Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari: life is like a game
History usually remembers the names of the pioneers, the winners, leaving in the shadow of those who lost the race for the championship - even if only slightly. The first cosmonaut was Yuri Gagarin. The first mass light bulb was invented by Thomas Edison. The first massive personal computer released by Steve Jobs. It’s even more surprising that Nolan Bushnell, the creator of the first video game that won mass popularity, the founder of Atari , the “father of the video game industry”, became an exception to this category - a rare gamer will remember it today. But this is the most colorful personality.
Bushnell is in a way the antagonist of Bill Gates. If Gates is a “prudent” leadership pole — intelligent, prudent, pragmatic — then Bushnell, with his frantic energy, adventurism, and passion for sometimes thoughtless innovation, is a clear example of the “chaotic” pole. Steve Jobs (at least in his second coming) can be represented as the "middle ground" between them, harmoniously combining business calculation and emotions in the management of a company. Unlike Gates and Jobs, Bushnell has practically no “brakes”, and this has done him a disservice more than once. In particular, Bushnell did not manage to keep Atari on top after the first tremendous success. And the point is not that Bushnell was unable to understand what gamers want, just ... But first things first.
Nolan Bushnell was born in 1943. Despite the fact that he grew up in a Mormon family, where it was decided to work hard, tirelessly, from childhood he began to show an ineradicable interest in gambling and in every risk in particular. It was this trait of his character that dominated everything else his whole life and eventually led to all his victories and defeats. In various gambling games with peers, he eventually let down the entire amount that his parents set aside for his college entrance. The enraged father told Bushnell that, since he had squandered money for his studies, he would have to go straight to work in the sweat of his brow. Bushnell worked for several years at various places that did not require high qualifications (including working as a keeper and caretaker for rides in an amusement park, which allowed him to further understand the psychology of visitors to various entertainment and entertainment establishments). As a result, he accumulated funds and entered the University of Utah at the Faculty of Electronics. In his studies, Nolan did not have enough stars from the sky, but he was greatly impressed by one subject - a computer graphics course, where teachers sometimes demonstrated the simplest games programmed on a computer. Bushnell, whose passion for risk over the years only inflamed (fellow students even called him Yankee Player), just fell in love with this high-tech entertainment.
')
After college, Bushnell began to look for a way to realize his ambitious dream - to bring computer games from university classes to the masses. His career, meanwhile, did not take shape: he was not accepted into the Walt Disney studio, where he always wanted to work, and he had to work in a petty position at Ampex Corporation , which was engaged in the production and sale of tape recorders (in the meantime, it was also an IT thing). This prompted Bushnell even more to try his luck in “independent swimming”. He tried to ask the price of computers of that time to build gaming devices from them, but then the computers were too cumbersome and expensive.
Everything changed in 1970 - the first integrated circuits and microprocessors entered the market, making reality a compact computer at a reasonable price. Bushnell immediately jumped at the chance. He quit Ampex and went to work for Nutting Associates , a company selling simple computer games. He offered the company his development under the name Computer Space , which he had been bearing since his student years. However, sales have shown that the game is too difficult for potential players: ordinary people simply did not understand the concept of entertainment, born geek engineers. It was then, watching the collapse of his first creation, Bushnell came to the conclusion: the people do not like complicated games. We need to come up with a game that will be understood by the last drunk in a provincial bar.
Initially, Nolan believed that the racing simulator would be suitable for the role of “opium for the people”. Who knows what would have come out of this venture, but after Bushnell accidentally attended the presentation of the computer Magnavox Odyssey , where the simplest simulator of the game of tennis was displayed on the screen as a demo application, he understood: this is what you need. He quit Nutting Associates (although he was offered to stay there in a solid position and even become a co-owner) and founded Syzygy (syzygy is an astronomical situation in which three celestial bodies are located on the same line; because of its symbolism, astrologers also love it). But it soon turned out that the name Syzygy already has a candle factory. Fearing legal conflicts, Bushnell renamed his firm. As a new name, he took the term from the Chinese game of go, which denotes the situation of attacking the opponent's pieces, resembling a chess checker.
So in 1972 the Atari company appeared.
The game, developed by Bushnell, was called Pong and really was utterly simple: a “tennis ball” flies across the screen, which needs to be reflected using the “racket”. In the game there is an account, points are given for the opponent not to hit the ball with a racket. Initially, Bushnell’s plans were very modest - he wanted to sell a license to his game to some well-known manufacturer, but one after another all large companies refused Bushnell - they say, the game will be uninteresting to the typical man in the street. Having doubted that his offspring was indeed of interest to the players, Bushnell decided to arrange a “test drive”: assembled one slot machine, on which he installed Pong , and put it in the Andy Caps bar in Sunnyvale (California), where the office was located his company. The price for a game session was 25 cents.
A couple of days later, the bar owner called Bushnell and demanded that he remove the machine gun: he broke down and only upset the visitors of the establishment. Bushnell went to repair Pong , but, having opened the case, did not find any faults. Only by trying to open the coin box, he understood what was the matter. In the capacity, designed for 300 quarters, there were no less than 1200 of them. The reason for the failure of the device was that it was too popular. Bushnell realized that he pulled out a trump card, and, with his usual adventurousness, rushed into the pool headlong: he immediately stopped looking for buyers for the game and decided to produce Pong on his own capacities. The problem was that he had no money at all, but he managed to convince Wels Fargo Bank of the promising idea and open a $ 50,000 credit line. Having purchased production facilities and parts, Bushnell began to manufacture the game. In November 1972, the first installments of Pong began to be installed in bars and lounges.
Pong has become extremely popular. She was the first truly massive video game, actually creating this market from scratch. American media still styled Bushnell none other than King Pong . For 1973, Atari's profit was $ 3 million, for 1974 - already $ 10 million. By the end of 1974, more than 8,000 Pong machines were installed throughout the country. Meanwhile, Bushnell did not intend to rest on his laurels: he actively expanded his company's line of games (in two years games such as the Grand Track , Space Race , Touch Me and the improved versions of Pong - Super Pong and Quadra Pong were released ) and at the same time tried to launch production of a portable version of the Pong , which could be connected to a regular TV. All this required money, and the explosive growth of the company devoured almost all Atari cash. For a time, Bushnell coped with delays in employee salaries, but in 1976 it became clear that companies needed tangible cash infusions.
In general, Atari was a rather strange place at the time. Even the fact that such an extraordinary man, like Steve Jobs, chose Atari as the place of his first and last hired work, speaks about something. Atari reigned in the walls completely free spirit; most of the employees were either long-haired hippies or bearded bikers. In the workplace, alcohol poured in, almost all workers indulged in drugs. There was no working schedule, sometimes after the release of a new video game, the employees themselves were so fond of it that the production facilities were idle all day. Bushnell later admitted that at that moment he himself was very vaguely aware of how he managed to somehow manage this whole farce, so that the new machines would continue to go out. There is a legend that once, when investors came to the machine assembly workshop to see for themselves what they were investing, Bushnell had to hide his workers in empty containers and cardboard boxes: one look at them and investors would lose their trust in Atari . It is for this reason that Bushnell managed to keep the company afloat practically without finances for the time being - as a rule, Atari’s first employees were not interested in such trifles as meager wages and constant delays: Atari was just a place to hang out and talk. with their own kind.
Hour X came in 1976. Atari faced the fact that it needed large investments to cope with its own growth. The company's capitalization at that time was about $ 40 million, and it had excellent prospects: the portable version of Pong sold well and took over the homes of Americans. Nolan also had plans to release a new version of the portable console, which would not have been sharpened for one particular game, but worked on interchangeable cartridges that players could exchange among themselves (a console called Atari VCS ( Video Computer System ) was released in 1977 and served as the forerunner of devices such as all of our beloved NES and Sega Mega Drive ). In general, everything indicated that it was time to incorporate the company and make it a serious enterprise.
But ... what happened was to happen to a man like Nolan Bushnell. He was bored. The novelty of slot machines has lost its charm for him, the work at Atari has evolved from daily risk into a routine, and he sold the company.
Atari was bought by Warner Communications in 1976 for $ 28 million, with the condition of subsequent investment in the company $ 100 million. Bushnell himself received half the amount of the sale ($ 14 million) and was quite pleased with the deal. With this money, he could look for new adventures for himself, a new risk. In addition, he was left chairman of the board of directors of Atari (though not for long: in 1978, disgruntled new owners freed him from this post, and Bushnell was finally out of the company he created). It is said that the first check from this transaction - exactly one million dollars - Bushnell simply lost during a grand revelry arranged on this occasion, but did not become particularly upset. A person who sees life as one big risky exciting game has a generally easy attitude to problems.
Further, Bushnell gave the full will of his passion to create and experiment. First of all, he organized a network of restaurants Pizza Time Theater , the main idea of ​​which was to offer visitors waiting for their order all kinds of entertainment: from Bushnell’s favorite video games to children's playgrounds and dancing with costumed characters. The network brought good profits and expanded rapidly: in 1983, there were already 250 Pizza Time restaurants. The name Nolan Bushnell sounded loud on Wall Street. However, it was again brought down by the lack of “brakes” and cash: almost all of the income from restaurants Bushnell poured into the Catalyst subsidiary, which was engaged in risky venture capital investments in personally interesting Bushnell projects. In the same 1983, Pizza Time faced a financial shortage, was declared bankrupt and sold to a rival company. However, even after this failure, Bushnell had enough money, and he launched many more interesting projects on the verge of an adventure, and he did not forget about the IT sphere. So, Bushnell zealously enjoys robots, so he constantly takes part in various initiatives related to them. For example, in 1986, together with Steve Wozniak (who had already left Apple ), he developed the children's robots NEMO , which were controlled by voice commands. Among the recent projects of Bushnell, uWink Media Bistro is another restaurant business, built around the idea of ​​combining food and entertainment, and automating the Little Caesar's Pizza pizza chain 's food delivery system. Both projects are commercially successful and are currently operational.
Well, what about the Atari , from which he left? I am sure many here know what happened to her. In the 1970s, the company developed at an unprecedented pace, its name became almost the nominal designation of video games in general. At the peak moment of video game enthusiasm in the United States, in 1982, the company's profit was a fantastic $ 2 billion. But the computer games crisis of 1983 fundamentally loosened the company. Atari leadership made one bad decision after another, and as a result, Atari completely lost the war with a new generation of game consoles. During the 80s and 90s, the Atari star faded away, until finally, in 1996, the company closed. Nevertheless, the rights to the brand still wander from one owner to another - and even today, I think it’s hard not to recognize the famous logo. In addition, in 2010, Bushnell “went back to basics” by completing a full circle - he was included on the board of directors of Atari, SA , which owns the rights to the company's heritage. Unfortunately, a triumphant change in the fate of the brand, as is the case with Apple and Jobs, can hardly be expected, because in this case the patient is more dead than alive.
In conclusion - one interesting episode. In 1975, a young employee of his company approached Nolan Bushnell and showed him a prototype of a strange device, under which he needed investments. The employee was confident that the device has a huge potential - both commercial and technological. Bushnell critically looked at the prototype and said almost the same words that he had heard more than once at the beginning of his journey:
- A very interesting thing, but I do not think it will be interesting to buyers. Mass personal computers have no future.
Steve Jobs did not argue. He just walked away, taking the Apple I prototype with him. He was sure that personal computers have a great and bright future, and was determined to prove it to everyone ...
Bushnell is in a way the antagonist of Bill Gates. If Gates is a “prudent” leadership pole — intelligent, prudent, pragmatic — then Bushnell, with his frantic energy, adventurism, and passion for sometimes thoughtless innovation, is a clear example of the “chaotic” pole. Steve Jobs (at least in his second coming) can be represented as the "middle ground" between them, harmoniously combining business calculation and emotions in the management of a company. Unlike Gates and Jobs, Bushnell has practically no “brakes”, and this has done him a disservice more than once. In particular, Bushnell did not manage to keep Atari on top after the first tremendous success. And the point is not that Bushnell was unable to understand what gamers want, just ... But first things first.
Up to Atari
Nolan Bushnell was born in 1943. Despite the fact that he grew up in a Mormon family, where it was decided to work hard, tirelessly, from childhood he began to show an ineradicable interest in gambling and in every risk in particular. It was this trait of his character that dominated everything else his whole life and eventually led to all his victories and defeats. In various gambling games with peers, he eventually let down the entire amount that his parents set aside for his college entrance. The enraged father told Bushnell that, since he had squandered money for his studies, he would have to go straight to work in the sweat of his brow. Bushnell worked for several years at various places that did not require high qualifications (including working as a keeper and caretaker for rides in an amusement park, which allowed him to further understand the psychology of visitors to various entertainment and entertainment establishments). As a result, he accumulated funds and entered the University of Utah at the Faculty of Electronics. In his studies, Nolan did not have enough stars from the sky, but he was greatly impressed by one subject - a computer graphics course, where teachers sometimes demonstrated the simplest games programmed on a computer. Bushnell, whose passion for risk over the years only inflamed (fellow students even called him Yankee Player), just fell in love with this high-tech entertainment.
')
After college, Bushnell began to look for a way to realize his ambitious dream - to bring computer games from university classes to the masses. His career, meanwhile, did not take shape: he was not accepted into the Walt Disney studio, where he always wanted to work, and he had to work in a petty position at Ampex Corporation , which was engaged in the production and sale of tape recorders (in the meantime, it was also an IT thing). This prompted Bushnell even more to try his luck in “independent swimming”. He tried to ask the price of computers of that time to build gaming devices from them, but then the computers were too cumbersome and expensive.
Everything changed in 1970 - the first integrated circuits and microprocessors entered the market, making reality a compact computer at a reasonable price. Bushnell immediately jumped at the chance. He quit Ampex and went to work for Nutting Associates , a company selling simple computer games. He offered the company his development under the name Computer Space , which he had been bearing since his student years. However, sales have shown that the game is too difficult for potential players: ordinary people simply did not understand the concept of entertainment, born geek engineers. It was then, watching the collapse of his first creation, Bushnell came to the conclusion: the people do not like complicated games. We need to come up with a game that will be understood by the last drunk in a provincial bar.
Initially, Nolan believed that the racing simulator would be suitable for the role of “opium for the people”. Who knows what would have come out of this venture, but after Bushnell accidentally attended the presentation of the computer Magnavox Odyssey , where the simplest simulator of the game of tennis was displayed on the screen as a demo application, he understood: this is what you need. He quit Nutting Associates (although he was offered to stay there in a solid position and even become a co-owner) and founded Syzygy (syzygy is an astronomical situation in which three celestial bodies are located on the same line; because of its symbolism, astrologers also love it). But it soon turned out that the name Syzygy already has a candle factory. Fearing legal conflicts, Bushnell renamed his firm. As a new name, he took the term from the Chinese game of go, which denotes the situation of attacking the opponent's pieces, resembling a chess checker.
So in 1972 the Atari company appeared.
In atari
The game, developed by Bushnell, was called Pong and really was utterly simple: a “tennis ball” flies across the screen, which needs to be reflected using the “racket”. In the game there is an account, points are given for the opponent not to hit the ball with a racket. Initially, Bushnell’s plans were very modest - he wanted to sell a license to his game to some well-known manufacturer, but one after another all large companies refused Bushnell - they say, the game will be uninteresting to the typical man in the street. Having doubted that his offspring was indeed of interest to the players, Bushnell decided to arrange a “test drive”: assembled one slot machine, on which he installed Pong , and put it in the Andy Caps bar in Sunnyvale (California), where the office was located his company. The price for a game session was 25 cents.
A couple of days later, the bar owner called Bushnell and demanded that he remove the machine gun: he broke down and only upset the visitors of the establishment. Bushnell went to repair Pong , but, having opened the case, did not find any faults. Only by trying to open the coin box, he understood what was the matter. In the capacity, designed for 300 quarters, there were no less than 1200 of them. The reason for the failure of the device was that it was too popular. Bushnell realized that he pulled out a trump card, and, with his usual adventurousness, rushed into the pool headlong: he immediately stopped looking for buyers for the game and decided to produce Pong on his own capacities. The problem was that he had no money at all, but he managed to convince Wels Fargo Bank of the promising idea and open a $ 50,000 credit line. Having purchased production facilities and parts, Bushnell began to manufacture the game. In November 1972, the first installments of Pong began to be installed in bars and lounges.
Pong has become extremely popular. She was the first truly massive video game, actually creating this market from scratch. American media still styled Bushnell none other than King Pong . For 1973, Atari's profit was $ 3 million, for 1974 - already $ 10 million. By the end of 1974, more than 8,000 Pong machines were installed throughout the country. Meanwhile, Bushnell did not intend to rest on his laurels: he actively expanded his company's line of games (in two years games such as the Grand Track , Space Race , Touch Me and the improved versions of Pong - Super Pong and Quadra Pong were released ) and at the same time tried to launch production of a portable version of the Pong , which could be connected to a regular TV. All this required money, and the explosive growth of the company devoured almost all Atari cash. For a time, Bushnell coped with delays in employee salaries, but in 1976 it became clear that companies needed tangible cash infusions.
In general, Atari was a rather strange place at the time. Even the fact that such an extraordinary man, like Steve Jobs, chose Atari as the place of his first and last hired work, speaks about something. Atari reigned in the walls completely free spirit; most of the employees were either long-haired hippies or bearded bikers. In the workplace, alcohol poured in, almost all workers indulged in drugs. There was no working schedule, sometimes after the release of a new video game, the employees themselves were so fond of it that the production facilities were idle all day. Bushnell later admitted that at that moment he himself was very vaguely aware of how he managed to somehow manage this whole farce, so that the new machines would continue to go out. There is a legend that once, when investors came to the machine assembly workshop to see for themselves what they were investing, Bushnell had to hide his workers in empty containers and cardboard boxes: one look at them and investors would lose their trust in Atari . It is for this reason that Bushnell managed to keep the company afloat practically without finances for the time being - as a rule, Atari’s first employees were not interested in such trifles as meager wages and constant delays: Atari was just a place to hang out and talk. with their own kind.
Hour X came in 1976. Atari faced the fact that it needed large investments to cope with its own growth. The company's capitalization at that time was about $ 40 million, and it had excellent prospects: the portable version of Pong sold well and took over the homes of Americans. Nolan also had plans to release a new version of the portable console, which would not have been sharpened for one particular game, but worked on interchangeable cartridges that players could exchange among themselves (a console called Atari VCS ( Video Computer System ) was released in 1977 and served as the forerunner of devices such as all of our beloved NES and Sega Mega Drive ). In general, everything indicated that it was time to incorporate the company and make it a serious enterprise.
But ... what happened was to happen to a man like Nolan Bushnell. He was bored. The novelty of slot machines has lost its charm for him, the work at Atari has evolved from daily risk into a routine, and he sold the company.
After atari
Atari was bought by Warner Communications in 1976 for $ 28 million, with the condition of subsequent investment in the company $ 100 million. Bushnell himself received half the amount of the sale ($ 14 million) and was quite pleased with the deal. With this money, he could look for new adventures for himself, a new risk. In addition, he was left chairman of the board of directors of Atari (though not for long: in 1978, disgruntled new owners freed him from this post, and Bushnell was finally out of the company he created). It is said that the first check from this transaction - exactly one million dollars - Bushnell simply lost during a grand revelry arranged on this occasion, but did not become particularly upset. A person who sees life as one big risky exciting game has a generally easy attitude to problems.
Further, Bushnell gave the full will of his passion to create and experiment. First of all, he organized a network of restaurants Pizza Time Theater , the main idea of ​​which was to offer visitors waiting for their order all kinds of entertainment: from Bushnell’s favorite video games to children's playgrounds and dancing with costumed characters. The network brought good profits and expanded rapidly: in 1983, there were already 250 Pizza Time restaurants. The name Nolan Bushnell sounded loud on Wall Street. However, it was again brought down by the lack of “brakes” and cash: almost all of the income from restaurants Bushnell poured into the Catalyst subsidiary, which was engaged in risky venture capital investments in personally interesting Bushnell projects. In the same 1983, Pizza Time faced a financial shortage, was declared bankrupt and sold to a rival company. However, even after this failure, Bushnell had enough money, and he launched many more interesting projects on the verge of an adventure, and he did not forget about the IT sphere. So, Bushnell zealously enjoys robots, so he constantly takes part in various initiatives related to them. For example, in 1986, together with Steve Wozniak (who had already left Apple ), he developed the children's robots NEMO , which were controlled by voice commands. Among the recent projects of Bushnell, uWink Media Bistro is another restaurant business, built around the idea of ​​combining food and entertainment, and automating the Little Caesar's Pizza pizza chain 's food delivery system. Both projects are commercially successful and are currently operational.
Well, what about the Atari , from which he left? I am sure many here know what happened to her. In the 1970s, the company developed at an unprecedented pace, its name became almost the nominal designation of video games in general. At the peak moment of video game enthusiasm in the United States, in 1982, the company's profit was a fantastic $ 2 billion. But the computer games crisis of 1983 fundamentally loosened the company. Atari leadership made one bad decision after another, and as a result, Atari completely lost the war with a new generation of game consoles. During the 80s and 90s, the Atari star faded away, until finally, in 1996, the company closed. Nevertheless, the rights to the brand still wander from one owner to another - and even today, I think it’s hard not to recognize the famous logo. In addition, in 2010, Bushnell “went back to basics” by completing a full circle - he was included on the board of directors of Atari, SA , which owns the rights to the company's heritage. Unfortunately, a triumphant change in the fate of the brand, as is the case with Apple and Jobs, can hardly be expected, because in this case the patient is more dead than alive.
In conclusion - one interesting episode. In 1975, a young employee of his company approached Nolan Bushnell and showed him a prototype of a strange device, under which he needed investments. The employee was confident that the device has a huge potential - both commercial and technological. Bushnell critically looked at the prototype and said almost the same words that he had heard more than once at the beginning of his journey:
- A very interesting thing, but I do not think it will be interesting to buyers. Mass personal computers have no future.
Steve Jobs did not argue. He just walked away, taking the Apple I prototype with him. He was sure that personal computers have a great and bright future, and was determined to prove it to everyone ...
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/127817/
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