Comments on: All Downhill Since Pong

By: Microsoft invade sua mente | Notícias

Microsoft invade sua mente | Notícias — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 01:40:49 +0000

[...] Nolan Bushnell, o criador do mítico jogo Pong se suicidará, pois ele disse que os jogos atuais ” são todos uma verdadeira porcaria” [...]

By: Aldo

Aldo — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 08:23:13 +0000

I was not aware that Halo enjoyed sexual relations with it’s fellow males…

Perhaps in this case, by ‘gay’ he/she means brightly coloured and jolly.

Or Halo is a woman.

By: Psychopomp

Psychopomp — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 07:42:09 +0000

I was not aware that Halo enjoyed sexual relations with it’s fellow males…

By: Layne

Layne — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:03:18 +0000

Halo is a ridiculous game that is unrealistic, gay , and it ruins perfectly good peoples relationships. People get so entranced and engrossed with thinking that they are better than everyone else when they get a kill that they have to have that feeling continuously so they keep playing over and over and over again. I lost my very best friend because of this game and i just dislike it completely.

By: Douglas

Douglas — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:43:21 +0000

Talk about someone stuck in the past, he looks to me like to old annoying ladies that fear anything more technological that a, damn i cant think on anything THAT old, uhm like the wheelm uhu the wonders of the wheel. well GRRR this angers me, how does this man who gave a jump start to games say this, i this he just hold a major grudge because he isn’t profiting like everyone else. O YEAH I LOVE PONG…. HUHU GEARS OF WAR = SUX HUHU

By: BobOran

BobOran — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 22:27:59 +0000

Nolan Bushnell founded the Chucky Cheese restaurants. When I go there with my 2 year-old daughter I see that Chucky Cheese is to small children as crack cocaine and ho’s are to street thugs. My daughter gets a glazed look in her eye, goes into a frenzied trance, and runs around from game to game tirelessly, demanding that I feed the hungry machines from the cup of tokens that I paid dearly for. She doesn’t know how to play the games, and she doesn’t wait for the game to end, but within about ten seconds she is running off to a new video game while the one we are at is still doing it’s thing. So I suspect that Chucky Cheese is really a front for the Casino industry, and that they have devised an ingenious way to program young children to spend money on useless gadgets – preparing for the inevitable day when those children grow up and go to Vegas. Great invention, Mr. Bushnell!

PS – I still have my original home Pong machine and the original Atari at home in a box in my attic – some day I will show that to my daughter when she is old enough.

By: Timon

Timon — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:55:08 +0000

I respect Mr. Bushnell’s viewpoint, although he said it in a rather sensationalist way. I think his point is that video games are far less effective as a social medium and family friendly environment than they were when he introduced them. I suspect he has missed a few recent, positive steps in this direction, but his point is still fairly valid.

In the days of the Atari 2600, games really were something you invited your friends over to do. There was little or no AI, after all. And the limited graphics also meant that just about everything done was going to be “family friendly” (with a few notable exceptions); it was hard to make anything on the screen resemble anything at all!

I think Mr. Bushnell learned a very valuable lesson about complexity with his first game, Computer Space. For the mass market, you have to be able to pick up and understand a game within seconds. If it takes longer than that, you’ve lost them. As Atari started with coin-operated games, this was doubly true. Today’s Playstation 2 controller has fourteen buttons and two analog joysticks: Only kids and game aficionados have the patience to figure them out. In the days of the Atari 2600 it was easier to rope a parent or grandparent into playing with you.

Now, I won’t deny that the Wii has made great strides in bringing back family friendly gaming, although I suspect nobody but Nintendo is actually delivering on the promise of that system. I also believe that flash games and other casual games have picked up where the 2600 games left off in delivering an easily accessible experience. Of course, there have been some notable games in other platforms that give us the kind of play that Mr. Bushnell would be proud of, but they seem to be eclipsed by the Halos and GTAs of the world.

Gaming has made some remarkable leaps in many, many areas, but in doing so it has changed and lost something. I believe that the death of arcade games has hurt us a lot, because that industry forced people to streamline design so that it grabs you right away. I think we were also hurt when the PC took over as the dominant computer gaming platform in the late 80′s; it was nearly impossible to refresh the screen at 60fps and thus completely unsuitable for action games that had thrived on the Atari ST and Amiga computers. By the time action gaming re-emerged on the PC, entire genres of game play had been lost.

I’ve been to Nolan’s restaurant, and it’s quite nice. I think even he is missing the potential of the medium he has created in that place. The games need to cause people to interact more, and break the ice in conversations. So far, they pretty much resemble the “Megatouch” games found on the ends of every bar in the country, with a few flash games thrown in. There are also some multiplayer tabletop pong style games that seem interesting, but I’ve never been in a position to play them… there is a flow issue to be worked out there.

I’ve just finished some designs for TimePlay’s iCinema platform that I suspect that Mr. Bushnell would really enjoy. Here’s hoping they see the light of day.

By: Deadron

Deadron — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:30:36 +0000

James Sanders says:

Plus, this is about video games, why don’t we avoid disrespecting totally unrelated people to further our silly little arguments?

Thanks for elevating the discussion. I try to avoid insulting other posters as part of the comment threads, and will continue to do so here.

By: The Mexican

The Mexican — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:31:39 +0000

Gotta love how people try to argue their preferences in regards to whats fun and apealing as fact. What algorithm do you use when you rate video games? You fool how could you enjoy playing as Master Cheif when according to my calculations Halo has less fun per pixel than Half Life 2. Your all ignorant. If you had only played the games I have you would naturally for the same opinion for the same reason that we both obsess over the same porn stars.

By: Anderson

Anderson — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:56:15 +0000

Useless generalizations. The gaming industry is doing ok, Wii was a revolution for showing that games are about having fun and not only graphic’s power, on the other hand it’s good to have high end VGs to display fantastic images while playing.

Some people stuck to their era and think VGs are all about that (I used to thing the best VG of all time was Nintendo 8bits).

By: Macacan

Macacan — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:11:51 +0000

Bushnell doesn’t have an arguement to make. He basically said, “I made the only good game, yours all suck.” He then proceeded to make his press anouncement about a restaurant.

The point about gamers not bonding over the games is bull. Just because he doesn’t get the time to play games with his kids doesn’t make that the norm for the rest of society.

By: nublet

nublet — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 16:02:21 +0000

lol “Wait, what’s wrong with Halo 3?”

it’s Halo 2 with more gadgets. i swear if i hear one more co-work blathering down the hall about how is whopping 10 kills last night (noob) got him to sergeant level 3, im going to vomit. tru playaz were blasting fools in UT YEARS before these idiots ever fondled their first microsoft consoles… and with better audio clips! “DOMINATING!!!!!!”

give me substance or at least make me laugh uncontrollably… half-life 2, ravin’ rabbits… hell, i’d play old school sims golf before i get all wet over a “12 man halo 3 party at so-and-so’s house!”