kevin242 Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 Atari founder says the games of today are "trash" Nolan Bushnell may not be a household word but his effect on the game industry has been felt for decades--he is the founder of Atari and one of the early pioneers in video games. But Bushnell has some harsh words for the state of today's games and said, "Video games today are a race to the bottom. They are pure, unadulterated trash and I'm sad for that." What he wants is less shooters, blow ‘em ups and beat ‘em ups in favor of games that are geared towards social interaction, fun and education. "Social games represent something that has been missing. 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. That represented good mentoring time for families that just isn't happening now." The 64-year-old Bushnell has apparently not done a whole lot of gaming of late as his very vision for social gaming seems to have come to fruition with Nintendo's Wii. The Wii has fostered the very concepts that Bushnell wants to see in the gaming industry. As far as present video games being an "isolated" experience, maybe a visit to Xbox Live may change his outlook as well. So what game does he see as fulfilling his desire of a title that fulfills his standards? "My personal favorite is Breakout. It is one of the games that everyone loved. It was very satisfying to play. It was like breaking down walls. And it was a metaphor. The world is better when you break down walls. Walls separate people. The more inclusive we can be, the better we can be as a species." So breaking down little colored bricks with a little bouncing ball on a TV screen leads to a metaphor of a better world? That's a bit of stretch if you ask me, but coming from a guy who hasn't produced a video game in over 30 years, it just might indicate that he's a little bit behind the gaming times. from: GAMENODE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 Atari founder says the games of today are "trash" ... So breaking down little colored bricks with a little bouncing ball on a TV screen leads to a metaphor of a better world? That's a bit of stretch if you ask me, but coming from a guy who hasn't produced a video game in over 30 years, it just might indicate that he's a little bit behind the gaming times. Perhaps, but I don't think he's too far off. Most games today (like music, television and just about everything else) embrace a way of life that is inherently antisocial. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 How ridiculous. I just love tunnel visioned luddites. There were trash games then, and trash games now. The world has progressed and so has video game entertainment. Join the 21st century. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 There were trash games then, and trash games now. The world has progressed and so has video game entertainment. Join the 21st century. Are you talking to me or Bushnell? I don't follow. Yes, there were trash games then...but trash in terms of quality, not in terms of the subject matter and overall game design, which is what Bushnell is referring to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gregory DG Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 I think he's saying that the games considered to be "great" today (like Halo 3) are trash. I can't say I totally agree, because those games DO have social interaction, goals to achieve, and a feeling of accomplishment. But after seeing the endless clones of the same game over and over... It gets dull. It'd be like having 20 years worth of Breakout clones with only minuscule updates to the graphics each time. "Oh! They added a RED brick in this version! Isn't it so great?" What I find to be a problem with games today is that they're not "pick-up-and-play." You have to learn 40 frickin' controls for each game! I even find this to be a problem with little Nintendo DS games. Every game has like 3 different actions for EACH BUTTON! It's ridiculous. And of course, it seems that every game today has to have a "story." Why can't a game just be a game? Why do we need to know why the gems are falling from the sky? Why do we need to know why we're shooing the monsters? Why do we need to know why so-in-so is playing this game of tennis or racing a car? Who the frick cares? Guess I'm just stuck in the world of the old days. Give me Tetris, Berzerk, Asteroids, Missile Command, or other classic games. Easy controls, satisfying gameplay, minimal story, and simple FUN. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 And of course, it seems that every game today has to have a "story." Why can't a game just be a game? Why do we need to know why the gems are falling from the sky? Why do we need to know why we're shooing the monsters? Why do we need to know why so-in-so is playing this game of tennis or racing a car? Who the frick cares? The old Atari 2600 games often gave you a story, but it was in the manual. You didn't have to sit through lame cut scenes or click through 10 minutes of stupid dialog. If there must be a story, give it to me while I'm playing. If I wanted to just sit and watch, I'd put in a DVD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Psionic Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 (edited) I think he's saying that the games considered to be "great" today (like Halo 3) are trash. I can't say I totally agree, because those games DO have social interaction, goals to achieve, and a feeling of accomplishment. But the social interaction is limited, and are these so-called "goals" to be achieved really legitimate goals? You have to understand what I mean by games today encouraging "antisocial" behaviour...I'm not just referring to the lack of social interaction between players, it goes deeper than that. I'm referring to antisocial behaviour from a psychological perspective. Antisocial personality disorder: a psychiatric condition characterized by an individual's common disregard for social rules, norms, and cultural codes, as well as impulsive behavior, and indifference to the rights and feelings of others. Characterized by three (3) or more of the following: - failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest - deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure - impulsivity or failure to plan ahead - irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults - reckless disregard for safety of self or others - consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain steady work or honor financial obligations - lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another (DSM-IV) Games (music, movies, whatever) today which stress goals such as killing people, beating and nailing strippers, selling drugs, etc. are inherently enforcing antisocial behavioural patterns. Yes, there have always been games like this, but you can't compare the games of old to the stuff today, where you are constantly bombarded with negative imagery. I think it is this "trashy" element of modern games that Bushnell is referring to. Edited October 21, 2007 by PingvinBlueJeans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+swlovinist Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 I think that comparing games of the past to the present state of games is nearly impossible. Obviously Nolan is 65, and has a biased opinion of what games have become. Are some games of the current crop trash? Very much so, but I do remember a few stinkers that came out that were equally "trash" I have been reflecting on the current state of gaming, and I have to say that I absolutely love it. There is nearly a game out there for everyone, including biased retro freaks that dont want to touch anything new. Perfect example would be Geometry Wars, a true classic that many retrogamers have accepted to be a new cult classic. There are many more examples that could be given, such as Luminies. Personally I think that current gaming is so diverse and broad, I am suprised that Nolan is not more happy with it.... I bet he would change his tuneabout current gaming if he was making more money off of it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moycon Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 (edited) Well as great as he was, a pioneer of the videogame industry, a man that changed the face of entertainment....He must be senile, or bitter that he's a nobody to most videogamers now. His opinions are ludicrous. No offense ment since he may be suffering from a mental disorder now for all I know. But the social interaction is limited, and are these so-called "goals" to be achieved really legitimate goals? What great goal was achieved hitting virtual bricks with a virtual ball in Breakout?? What outstanding benefit to society was gained from blowing the piss out of your friends blocky tank with your blocky tank in Combat? What fantastic leaps of social skills were made shooting your dad in the face from behind a cactus in Outlaw? Tell me...what anti-social hell spawn is unleashed when you play a few rounds of bowling in Wii Sports with your Grandma? What travesty on humanity is present while helping your child build his piñata garden in Viva Piñata?? What diabolical demon doth touch the evil Wii-mote challenging their siblings to a round or two of Big Brain Academy!!! I can't believe anyone would read that (pardon my French) SHIT and find any semblance to logic. Fess up PingvinBlueJeans, You ARE Bushnell hiding behind a pseudonym aren't you? Gotta be. Edited October 21, 2007 by moycon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scumdogg Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 I know he's well respected and all, but i think it's hilarious that a guy who formed a company to produce bartop touch-screen games is throwing around a word like "trash". Also i've gotta say....not really buying the "Breakout as a metaphor" business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Random Terrain Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 You know what else is funny? Before I got an Atari, I didn't have a game system that I could play by myself. I had a crappy two-player only Pong rip-off. The Atari 2600 finally gave me the isolated experiences that I wanted. This is also kind of funny: "You don't see mom and dad, sister and brother, sitting down like they used to play, say, Monopoly. That represented good mentoring time for families that just isn't happening now." Playing competitive games with others may not be that good for people either. It might be much better if families played cooperative games instead: http://www.familypastimes.com/together.html Play as friends, not as enemies! Our games foster the spirit of co-operation. Players help each other climb a mountain, make a community, bring in the harvest, complete a space exploration... They are never against each other. After all, the initial impulse to play a game is social; that is, we bring out a game because we want to do something together. How ironic then that in most games, we spend all our efforts trying to bankrupt someone, destroy their armies — in other words, to get rid of one another! We soon learn how to pick on the other person's weaknesses in order to win the game. Let's take an example. A simple, common party game for socializing youngsters illustrates our point. Musical Chairs fosters aggression and elimination. Played co-operatively (see our Games Manual), you will see how hugging replaces pushing, how ability and strength are used to help rather than push out of the way. People of different ages and abilities should be able to play side by side, each making their best contribution. In a co-operative game, someone young and little can play with others older and bigger and not worry about being wiped out. We are all there at the end of it. Some cautions. We don't protect children from not making it to the summit or completing the space voyage. Our games are designed to offer realistic challenges. But the cultural habit of competing and confronting adversaries runs deep. Some players end up fighting the game itself. We suggest that you'll get better results learning how to get along with Time, Winter, Gravity, and Mountains rather than fighting them. Aside from all these serious considerations, some people just want to share an enjoyable and challenging time with friends. We feel that co-operative games will prove to be that friendly form of fun. The challenge. In sum, games are used in various settings and for various reasons, Socialization, entertainment, academic learning, character growth, etc. Whatever your objective, we invite you to realize them by co-operative means. Parents and teachers trying to teach children to share, be kind to living things, and help others out often are troubled by games and recreation programs which undermine these values. Our games provide the opportunity to experience sharing and caring behavior. We simply don't have enough of such experiences. Related links: http://www.abundantearth.com/store/games1.html http://homepage.ntlworld.com/oxfordtours/games/ http://www.coopsports.com/purefun.shtml http://www.ru.org/maheshvarananda-113.htm http://whsc.emory.edu/_releases/2002july/altruism.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjarabbit Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 Games like Space Invaders are just as violent as Halo 3. You're killing aliens in both games, the only difference is the graphics more or less. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 Tell me...what anti-social hell spawn is unleashed when you play a few rounds of bowling in Wii Sports with your Grandma? What travesty on humanity is present while helping your child build his piñata garden in Viva Piñata?? What diabolical demon doth touch the evil Wii-mote challenging their siblings to a round or two of Big Brain Academy!!! I can't believe anyone would read that (pardon my French) SHIT and find any semblance to logic. Well, yeah, if you delude yourself into believing there's no such thing as Grand Theft Auto, or Manhunt, or Scarface, or Mortal Kombat, or Dead Rising, or... Seriously, Moycon. You're making the weakest, most intentionally ignorant argument in the history of any video game forum, anywhere, in this or any other dimension. I don't completely agree with Nolan Bushnell about the state of today's video games, but I can certainly understand his point of view. Many of the most popular video games of the 21st century are in extremely poor taste, full of blood, guts, profanity, violence, and sex. I can see why he's sick of it, because I'm pretty close to my own threshold of tolerance after seven years of morally bankrupt crapola. It's a good thing the Wii and Nintendo DS are around to tip the scales in the other direction. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artlover Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 Many of the most popular video games of the 21st century are in extremely poor taste, full of blood, guts, profanity, violence, and sex. I can see why he's sick of it, because I'm pretty close to my own threshold of tolerance after seven years of morally bankrupt crapola. Judging by how popular these games are, I get the feeling those who share this "opinion" are, luckily for the rest of us, in the minority. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 The popularity of the Wii and Nintendo DS says otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevin242 Posted October 21, 2007 Author Share Posted October 21, 2007 I think someone needs to tell Nolan about the Nintendo WII. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artlover Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 The popularity of the Wii and Nintendo DS says otherwise. Hardly. People who like these games like other games too. I love Sonic & Mario, also love GTA:SA and Reservoir Dogs. What I would NOT like is be limited to only Sonic & Mario. Which wasn't even the point. The point was, just because you don't like those games doesn't make them "in extremely poor taste" or "morally bankrupt". Those are individualisiticly subjective concepts, which you are free to have, but have no place as a generalized label. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jess Ragan Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 Sure it does. If you make a game where you kill small children to boost your character's abilities, that's in poor taste. That's not Jack Thompson-esque hyperbole, but an actual feature in Bioshock. You can't sprinkle your moral relativist fairy dust on Bioshock and somehow make it NOT in poor taste, because it is. I'm not saying you can't buy or play the game. All I'm saying is that it's tasteless. I stopped playing the game due in large part to its content... you can only see so many blood-streaked hospital rooms and twisted howling mutants before you just put down the controller and play something that doesn't leave your skin crawling. Frankly, it stuns me how dismissive you are of the content in today's video games. Is there anything that makes you say, "Wait a minute, I'm not comfortable with this", or have you become completely desensitized to the blood, guts, sex, and violence? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaGtGruff Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 When the author of the article says that Nolan's vision came true with the Wii, and that he needs to sit down in front of an XBox Live, he is showing that he didn't pay attention to what Nolan said. How is one person playing in front of a console, all alone, but hooked up with millions of other gamers online, the same thing as a family getting together in the same room and playing a board game together? It isn't the same thing. Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artlover Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 Is there anything that makes you say, "Wait a minute, I'm not comfortable with this" No, there isn't. or have you become completely desensitized to the blood, guts, sex, and violence? Why does that have to be the counter to liking those kinds of games? I simply see things the way they are. Fantasy and fiction are fantasy and fiction. Reality is reality. The two are seperate and removed from one another. The people with the "issues" are those who fail to grasp such a simple concept, not those who can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 When the author of the article says that Nolan's vision came true with the Wii, and that he needs to sit down in front of an XBox Live, he is showing that he didn't pay attention to what Nolan said. How is one person playing in front of a console, all alone, but hooked up with millions of other gamers online, the same thing as a family getting together in the same room and playing a board game together? It isn't the same thing. Michael Totally agree with you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BydoEmpire Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 I don't totally disagree. I think a big issue is that most modern games aren't really "games" anymore. They're trying to be interactive fiction... except it's only fiction written STRICLY at a 5th grade level. Games stopped trying to be a fun way to pass time with and have fun, and tried to be these big, deep experiences, but there nowhere even CLOSE to books and film. There's no depth. Where are the well-explored characters? Where is the social commentary? Where is the intelligent parallels of current issues? Games with those are few and far between. If games really want to be taken seriously as interactive entertainment on par with movies, we need to equivalent of a film like Ghandi, or heck, even Blade Runner. We've been stuck making the equivalent of SW: Episode I for the last 20 years. Okay, sometimes we add blood and guts and consider that "mature." Gaming content is simply not relevant to society at large. That said, I love a good sci-fi popcorn flick, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if all you get is an endless stream of sci-fi popcorn flicks, you'd probably get sick of the movies. So far, and with few exceptions, modern games haven't even come close to expressing ideas, emotions and people as well as books and film. Frankly, it stuns me how dismissive you are of the content in today's video games. Is there anything that makes you say, "Wait a minute, I'm not comfortable with this", or have you become completely desensitized to the blood, guts, sex, and violence?Good for you, that's not a popular thing to say on gaming boards. It's not about separating fantasy from reality (although that is a valid concern for young children), it's about empathy. Some people can empathise with characters (or people) more than others, and that's not a bad thing. If the game doesn't pull you in and make you feel for the characters, it's a pretty crappy piece of fiction, imho, interactive or otherwise. If you don't care what you're doing or you're doing it to, then why bother? That to me is what separates a good modern game from a bad one. I have to care about what I'm doing and why, or I get bored since I don't play modern games for the game itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JamesD Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 I think he might have been referring to game like Grand Theft Auto and some of the others with violence just for the sake of violence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recycled Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 And of course, it seems that every game today has to have a "story." Why can't a game just be a game? Why do we need to know why the gems are falling from the sky? Why do we need to know why we're shooing the monsters? Why do we need to know why so-in-so is playing this game of tennis or racing a car? Who the frick cares? The old Atari 2600 games often gave you a story, but it was in the manual. You didn't have to sit through lame cut scenes or click through 10 minutes of stupid dialog. If there must be a story, give it to me while I'm playing. If I wanted to just sit and watch, I'd put in a DVD. Thats EXACTLY how I feel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjarabbit Posted October 21, 2007 Share Posted October 21, 2007 It's kinda funny we're talking about the violence in games like the Godfather and Scarface when the movies those games were based on came out in the 70's and 80's, which was during the Atari 2600 era. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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