VectorGamer Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 (edited) Atari's founder won't receive a major industry award as #TimesUp turns to video games https://mashable.com/2018/01/31/atari-nolan-bushnell-gdc-pioneer-award-rescinded/#o5Z_WIsoFOqS The backlash began on Tuesday, shortly after a press release went out naming Bushnell as the Pioneer Award recipient for 2018. It has long been known that a frat-like culture dominated the early days of Atari, back in the 1970s and 1980s when the brand was still a major player in the gaming world. While Bushnell hasn't been chased by the sorts of allegations that have surfaced about men like Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey, his well-documented past behavior — in news reports, interviews, and books — is cause for concern. In one anecdote from The Ultimate History of Video Games, a book that includes details from the early years of Atari, Bushnell held a board meeting in his backyard hot tub and tried to cajole a woman who delivered legal documents into joining. As he told The San Francisco Chronicle in a profile: "Some ladies feel comfortable around me, and some don’t. I find the aura of power and money is very intimidating to an awful number of girls." GDC rescinds Atari founder Nolan Bushnell’s Pioneer Award after #MeToo protests https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/31/gdc-rescinds-atari-founder-nolan-bushnells-pioneer-award-after-metoo-protests/ Game Developers Conference Rescinds Atari Founder's Award Nom Amid Outcry (Update) https://www.rollingstone.com/glixel/news/gdc-rescinds-atari-founders-pioneer-award-amidst-outcry-w516156 Response from Nolan https://twitter.com/NolanBushnell/status/958770585433120768 Edited January 31, 2018 by VectorGamer 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 When did this entire planet turn into a bunch of whiny assed pansies? 18 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 It was the 70s! I really hate when people condemn the past because it doesn't live up to their contemporary values. 50 or 100 years from now these same people on their moral high horses now will be judged just as badly by the moral do-gooders of that era. Values change. People are the product of the environment they grew up in and we shouldn't be so quick to condemn. Nobody can deny that Bushnell didn't have a bigger impact on the games industry than most people. 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roadrunner Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 This didn't bother people for 40 darn years, why does it bother people now?Is anyone safe?Hef should be glad he's dead. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldSchoolRetroGamer Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 (edited) When did this entire planet turn into a bunch of whiny assed pansies?Pretty sure in the grand scheme of things it is really only a small vocal minority, problem is they are very loud, very vocal and social media and crap "news" articles feed into it making it all seem so much bigger than it really is. Edited January 31, 2018 by OldSchoolRetroGamer 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Sauron Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 I gotta ask, having been living out in Eastern Europe for almost 5 years now...are things really that insane back home in the US?? I'm seriously scared to go back. There's no way I would want to live in a place where society has really gone that far out insane. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke75 Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 "Nolan Bushnell Denied Award for Crime of Living During 1970s" 13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanooki Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 Pathetic. So he did stuff like that back in those decades, 30-40 years ago. I'm not dismissing it, but that was the culture then. What's next? Condemning people that are 70 and up are all universally racist and have no right to speak? Sauron yes it has gotten that badly. During the last executive (political) administration the standard thing to do seemed to be a way to latch onto anything poltiical, racial, sex, or mental condition based and make harassment campaigns and vigilante judgements against others without a care to the time, circumstances, or all parties involved. The US has become a country now of butthurt over any issue. If it's not that, you find an excuse to stigmatize or attack a symbol or saying some asshole used. Another that's related would be attacking 'something' because the person involved had some loose tie to it as the tipping point excuse to rage out and throw a lot of people into a box to make it easy for attacks. A few years back did a horrible attack on a black church, there was a video of the guy at one point with the st andrews cross flag (confederacy related) behind him. The vocal jerks didn't care so much about his motivations, they just took the south, the flag, the church being shot up, bundled it and made it acceptable to attack anyone or anything related to the confederacy from the Dukes of Hazzard to girls with that flag on a bikini bottom, or to civil war statues that have been in the ground for 75-150 years. It has become trendy and cool to trump up some false rage and crybaby antics to get attention just to fuck with other people to cause discomfort, pain and annoyance. Right now you have the minority vocal left (and in rarer cases the vocal right religious types) who will attack and persecute anyone over anything they don't want to hear, see, or even know exists and they run to the media and try and get as much attention as possible to stir up other people to spread it out further. In this country right now you can't publicly hold a belief contradictory to what some others think, majority or minority in support, without some group of people verbally, textually, physically or legally harassing the shit out of you. It's kind of like a legalized whiny form of gestapo, stasi, or DPRK goon squad tactics to enforce, pain, fear, and concern about speaking up without horrible consequences. 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skippy B. Coyote Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 I'm one of the most socially liberal and equality-minded people you may ever run into, but even I have to look at this and go "When did our society become a bunch of hyper sensitive little snowflakes?" Denying Nolan Bushnell a lifetime video game achievement award because he acted like a normal person during a time when social norms were different is just completely asinine. What the hell is wrong with people. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VectorGamer Posted January 31, 2018 Author Share Posted January 31, 2018 Proposed Bushnell Award Creates #MeToo Firestorm http://web-extract.constantcontact.com/v1/social_annotation?permalink_uri=2FxshXN&image_url=http%3A%2F%2Ffiles.constantcontact.com%2Ff670f869001%2F1984ec2a-994b-4b7c-af06-ba7a650d757b.jpg Elaine Shirley, an Atarian of that era, told RePlay: ”Those were the times. He [Nolan Bushnell] hit 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. “In truth,” Shirley continued, “I think there were at least the same or more aggressive women at the company. I am not condoning any inappropriate violations related to the #MeToo movement, but I think the movement needs to relate to the era in which the ‘violation’ occurred. However, there are some lines that can never be crossed (especially with children or sexual assaults) no matter what era it was.” She continued that there was a time when two salesmen in the industry complemented her at a trade show, saying she had the “best legs in the industry.” “That would not be acceptable now, but it did not bother me,” she said. “They should give Nolan the award,” she concluded. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 I gotta ask, having been living out in Eastern Europe for almost 5 years now...are things really that insane back home in the US?? I'm seriously scared to go back. There's no way I would want to live in a place where society has really gone that far out insane. It's a combination of being in the social media era, and for some reason the younger generation has turned out to be rather prudish and puritan-like 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 I'm one of the most socially liberal and equality-minded people you may ever run into, but even I have to look at this and go "When did our society become a bunch of hyper sensitive little snowflakes?" Denying Nolan Bushnell a lifetime video game achievement award because he acted like a normal person during a time when social norms were different is just completely asinine. What the hell is wrong with people. It wasn't that long ago that the socially liberal types were the 60s free-love types that created the Atari culture in the first place. I don't think these modern "liberals" are liberal at all. They are more like the "church lady" stereotype except without the church 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skippy B. Coyote Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 It wasn't that long ago that the socially liberal types were the 60s free-love types that created the Atari culture in the first place. I don't think these modern "liberals" are liberal at all. They are more like the "church lady" stereotype except without the church 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 Everybody's done things in their past that they wish they could take back. Don't kill bugs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hatta Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 (edited) You all make me ashamed to be a gamer. Good on GDC. Speaking of whiny ass pansies, there's an awful lot of whining in this thread. There's nothing "free love" about implied threats to your employment as an incentive to sex. And the radical feminists you think are prudish are freakier and more partnered than any centrist I know. Edited January 31, 2018 by Hatta 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inky Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 There's nothing "free love" about implied threats to your employment as an incentive to sex. Show us where this happened in Atari with Bushnell. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 Show us where this happened in Atari with Bushnell. Yes, it would be a completely different story if this was the case. There's nothing "free love" about implied threats to your employment as an incentive to sex. And the radical feminists you think are prudish are freakier and more partnered than any centrist I know. See that's 2018 feminism talking. 60s/70s feminism said that women had been sexually repressed for far too long, and they should have the right to liberate their bodies and that included sleeping around as freely as men. Now I don't endorse the 70s Atari culture. I see it as too hedonistic for my taste. But I do understand it was a product of its era. I don't think its fair to retroactively punish someone because they didn't conform to the norms of a time they weren't living in. Irregardless of his personal life, he is a videogame pioneer and deserves to be recognized as such. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gamemoose Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 It'll be interesting to see how society will be in the next decade. People perhaps being more impersonal (men more so perhaps) for fear of having their actions interpreted as a sexual advance. Could we as a nation become cold to other people, only interacting through safe electronic means? Will a little bit of the world of "Demolition Man", as silly as the idea was, come to fruition? It'd be one thing if the man pulled a Cosby and had a throng of women come forward, but it sounds like he didn't go those extremes. Just cajoled like a red-blooded male in the 70's. Gee....I wonder if the stereotypical construction worker of the era will get dredged up for all the cat-calls and wolf-whistles done to women..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laner Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 (edited) It wasn't that long ago that the socially liberal types were the 60s free-love types that created the Atari culture in the first place. I don't think these modern "liberals" are liberal at all. They are more like the "church lady" stereotype except without the church They're definitely "progressive"/"leftists." Not classically liberal by any definition though. (That's the problem with our society's insistence on redefining words to suit one's own agenda.) They're essentially authoritarians who have rejected traditional organized religion and created their own out of whole cloth. Edited January 31, 2018 by Laner 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian O Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 Show us on the Atari where Nolan touched you. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldSchoolRetroGamer Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 (edited) And here we go..................has nothing to do with the award or his achievements, stop judging people on past behaviour by modern standards.This "outcry" is by modern SJW's that were not even around back when Nolan made those achievements.Shame on GDC for pandering to these idiots. More Brianna Wu Gamergate related BS. Edited January 31, 2018 by OldSchoolRetroGamer 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacecadet Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 (edited) I'm one of the most socially liberal and equality-minded people you may ever run into, but even I have to look at this and go "When did our society become a bunch of hyper sensitive little snowflakes?" Same here. This is the kind of thing that really turns people off from liberalism, and it is *not* liberalism. At all. It's just prudishness and revisionist history. Also, a lot of people quick to outrage, which seems to be a bipartisan affliction these days. They're definitely "progressive"/"leftists." Not classically liberal by any definition though. (That's the problem with our society's insistence on redefining words to suit one's own agenda.) Progressive/leftist and liberal are the same thing. These people are definitely not that. This is a whole separate movement at this point. When it starts taking down other known liberals like Al Franken, who also was taken down by stuff that was public knowledge and that he had no chance to defend against (I mean, news flash: he worked at SNL in the 1970's), then that is not a liberal/progressive/leftist movement. It's just an outrage movement. Edited January 31, 2018 by spacecadet 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg2600 Posted January 31, 2018 Share Posted January 31, 2018 I have battled with these fools on Twitter all day. Their politics are irrelevant, they're just lazy and gratify themselves with a mob lynching. What's so angering to me and others is that these kids, and they're really kids, have no idea about Atari. They don't know what went on there, they don't know the people. MeToo sadly has become GET HIM TOO. Marty Goldberg said to expect an actual researched article from Kotaku soon. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pacman000 Posted February 1, 2018 Share Posted February 1, 2018 On the plus side Nolan's response was both professional and well thought out. Post a link to that Kotaku article when it's avaliable, please. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Osgeld Posted February 1, 2018 Share Posted February 1, 2018 Show us on the Atari where Nolan touched you. right in the taco 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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