If I mentioned the name of Nolan Bushnell, chances are good you wouldn’t have a clue who I was talking about. Now, what if I mentioned Chuck E Cheese, IBM, Cisco Systems, or Catalyst Technologies? Nolan Bushnell has had a hand in founding, or helping develop all these companies and many more. Mr. Bushnell is an engineer and entrepreneur, and while his name is not immediately recognizable, his first major success is very well know. Nolan Bushnell cut his teeth in the video game industry, helping to co-found Atari Inc. and as such, is a major player in the early days of video game consoles, helping to innovate the art, and bring video games out of the arcades and into peoples living rooms.
Founded in 1972 under the leadership of Mr. Bushnell , Atari Inc, had many successful products, both in home consoles and in arcades across the country. The companies first major success of the company was the classic game. Pong. With the popularity of this game, and clever marketing, Atari Inc. made enough money to produce their first console, the Atari 2600. The incredible sales numbers of the 2600 led the company to produce more games and consoles, including the Atari 5200, which pushed the video game market farther and farther than its ever been before. It was this massive boom in success of the company that helped popularize video games beyond their limits, and engaging a whole generation in the joy that comes from good game-play. Unfortunately, it was this massive boom that almost destroyed the future of video game entertainment as well. A decade after Atari first went public, video games started a downhill slope, resulting in what is known as the North American Video Game Crash of 1983. In this 10 year span, there were little regulations on who could make video games, and as such, any company that came up with half an idea for a game would then produce a half made game in an effort to make a quick buck. This over saturation of the market is one of the major contributions to the Crash, and what led to Atari Inc. shutting its doors in 1984.
Since that time, Nolan Bushnell has been honing his business acumen on all sorts of projects. In addition to his business successes and various awards, Mr. Bushnell has devoted his talents to designing programs and technologies to assist people in all manner of ways. His latest project, Brainrush, is designed to help students learn faster and retain more through the use of video game metrics to engage the mind and make the learning process more interactive and interesting. But now, after 32 years, Mr. Bushnell has decided it is time to get back to his roots, and design video games again. As befits his forward thinking business tactics, Mr. Bushnell has decided to make his return with the use of mobile gaming. He has partnered with Dutch company Spil Games to make three new games for mobile platforms. In my opinion, I believe this is the perfect market to make a come back. The home video game market would be almost impossible to break in too, with Xbox and Playstation’s success, and Nintendo has always held the reins when it comes to handheld gaming systems, but mobile games? Everyone has a smart phone, and with the market of free to play games becoming ever more prevalent and easily accessible, it is the perfect way for someone with Nolan Bushnell’s experience in gaming and business to step back into the lime light and do what he does best. I’m sure that, over the last 30 years, Mr. Bushnell has had plenty of ideas forming in the back of his head, and I personally can’t wait to see what new experiences he will bring to the world.
It is thanks to men like Nolan Bushnell that video games have become such an enjoyable form of entertainment, and that the market continues to grow. Every day new jobs open up, new interesting ideas come out, and the wheels of economy keep on rolling forward. Video games aren’t just for children anymore, they affect us all, and everyone can enjoy them, from my four year old son, to a seventy-seven year old entrepreneur, we never stop being gamers. We just reach new levels.
http://darth-azrael.tumblr.com/post/154596466794/the-return-of-a-historical-gaming-legend
