established
Atari, Inc. and the
Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the
Video Game Hall of Fame and the
Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, received the
BAFTA Fellowship and the Nations Restaurant News "Innovator of the Year" award, and was named one of ''
Newsweek
''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...
''s "50 Men Who Changed America". He has started more than 20 companies and is one of the founding fathers of the
video game industry
The video game industry encompasses the development, marketing, and monetization of video games. The industry encompasses dozens of job disciplines and thousands of jobs worldwide.
The video game industry has grown from niches to mainstrea ...
. He is on the board of Anti-Aging Games. In 2012, he founded an educational software company called Brainrush, that is using
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...
technology in educational software.
He is credited with
Bushnell's Law, an aphorism about games that are "easy to learn and difficult to master" being rewarding.
Personal life
Bushnell was born in 1943 in
Clearfield, Utah, in a middle-class family who were members of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a Nontrinitarianism, nontrinitarian Christianity, Christian church that considers itself to be the Restorationism, restoration of the ...
.
He enrolled at
Utah State University
Utah State University (USU or Utah State) is a public land-grant research university in Logan, Utah. It is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. With nearly 20,000 students living on or near campus, USU is Utah ...
in 1961 to study engineering and then later business. In 1964, he transferred to the
University of Utah
The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...
's (U of U)
College of Engineering
Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education (bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any advanced education and specializations that ...
, where he graduated with a
bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to si ...
in
electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
.
He was a member of the
Pi Kappa Alpha
Pi Kappa Alpha (), commonly known as PIKE, is a college fraternity founded at the University of Virginia in 1868. The fraternity has over 225 chapters and colonies across the United States and abroad with over 15,500 undergraduate members over 3 ...
fraternity
A fraternity (from Latin ''frater'': "brother"; whence, " brotherhood") or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternit ...
.
He was one of many
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
students of the 1960s who played the historic ''
Spacewar!
''Spacewar!'' is a Space combat game, space combat video game developed in 1962 by Steve Russell (computer scientist), Steve Russell in collaboration with Martin Graetz, Wayne Wiitanen, Robert Alan Saunders, Bob Saunders, Steve Piner, and others. ...
'' game on
DEC mainframe computers.
He married his first wife, Paula Rochelle Nielson, in 1966 and had two daughters; in 1969, they moved to California.
They divorced in 1975, just prior to Warner Communication's purchase of Atari.
Around the end of 1977, he married Nancy Nino, with whom he had six children. He also used his profit from selling Atari to Warner to purchase the former mansion of coffee magnate
James Folger in
Woodside, California
Woodside is a small incorporated town in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula. Woodside is among the wealthiest communities in the United States, home to many technology billionaires and investment mana ...
.
Although he was a
Latter-day Saint
Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into sev ...
(or
Mormon
Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into se ...
) in his youth,
by the time of his first divorce he had forgone the teachings often being called a "lapsed Mormon".
He said that he stopped practicing the faith after he got into a debate over the interpretation of the Bible with a professor at the U of U's
Institute of Religion in college.
Business career
Early career and Syzygy
Bushnell worked at
Lagoon Amusement Park for many years while attending college. He was made manager of the games department two seasons after starting.
While working there, he became familiar with arcade
electro-mechanical games such as
Chicago Coin
Chicago Coin was one of the early major manufacturers of pinball tables founded in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in 1932 by Samuel H. Gensburg to operate in the coin-operated amusement industry. In 1977, Gary Stern and Sam Stern purc ...
's
racing game ''Speedway'' (1969), watching customers play and helping to maintain the machinery while learning how it worked, developing his understanding of how the game business operates. He was also interested in the
Midway arcade games
An arcade game or coin-op game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcad ...
, where theme park customers would have to use skill and luck to ultimately achieve the goal and win the prize. He liked the concept of getting people curious about the game and from there getting them to pay the fee in order to play.
While in college, he worked for several employers, including
Litton Guidance and Control Systems, Hadley Ltd, and the industrial engineering department at the U of U. For several summers, he built his own advertising company, Campus Company, which produced blotters for four universities and sold advertising space around a calendar of events. He also sold copies of
Encyclopedia Americana.
After graduating, Bushnell had moved to California from Utah with the hopes of being hired by
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
, but the company was not in the routine practice of hiring fresh college graduates. Instead, Bushnell got a job as an electrical engineer with
Ampex
Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.AbramsoThe History ...
.
At Ampex, he met fellow employee
Ted Dabney
Samuel Frederick "Ted" Dabney Jr. (May 2, 1937 – May 26, 2018) was an American electrical engineer, and the co-founder, alongside Nolan Bushnell, of Atari, Inc. He is recognized as developing the basics of video circuitry principles that ...
and found they had common interests. Bushnell shared his ideas of creating pizza parlors filled with electronic games with Dabney, and took Dabney to the computing labs at
Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to show him ''Spacewar''.
In 1969, Bushnell and Dabney formed Syzygy with the intention of producing a ''Spacewar'' clone known as ''
Computer Space
''Computer Space'' is a space combat simulation, space combat arcade game developed in 1971. Created by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney in partnership as Syzygy Engineering, it was the first arcade video game as well as the first commercially avail ...
''. Dabney built the prototype and Bushnell shopped it around, looking for a manufacturer. They made an agreement with
Nutting Associates, a maker of coin-op trivia and shooting games, that produced a fiberglass cabinet for the unit that included a coin-slot mechanism.
[
][
][
]
''Computer Space'' was a commercial failure, though sales exceeded $3 million. Bushnell felt that Nutting Associates had not marketed the game well,
and decided that his next game would be licensed to a bigger manufacturer. Bushnell also knew that the next game they developed would need to be simpler and not require users to read instructions on the cabinet, since their target audience would likely be drunken bar patrons.
Atari, Inc.
In 1972, Bushnell and Dabney set off on their own, and learned that the name "Syzygy" was in use; Bushnell has said at different times that it was in use by a candle company owned by a
Mendocino hippie commune
and by a roofing company.
They instead incorporated under the name Atari, a reference to a check-like position in the game
Go (which Bushnell has called his "favorite game of all time"
[Archived a]
Ghostarchive
and th
Wayback Machine
).
They rented their first office on Scott Boulevard in
Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California.
Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the nor ...
, contracted with
Bally Manufacturing to create a
driving game
Racing games are a video game genre in which the player participates in a racing competition. They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to fantastical settings. They are distributed along a spectrum between more realistic ra ...
, and hired their second employee,
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considerin ...
Allan Alcorn
Allan Alcorn (born January 1, 1948) is an American pioneering engineer and computer scientist best known for creating '' Pong'', one of the first video games.
Atari and ''Pong''
Alcorn grew up in San Francisco, California, and attended th ...
.
Bushnell originally wanted to develop a game similar to
Chicago Coin
Chicago Coin was one of the early major manufacturers of pinball tables founded in Chicago, Illinois. The company was founded in 1932 by Samuel H. Gensburg to operate in the coin-operated amusement industry. In 1977, Gary Stern and Sam Stern purc ...
's ''Speedway'', which at the time was the biggest-selling
electro-mechanical game
Electro-mechanical games (EM games) are types of arcade games that operate on a combination of some electronic circuitry and mechanical actions from the player to move items contained within the game's cabinet. Some of these were early light gun ...
at his arcade.
After Bushnell attended a
Burlingame, California
Burlingame () is a city in San Mateo County, California. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco Bay. The city is named after diplomat Anson Burlingame and is known for its numerous eucaly ...
demonstration of the
Magnavox Odyssey, he gave the task of making the Magnavox tennis game into a coin-op version to Alcorn as a test project. He told Alcorn that he was making the game for General Electric, in order to motivate him, but in actuality he planned to simply dispose of the game.
Alcorn incorporated many of his own improvements into the game design, such as the ball speeding up the longer the game went on, and ''
Pong'' was born. ''Pong'' proved to be very popular; Atari released a large number of ''Pong''-based
arcade video game
An arcade video game takes player input from its controls, processes it through electrical or computerized components, and displays output to an electronic monitor or similar display. Most arcade video games are coin-operated, housed in an arc ...
s over the next few years as the mainstay of the company. After the release of ''Pong'', Bushnell and Dabney had a falling-out: Dabney felt he was being pushed to the side by Bushnell,
while Bushnell felt Dabney was holding back the company from larger financial success.
Bushnell purchased Dabney's share of Atari for in 1973.
To get more arcade games to market and bypass exclusivity limitations that coin-op game distributors had set, Bushnell discretely had his neighbor Joe Keenan establish
Kee Games in 1973 to manufacture
near-copies of Atari's games. Even with Kee's output, Atari had difficulty meeting demand for arcade games, and by 1974 Atari was facing financial hardships in part due to the competition in the arcade game market. Bushnell opted to merge Kee Games into Atari in September 1974 just ahead of the release of ''
Tank
A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful ...
'', a wholly original arcade game from Kee. ''Tank'' was an arcade success and help bolster Atari's finances. Keenan became president of Atari and managed it operations while Bushnell retained his CEO role.
With the company financially stable, Atari entered the consumer electronics market, with its home ''Pong'' consoles first released in 1975. Atari continued to make variants of its existing arcade games for dedicated home consoles until 1977.
During this period, former Atari employees
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...
and
Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary Wozniak (; born August 11, 1950), also known by his nickname "Woz", is an American electronics engineer, computer programmer, philanthropist, inventor, and entrepreneur, technology entrepreneur. In 1976, with business partner Steve ...
had approached Bushnell about investing in their home computer system, the
Apple I
The Apple Computer 1, originally released as the Apple Computer and known later as the Apple I or Apple-1, is an 8-bit desktop computer released by the Apple Computer Company (now Apple Inc.) in 1976. It was designed by Steve Wozniak. The i ...
, that was built from borrowed parts from Atari and with technical support from Atari employees.
They initially offered the design to Bushnell and Atari, but Bushnell wanted Atari to focus on arcade and home consoles. Later in 1975, Jobs offered Bushnell a chance for one-third equity stake in their budding company
Apple Inc., for ; Bushnell remarked in hindsight, "I was so smart, I said no. It's kind of fun to think about that, when I'm not crying." Bushnell also established the first
Pizza Time Theatre
Chuck E. Cheese (formerly known as Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza and simply Chuck E. Cheese's) is an American family entertainment center and pizza restaurant chain founded in 1977 by Atari's co-founder Nolan B ...
in San Jose in 1977 as a means for Atari to stock its arcade games.
As Atari faced more competition in both arcade and home consoles from 1975 onward, Bushnell recognized that the costs in developing both types of systems with only limited shelf life were too high, and directed Atari's engineers at
Cyan Engineering towards a programmable home console.
This console eventually was released in 1977 as the
Atari Video Computer System or Atari VCS and later known as the Atari 2600. However, before Atari had completed its design, the
Fairchild Channel F, the first home console to use
game cartridges, was released in November 1976. Bushnell realized they needed to speed up the Atari VCS's development. After initially considering become a
public company
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange ( ...
, he instead sought a buyer.
Warner Communications
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
, looking to boost their own failing media properties, agreed to acquire Atari for , with Bushnell personally receiving , in November 1976.
Warner provided a large investment into the Atari VCS to allow it to be completed early the next year and released in September 1977.
The first year of Atari VCS sales were modest and limited by Atari's own supply. While many of initial games were arcade conversions of Atari arcade games, the second wave of games in 1983 were more abstract and difficult to promote. Warner placed
Ray Kassar
Raymond Edward Kassar (January 2, 1928 – December 10, 2017) was president, and later CEO, of Atari Inc. from 1978 to 1983. He had previously been executive vice-president of Burlington Industries, the world's largest textile company at the ti ...
, a former vice president of
Burlington Industries
Burlington Industries, formerly Burlington Mills, is a diversified American fabric maker based in Greensboro, North Carolina. Founded by J. Spencer Love in Burlington, North Carolina in 1923, the company has operations in the United States, Mexico ...
, to help with Atari's marketing.
Kassar created successful advertising and marketing throughout 1978, positioning the Atari VCS for a larger sales period at the end of the year.
However, Bushnell had concerns on Kassar's plans and feared they had produced too many units to be sold, and at a board meeting with Warner near the end of the year, reiterated this position. Bushnell recommended that funds be used in R&D for developing a new, technologically superior console, as he feared rising competition would make the aging tech specs of the VCS obsolete. Bushnell's concerns never materialized as a combination of Kassar's marketing and the popularity of
Taito
is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, toys, arcade cabinets and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, vending machines and jukeboxes into Japan. I ...
's ''
Space Invaders'' at the arcade drove Atari VCS sales. Both Warner Communications and Bushnell commonly recognized he was no longer a good leader for the company, removing him as CEO and Chairman in early 1979. Warner offered Bushnell the opportunity to stay as a director and creative consultant, but Bushnell refused. Before leaving, Bushnell negotiated the rights to Pizza Time Theatre from Atari for . Keenan replaced Bushnell but left a few months later, with Kassar being named as Atari's CEO by mid-1979.
Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre
In 1977, while at Atari, Bushnell purchased Pizza Time Theatre back from Warner Communications. It had been created by Bushnell, originally as a place where kids could go and eat
pizza
Pizza (, ) is a dish of Italian origin consisting of a usually round, flat base of leavened wheat-based dough topped with tomatoes, cheese, and often various other ingredients (such as various types of sausage, anchovies, mushrooms, on ...
and play
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This feedba ...
s, which would therefore function as a distribution channel for Atari games. Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre also had
animatronic animals that played music as entertainment. It is known that Bushnell had always wanted to work for Walt Disney, but was continually turned down for employment when he was first starting out after graduation; Chuck E. Cheese was his homage to Disney and the technology developed there. In 1981 Bushnell turned over day-to-day food operations of Chuck E. Cheese's to a newly hired restaurant executive and focused on
Catalyst Technologies
The Catalyst Technologies Venture Capital Group was one of the first technology company incubators. It was founded in 1981 in Sunnyvale, California[Sente Technologies
Sente Technologies (also known as Bally Sente, Inc.) was an arcade game company. Founded as Videa in 1982 by several ex-Atari employees, the company was bought by Nolan Bushnell and made a division of his Pizza Time Theatre company in 1983. In 198 ...]
and Kadabrascope. Sente was a reentry into the coin-operated game business. Arcade cabinets would have a proprietary system with a cartridge slot so operators could refresh their games without having to buy whole new cabinets. Kadabrascope was an early attempt at computer assisted animation. In 1983 as the restaurants started to lose money, Sente, though profitable, was sold to Bally for $3.9 million and Kadabrascope was sold to
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is best known for creating and producing the '' Star Wars'' and ...
which became the beginnings of what became
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californ ...
.
During this time Bushnell was using large loans on his Pizza Time stock to fund Catalyst. By the end of 1983, Chuck E. Cheese was having serious financial problems. President and long-time friend Joe Keenan resigned that fall. Nolan tried to step back in, blaming the money problems on over-expansion, too much tweaking of the formula and saturation in local markets by the management team. He resigned in February 1984, when the board of directors rejected his proposed changes. Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theaters (now named after its famous rat mascot) entered bankruptcy in the fall of 1984.
ShowBiz Pizza Place, a competing Pizza/Arcade family restaurant, then purchased Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre and assumed its debt. The newly formed company, ShowBiz Pizza Time, operated restaurants under both brands before unifying all locations under the Chuck E. Cheese brand by 1992. Today over 600 locations of this restaurant are in business.
Catalyst Technologies Venture Capital Group
Bushnell founded
Catalyst Technologies
The Catalyst Technologies Venture Capital Group was one of the first technology company incubators. It was founded in 1981 in Sunnyvale, California[business incubator
Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture c ...]
s. The Catalyst Group companies numbered in the double digits and included
Androbot
Nolan Kay Bushnell (born February 5, 1943) is an American businessman and electrical engineer. He established Atari, Inc. and the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre chain. He has been inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame and the Consume ...
,
Etak
Etak, Inc. was an independent US-based vendor of automotive navigation system equipment, digital maps, and mapping software. It was founded in 1983.
Its original headquarters were in Sunnyvale, but the company later moved to 1430 O'Brien DriveVie ...
, Cumma, and Axlon.
Axlon launched many consumer and consumer electronic products successfully, most notably
AG Bear, a bear that mumbled/echoed a child's words back to him/her. In the late 1980s, Axlon managed the development of two new games for the Atari 2600, most likely as part of a marketing attempt to revive sales of the system, already more than a decade old. This included Motorodeo, a
monster truck-themed games that was one of the last games developed for the Atari 2600 system, being released in 1990.
The company was largely sold to
Hasbro
Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...
.
Etak
Etak, Inc. was an independent US-based vendor of automotive navigation system equipment, digital maps, and mapping software. It was founded in 1983.
Its original headquarters were in Sunnyvale, but the company later moved to 1430 O'Brien DriveVie ...
, founded in 1984, was the first company to digitize the maps of the world, as part of the first commercial
automotive navigation system
An automotive navigation system is part of the automobile controls or a third party add-on used to find direction in an automobile. It typically uses a satellite navigation device to get its position data which is then correlated to a position on ...
; the maps ultimately provided the backbone for
Google Maps
Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets (Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...
,
mapquest.com, and other navigation systems; it was sold to
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( ; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including ...
in the 1980s. In May 2000 the company, headquartered in
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County within the San Francisco Bay Area of California in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south ...
, became a wholly owned subsidiary of
Tele Atlas
Tele Atlas is a Netherlands-based company founded in 1984 which delivers digital maps and other dynamic content for navigation and location-based services, including personal and in-car navigation systems, and provides data used in a wide range ...
.
While many of the ideas eventually led to current-day innovations, most of Catalyst's companies eventually failed due to a lack of underlying technology available in the 1980s to sustain these high-tech innovations. For example, Catalyst's companies included CinemaVision, which attempted to develop high definition television. Cumma attempted to distribute video games using special vending machines that would write the game onto discs on demand. ByVideo developed an early online shopping experience using kiosks and Laser Discs that allowed shoppers to virtually purchase products that would then be delivered later.
PlayNet/Aristo
In 1996 Nolan Bushnell became senior consultant to the small game developer Aristo International after it bought Borta, Inc. where he was chairman. Aristo's CEO and chairman was
Mouli Cohen Mouli may refer to:
People
* Samuel "Mouli" Cohen (born 1958), Israeli entrepreneur
*Mouli Ganguly (born 1982), Indian actress in Hindi and Bengali cinema
*T. S. B. K. Moulee, Indian film director and actor
* Rama Chandra Mouli (born 1950), India ...
. In association with Aristo, Bushnell spearheaded TeamNet, a line of multiplayer-only arcade machines targeted towards adults, which allowed teams of up to four players to compete either locally or remotely via internet. Aristo was later renamed PlayNet. Borta Inc. Developed video games that included versions of ''
Urban Strike
''Urban Strike'' is a video game developed and published by Electronic Arts. It was initially released for the Sega Genesis in 1994, with ports handled by Black Pearl Software to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Gear in 1995 and t ...
'' and ''
Jungle Strike'' along with online Sports Games. Aristo developed two main products: a touchscreen interface bar-top/arcade system that would also provide internet access, phone calls, and online networked tournaments; and a digital jukebox, capable of storing thousands of songs and downloading new releases. By late 1997 the company was facing financial troubles and was planning to withdraw the units it had released in the field and relaunch the line with improvements to the credit card swipe system and internet connections. The company died shortly before the
dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet.
Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Comp ...
burst with its prototype machines still in development in 1997.
uWink
Before BrainRush, Bushnell's most recent company was
uWink, a company that evolved out of an early project called In10City (pronounced 'Intensity') which was a concept of an entertainment complex and dining experience. uWink was started by Bushnell and his business adviser Loni Reeder, who also designed the original logo for the company. The company has gone through several failed iterations including a touch-screen kiosk design, a company to run cash and prize awards as part of their uWin concept and also an online Entertainment Systems network.
After nearly 7 years and over $24 million in investor funding, the touchscreen kiosks/bartop model was closed amid complaints of unpaid prizes and lack of maintaining service agreements with locations to keep the kiosk/bartop units in working condition. The latest iteration (announced in 2005) is a new interactive entertainment restaurant called the uWink Media Bistro, whose concept builds off his Chuck E. Cheese venture and previous 1988–1989 venture Bots Inc., which developed similar systems of customer-side point-of-sale touch-screen terminals in addition to autonomous
pizza delivery robots for
Little Caesar's Pizza. The plan was for guests to order their food and drinks using screens at each table, on which they may also play games with each other and watch movie trailers and short videos. The multiplayer network type video games that allowed table to table interaction or even with table group play never materialized. Guests often spotted the OSX based machine being constantly re-booted in order to play much simpler casual video games. Another factor that possibly led to the failure of the restaurants was the placement of the restaurants. The Woodland Hills location was on the second floor of a suburban shopping mall and the Hollywood location practically hidden with minimal visibility on a higher level of a shopping center complex. The first Bistro opened in
Woodland Hills, California
Woodland Hills is a neighborhood bordering the Santa Monica Mountains in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California.
Geography
Woodland Hills is in the southwestern region of the San Fernando Valley, which is located east of Ca ...
on October 16, 2006. A second in
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywoo ...
was established, and in 2008 the company opened a third Southern California restaurant and one in
Mountain View, California
Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. Named for its views of the Santa Cruz Mountains, it has a population of 82,376.
Mountain View was integral to the early history and growth of Silicon Valley, and is t ...
.
All the restaurants have since closed.
Atari, SA
On April 19, 2010, Atari announced Nolan Bushnell along with Tim Virden would join the company's board of directors.
Modal VR
Bushnell is also one of the founders of Modal VR, a company that develops a portable large-scale VR system for enterprises to train e.g. security forces.
Anti-Aging Games, LLC
Nolan is on the advisory board of Anti-AgingGames.com and was a co-founder of the company,
featuring online memory, concentration, and focus games for healthy people over 35.
BrainRush
BrainRush is a company that uses video game technology in
educational software where he is Founder, CEO and chairman. The company was venture capital funded in 2012. It is based on the idea that many curriculum lessons can be turned into mini-games. Developers can take any body of knowledge from English language arts to foreign language, geography, multiplication table or chemistry tables, to parts of the human body and gamify the experience. BrainRush calls their underlying technology "Adaptive Practice." They have also developed an open-authoring system allowing users to quickly create games in different topic areas.
Between 2010 and 2012, BrainRush ran a test in Spanish language vocabulary learning with over 2200 teachers and 80,000 students across the country and got an increase in learning speed of between 8–10 times traditional learning. BrainRush rolled out the full platform in the fall of 2013.
Global Gaming Technologies Corp (CSE - GGAM.U)
On March 6, 2019, Nolan was appointed CEO and Chairman of publicly traded company Global Gaming Technologies Corp.
Other ventures
* In 1981, Bushnell created the TimberTech Computer Camp in
Scotts Valley, California
Scotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles (48 km) south of downtown San Jose and six miles (10 km) north of the city of Santa Cruz, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Moun ...
.
*
In 1982, Bushnell commissioned ''Charley'', a 67-foot racing yacht designed by
Ron Holland. ''Charley'' went on to win
Line honours
Line honours is the term given to the first boat to cross the finish line of a yacht race. This is in comparison to the handicap honours or corrected time winner, which is theoretically equally accessible to all boats as slower boats have a lower ...
in the 1983
TransPacific Yacht Race.
* In 1984, Bushnell purchased the arcade game company Videa and renamed it
Sente Games. Among the games developed by the company before it closed in 1987 included the hockey video game ''
Hat Trick
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
''.
* In 1991, Bushnell endorsed the
Commodore International
Commodore International (other names include Commodore International Limited) was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Mac ...
CDTV
The CDTV (from Commodore Dynamic Total Vision, later treated as a backronym for Compact Disc Television) is a home multimedia entertainment and video game console – convertible into a full-fledged personal computer by the addition of optional ...
,
a
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both com ...
-based version of the
Amiga
Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore International, Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and sign ...
500 computer repackaged for the consumer electronics market.
* In Summer 1995 Bushnell announced a new line of amusement centers called E2000, which would be similar to Chuck E. Cheese's, but based on a video game theme. However, an unrelated multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed against Bushnell by
Merrill Lynch
Merrill (officially Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated), previously branded Merrill Lynch, is an American investment management and wealth management division of Bank of America. Along with BofA Securities, the investment ba ...
prompted most of E2000's investors to back out, leaving him unable to fund the project.
* In June 1999, Bushnell joined the board of directors of Wave Systems Corp.
* In 2005, he served as a judge on the
USA Network
USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madi ...
reality series
Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early ...
''Made in the USA''.
* In 2007, Bushnell joined the board of
NeoEdge Networks as chairman.
* In 2007, Bushnell joined the advisory board of GAMEWAGER.
* In 2008, Bushnell became a member of AirPatrol Corporation's board of directors.
* In 2009, Bushnell announced his intention to move into the game-education market with a venture called Snap. He also announced that he would make an appearance at SGC, a gaming convention organized by
ScrewAttack
Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of Warner ...
.
* In May 2016, Bushnell joined the board of directors of MGT Capitol Investments.
John McAfee, proposed Executive Chairman and chief executive officer of MGT Capital, stated, "Nolan is one of the brightest minds in cyber technology. In his career, he has founded more than 20 high tech companies, giving him unprecedented knowledge of the tech industry. As a director, he will help MGT identify and cultivate the necessary strategic partnerships to position the company as the world leader in cyber security."
* In January 2017, Bushnell joined the board of directors o
Perrone Robotics a maker of robotics software platforms for autonomous vehicles and mobile robots.
Media appearances
Bushnell was featured in the documentary film ''
Something Ventured
"Something Ventured" is a 2011 documentary film investigating the emergence of American venture capitalism in the mid-20th century. ''Something Venture''d follows the stories of the venture capitalists who worked with entrepreneurs to start and ...
'' about venture capital development, as well as ''
Atari: Game Over'', which documented the unearthing of the
Atari video game burial. He was also featured in animated TV show ''Code Monkeys'' in Episode 3 of Season 1.
Accolades
Bushnell is considered to be the "father of electronic gaming" due to his contributions in establishing the arcade game market and creation of Atari. There had been debate between whether Bushnell or
Ralph H. Baer, who is credited with creating the first home video game console, should be considered the father of video games, which had led to some bad blood between the two inventors. However, the industry recognized that Baer should be considered the father of home video gaming, while Bushnell is credited with innovating the arcade game.
At the
British Academy Video Games Awards on March 10, 2009, the
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
awarded the Academy Fellowship to Bushnell in recognition of his outstanding achievement as a founding father of the video games industry.
Biographical film
Since 2008, there has been interest to a
biographical film
A biographical film or biopic () is a film that dramatizes the life of a non-fictional or historically-based person or people. Such films show the life of a historical person and the central character's real name is used. They differ from docudra ...
about Bushnell's life. While Bushnell had been approached by others to make such a film and turned these offers down, he accepted an offer made by
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
in June 2008 with a script by Craig Sherman and Brian Hecker, with
Leonardo DiCaprio envisioned to star as Bushnell. While news of the film was quiet over the next ten years, in March 2018, film financing company Vision Tree was working to start an
initial coin offering for
cryptocurrency
A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It i ...
to raise up to for the film, which was set to be produced by DiCaprio's studio
Appian Way Productions
Appian Way Productions is a Los Angeles based film and television production company founded in 2001 by actor and producer Leonardo DiCaprio. Jennifer Davisson serves as President of Production. Since its launch, Appian Way has released a dive ...
, Vision Tree, and Avery Productions.
GDC Pioneer Award controversy
In January 2018, the Advisory Committee of the
Game Developers Choice Awards
The Game Developers Choice Awards are awards annually presented at the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games.
Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were ...
announced that Bushnell would receive the Pioneer Award at the March ceremony at the
Game Developers Conference
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tuto ...
(GDC), crediting his role at Atari.
That day, several people through social media, including
Brianna Wu
Brianna Wu (born July 6, 1977) is an American video game developer and computer programmer. She co-founded Giant Spacekat, an independent video game development studio, with Amanda Warner in Boston, Massachusetts. She is also a blogger and pod ...
, claimed Bushnell fostered a toxic work environment at Atari for women that became the foundation for the then-future video game industry, based on several documented interviews and accounts of Atari at the time of the 1970s and 1980s; a notable example was of Bushnell holding board meetings in a
hot tub and invited female secretaries to join them. Wu and others asserted that while Bushnell had done much for the industry, recognizing him with this type of award during the ongoing
#MeToo movement was sending the wrong message.
Wu stated, "Nolan Bushnell deserves to be honored, but this is not the right time for it. It's easy to draw a line between the culture he created at Atari and the structural sexism women in tech face today."
The
hashtag
A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...
"#NotNolan" was shared by those with similar complaints about the GDC's choice.
The following day, the Advisory Committee reconsidered the selection of Bushnell for the award
and announced the Pioneer Award would not be awarded, and instead it would be used that year to "honor the pioneering and unheard voices of the past". GDC further stated that they believed their selections "should reflect the values of today's game industry".
Bushnell released a statement agreeing with the committee's decision:
In a later statement to ''
Kotaku
''Kotaku'' is a video game website and blog that was originally launched in 2004 as part of the Gawker Media network. Notable former contributors to the site include Luke Smith, Cecilia D'Anastasio, Tim Rogers, and Jason Schreier.
Histor ...
'', Bushnell cautioned that "exploring these kinds of issues through a finite, 40-year-old prism
oes not offera productive reflection of our company", and referred to feedback from his former employees.
''Kotaku'' spoke to a dozen female former Atari employees, some whom had already spoken out on social media. All who agreed that while the company's 1970s and 1980s workplace was influenced by the broader
Sexual Revolution
The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the United States and the developed world from the 1 ...
, the allegations made against Bushnell were exaggerated or false, and that the culture was one that they all freely participated in.
Some of the more notable female employees of Atari spoke further of the situation at the company and Bushnell during the 1970s:
* Elaine Shirley, who worked at Atari during the Bushnell years, said, "Those were the times. He
olan Bushnellhit on women and they hit on him. If the #MeToo movement was active when Atari was alive, I think half our company would be charged. To my knowledge, no one ever did anything they did not want to do."
* Loni Reeder, who was responsible for communications, security, and facilities at Atari and later cofounded uWink with Bushnell, stated, "I was treated fairly and paid well. I have fellow Atari women friends who also know Nolan. None of us were offended by him." Reeder further stated of the workplace at Atari, "I take great offense of people coming in today and saying we were oppressed...We had a united and cohesive environment. That was what the ’70s were about. It wasn't like we all got together to have an orgy."
* Carol Kantor, the first games user researcher and who led an all-female games user research team at Atari,
said, "I know there are people out there who are accused and really were guilty of sexual harassment. But not Nolan. It wasn't in his character. I certainly stand up for the Nolan that I knew. He certainly didn't hold his power over people."
The women interviewed by ''Kotaku'' generally considered the attack and decision related to Bushnell's award as unfair, and expressed anger at those that had raised the issue with the committee.
Some stated that those who accused Bushnell of sexism did not take into consideration the culture of the time, and there was a clear and distinct difference between the sexualized occurrences at Atari in the 1970s, and the real harassment and threats faced by women in the current #MeToo movement.
The situation has led to discussion of how the Atari workplace may have influenced the current video game industry. ''Kotaku'' observed that the percentage of females in the video game industry has declined since 1991 to as low as 15% as of 2016, which is difficult to attribute, but suggested may be tied to a portion of women that would not be able to withstand the type of workplace of the 1980s Atari.
In an
editorial
An editorial, or leading article (UK) or leader (UK) is an article written by the senior editorial people or publisher of a newspaper, magazine, or any other written document, often unsigned. Australian and major United States newspapers, such ...
, Dean Takahashi suggested the current environment within the video game industry was more heavily influenced by Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft, which took drastically different approaches to workplace culture.
References
Further reading
* ''Atari Inc. - Business is Fun'', by Curt Vendel, Marty Goldberg (2012)
* ''Zap: The Rise and Fall of Atari'', by Scott Cohen (1984)
* ''Gaming 101: A Contemporary History of PC and Video Games'', by George Jones (2005)
* ''The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon—The story Behind the Craze That Touched Our Lives and Changed the World'', by Steven L. Kent (2001)
* ''High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games'', by Rusel DeMaria, Johnny L. Wilson (2003)
* ''The First Quarter'', by Steven L. Kent
External links
Nolan Bushnell: A Life in Video Games filmed
BAFTA event
San Jose Mercury News Podcast Interviewwith Bushnell
Podcast InterviewNolan Bushnell on "We Talk Games."
imecode, 00:38:05
The Dot Eaters entryon Bushnell and Atari
with Bushnell
Discovery Channel Interviewwith Bushnell
gigaom.comon Bushnell and NeoEdge Networks
Nolan Bushnell Keynote Addressat Game Based Learning 2009, London, March 2009
with Bushnell on The BusinessMakers Show
quotes.nobosh.comNolan Bushnell Quotes
Nolan Bushnell with Leo Laporte on TWiT -Triangulation No.60 video and audio - Wed July 11, 2012 - duration 87 minutes)
Nolan Bushnell with Dr. Jeremy Weisz on InspiredInsider -Bushnell Opens up about Low Times and Proud Momentsvideo and audio duration 12 minutes)
* (audio interview)
* https://web.archive.org/web/20160611120837/http://finance.yahoo.com/news/mgt-appoints-nolan-bushnell-board-130000055.html
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bushnell, Nolan
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