Creator of Pong: Today’s Games Are “Trash”
By Chris on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 12:20 PM PST In Gamer Life, Games Industry
As if that title weren’t eye catching enough, it was only a mere snippet of what Nolan Bushnell had to say about today’s videogames. Bushnell is often referred to as the father of videogames, as he was the creator of Pong and founded Atari. During an interview, he stated, “Video games today are a race to the bottom. They are pure, unadulterated trash and I’m sad for that.”
Bushnell wants to take videogames in a different direction, where the games are very social and fun for families or groups of people. Last year he opened up uWink in California, which is an “entertainment dining experience,” as the story calls it, where people can eat and play tabletop games. I can do that at home, but you don’t see me bragging.
“Social games represent something that has been missing,” he adds. “Most of the board games are purchased by women for families. It is this gaming world that can be re-energized. We used to have families sit down and play a game together. A lot of video games today are very isolated. You don’t see mom and dad, sister and brother, sitting down like they used to play, say, Monopoly,” says Bushnell. “That represented good mentoring time for families that just isn’t happening now.”
I agree with Bushnell, and that is why I support the Wii.
Well, do you see a lot of families playing video games? I think if Video games targeted families as their audience, you’d have a better market. You’d still have people who preferred the solo experience. returning Video games to family time would be a very good step for Video games, it would appeal better to the media, and people like Jack Thompson would have less to complain about.
social games? that’s what mmorpgs are about, massive MULTIPLAYER, hint hint
besides, anyone who plays monopoly hates cleaning up, and when someone gets bored, everyone gets bored, then the game ends with nothing happening.
i’d rather play FF1 on the NES before switching to 52-pick up(which was often played, really)