Talking With Nolan Bushnell

Milktoast writes "Joystick101.org has posted their interview with gaming legend Nolan Bushnell. The arcade guru who founded Atari, invented Pong, and started Chuck E. Cheese talks about the decline of the arcade, education, robotics, and gaming as a narrative. "

fast comment

[halftrack]

Make the games small, easy, but mentaly challenging. That's whats going to make tomorrows Einstein

Decline of the arcade? Sure...

[Balinares]

First of all I don't accept the premise that consumer games have hurt the arcades. The arcades have hurt themselves. The games in the arcades have not kept pace in a lot of the things, and they have gotten too complex for a lot of casual players and casual interaction.

No, they've not just become too complex. They've become sh*t. Last time I've been to the arcades, all there was fit into three categories: 1) 3D fighting games, 2) 3D racing games, 3) 3D shooting games. All very nice-looking, but designed so that a game lasts a very short time, for the local equivalent of more than $1.
If they had kept the trend where games were actually GOOD, with a rich and enjoyable gameplay, and where you could spend hours playing without spending too much money (anyone else remember Toki, Hammerin' Harry, Legend Of Hero Tonma? I loved them!), there would be no freaking decline of the arcade. 'Nuff said. :)

The downfall of the old arcade

[Jetson]

The article complains that today's games are too complicated to allow casual players to have any fun. That much is true. One of the big things that got me away from the arcade was the rising prices. When arcades were at their peak in the early 80's it was common for my classmates and I to buy a roll of quarters ($10) and make it last at least a day or two. Then as the technology improved the prices started rising. It wasn't enough for them to charge $.50 or $.75 per game, but they also started with the "renewable" game where you had to keep feeding quarters if you wanted to keep playing. Next thing you know, that $10 roll doesn't last 'till dinner. Teenagers have always been the demographic that played games, and at the time we just couldn't afford to start bringing $20 bills every day. I think the trend toward home game systems has a lot more to do with economics than people realize. Sure, the technology is great and the convenience of playing at 3am in your skivvies is enticing, but the big issue for a lot of parents is the fact that they don't have to give the kid a $20 and send him/her out to play.

Arcades did themselves in? Not sure about that one

[Denito]

From the Article:
First of all I don't accept the premise that consumer games have hurt the arcades. The arcades have hurt themselves.

This guy may be a guru, and he's done a lot of cool things, but I think he's really overlooking a lot of factors by saying that arcades did themselves in. I used to visit a stereotypical 'shag-rug' arcade all the time, and the decline started just about Sega Genisis came about. I remember talking to the arcade owner, and his 'market research' said pretty much the same thing..

Obviously, its a combination of factors-- but what killed the mall style arcade with the top 100 games was that the games weren't that much better than home systems!

And to say that things got too complex.. well that depends on what kind of gamer you're going for! I used to love playing classic driving games (Remember Hard Drivin [klov.com], anyone?), but now all the arcade driving games are totally, well 'arcade like'..

Re:Decline of the arcade? Sure...

[coreman]

I think the dawn of the decline was back in the laserdisk game days when games became series of decision points with binary outcomes. I can still remember standing next to players that were ranting "right left up left left" without anything like "shoot him and then go over there and get that one before he comes down this side". Certainly there were formulas for advancing levels in the shoot 'em ups but in the decision tree games there were limited numbers of paths that made the game a fixed sequence of meaningless moves far sooner. The video game escaped the randomness of the pinball game in order to limit playtime and generate revenue.

Education as a game

[dgroskind]

He says: I believe that a school teacher today is so outgunned in this world of competition for ideas. Think about a school teacher with a piece of chalk and a blackboard competing with the minds of children inundated with commercials that have million dollar production values... The immature mind I don't believe can distinguish from good ideas that are poorly produced and bad ideas that are well produced. And so I feel like we need to get media systems into the educational process and to fail to do so is to fail.

Wrong for two reasons:

1. His solution perpetrates the very evil that it seeks to combat. Students need to be able to distinguish bad ideas from good ideas. Meerly packaging good ideas in the same manner as bad ideas further blurs the distinction. You would almost be better off presenting good ideas in an a delibertely understated manner to distinguish them from fatuous nonsense.

2. Education can never hope to compete in glitz with advertising. Educational materials will always look shoddy compared to advertising.

One should keep a clear distinction between games and education. Games are supposed to be fun, pure and simple. They can only incorporate education to the extent that education is fun.

Education, however, is often frustrating and ultimately hard. Where interactive multimedia can make it easier, it has a role. But at some point, it's just your brain and an idea with no intervening media whatsoever. That point is where education begins and the sooner you get to that point, the better.

Re:Education Benefitting From Gaming

[GregWebb]

Part of the problem would seem to be the current culture. Oh, this is talking about the UK, I don't know what it's like in the US though I believe it can be pretty similar.

The point being that young male culture currently regards academic success as a failure at life. Socially, the rewards are given for engaging with academic pursuits as little as possible and barely tolerating it as an intrusion on your life. There was a lovely tagling I saw recently, along the lines that it was sad to live in a society where knowing how to program your VCR lowered your social status.

While educational success isn't a social win but a social loss, this performance is pretty much what's expected. Yes, games are always going to have the benefit of immediate reward, but when (youth) society is teaching the kids that they'll be happier if they _don't_ succeed at school, it's little surprise that games (a clearly recognised source of social status) are, in some ways, a more potentially valuable educational tool.

There was an interesting article about this some time ago, which concluded that part of the problem was that most primary age teachers were female - so there weren't many educational role models for the young boys. Guys, maybe you should look again at teaching, even if just part-time in the voluntary sector.

Exclusion of women

[tmark]

Bushnell argues at least twice that the downfall of the arcade has to do with newer, more violent games excluding women. I think he's wrong. At the zenith of the arcade, women were an overwhelming minority at arcades, and most of them who were there did not actually play much but were just there to watch their boyfriend play Missile Command or Asteroids for hours. I see far more women in arcades now then I ever did 15-20 years ago. Sure, men still outnumber women greatly, but you certainly can't blame the decline of the arcade on this constant.

To Complex

[squaretorus]

"The games in the arcades have not kept pace in a lot of the things, and they have gotten too complex for a lot of casual players and casual interaction. "

Yep - I'd agree with that. Go into any arcade attached to a family fun park and you'll find that everyone over 16 is playing either driving games or that one with the flying bike going through hoops.

Immediacy is what its about for a massive portion of the public. I, as someone unable to get to the arcades too often, and damn reluctant to put £2 into a game for about a minute of fun because I get my arse kicked immediately because I dont know the controls yet.

Gimme a gan, and something funny to shoot at. Or a car and a track to race round with brake assist on, or a bunch of little jars and a ping pong ball and a cutie to pass the balls back to me when I miss - "aww gee! another on the floor!"

arcades have become a marketing tool

[Anonymous Coward]

My father runs a privatly owned arcade and we've felt the decline of the arcade for a good five years now. I hold this mostly to the fact that game companies have been buying out privatly owned arcades and puting in SEGA city's and other such big company arcades and charging exorbant amounts for games. The sole purpose of the arcade now is for a gaming company to take numbers down and see how a game is going after a month they put it out on the home system and start watching the money roll in. If it tanks in the arcade they don't release it. If its good in the arcade its out next week and all the kids buy it and there's nolonger a need to go to the arcade for it. Who cares anymore if that guy playing there is the unbeatable champ. i'll save my money and go home to play on my PS or DC or whatever system. I remember when the NeoGeo came out the home system was basicly the same guts as the arcade and even the arcade used nearly the same cartrige for the games. Not that NeoGeo has gone anywhere in either market. Ultimately its dificult to keep new games in an arcade when the cost of a single machine is as much as a car in somecases and then you need to support it while it pays for itself for three to eight months during which the game is either good and gets released for the home system after a month so you don't get it paid for, or its trash and dosen't pay for itself ever. Either way the only ones who win are the game companies who can filter out the garbage and release the good stuff (not that there isn't a huge amount of crap that gets through anyway). Expect to see arcades who have money to grow and an enviroment to grow in to move toward VR type games and more sitdown car and gun games. The experince is the only part the arcade has left. There are some interesting new directons games have headed in with full motion fight sims and other user interfaces like the fairly new "police 911" which senses the location of the player on a pad with some other sensors around them and lets you dodge behind things for protection and reloading (altho ten minutes on that game and my fat playstation butt is pretty sore).

I propose that game complanies start taking better advantage of this oportunity and give games to arcades at cost in return for full market information such as player info and revenu reports to help in filtering and perhaps more feed back to create better games. If they're going to use it as a test market why dont we get the benefits of other test markets and beta testers.

but thats just my opinion, i could be wrong.

Re:Oh, so he "invented" pong?

[mbadolato]

Nolan is also able to claim creating the first video arcade game [klov.com], which was actually before pong.

This is a rare one. I've seen a couple, but never gotten to play one. I've heard gameplay sucks, but at least the cabinet is cool looking! :)

The Experience is more than _just_ the Game (DDR!)

[Sangammon]

I, too, harbor a good deal of nostalgia and sometimes lament the much-touted 'fall of the arcade'. But when I come to my senses, I realize that said 'fall' is not a fact of history, but a misunderstanding made by many people.

What arcades have historically tried to sell is an experience. The videogame was (and still is) central to that experience, until the popularization of the first generation of consoles (The Atari 2600, Colecovision, etc. -- the early home computers were already a niche market), the idea of playing videogames at a non-commercial venue was simply impractical.

So the videogame was largely the experience.

With the popularization and explosion in power of home consoles and PCs (architecture-neutral term), people can play any old game at home. In fact, with the popularization of multiplayer games, particularly Internet-centric multiplayers games, the 'home' experience is often superior to that of the arcade.

What most people miss, however, is that in a few select regions (notably California and New York City), the social aspect of gaming is coming back. Many have mentioned Dance Dance Revolution, even if only in passing. I think that DDR is a revolution in more ways than just name; while the DDR "game experience" can conceivably be replicated at home (though, of course, with inferior input), the social experience of DDR can not be so easily replicated.

Communities have developed around DDR that are inherently friendly and inherently communicative. Even for one-time or very occasional players, the very act of getting up on the pad and moving your body to the music strikes a very primal chord with most people. At an "everday" arcade when a player steps up to a previously unoccupied DDR machine, a crowd forms around him and marvels, and cheers on! This social experience isn't just a benefit to the player, spectating is often extremely entertaining, especially while watching experts or freestylers.

The arcade isn't dead, it has just had to evolve.

Re:Arcades did themselves in? Not sure about that

[Junks Jerzey]

Obviously, its a combination of factors-- but what killed the mall style arcade with the top 100 games was that the games weren't that much better than home systems!

And that comes around to games falling into a handful of overdone genres. At arcades what do you get: driving games, gun games, fighting games. At home what do you get: gun games, driving games, fighting games, plus a few other styles. To get people to play in arcades there needs to be a fresher experience for the player. Arcades countered home systems by going fo gun and driving games with lots of expensive hardware attached, but that just made it harder for arcade owners to turn a profit.

In arcades of yore, the hook was that was a smorgasbord of games. When arcades are filled with small variations on themes that were creatively dead in 1995, then there's not much appeal.