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TVTranscript
00:00He tempted fate with his outrageous statements.
00:04I said, you know, I can earn it faster than I can piss it away.
00:10You should never do that.
00:12He earned and spent a fortune.
00:15I thought that it was great fun to have houses.
00:19Woodside, Aspen, Georgetown, and Harris.
00:22And stirred controversy along the way.
00:25It was really one of the first pornographic games I ever saw.
00:30His ideas were ahead of their time.
00:33My question was, why do you want a robot to go get a beer out of the refrigerator?
00:38And he was banned from the business he loved.
00:41I had no idea that I'd ever want to leave Atari.
00:45It just wasn't on my radar screen.
00:47But Nolan Bushnell is best known for creating a game that launched an industry.
00:52I wanted the ping pong game. I wanted to go.
01:14He grew up a Mormon in Utah, and he had three sisters, so he was the only boy.
01:18The only boy faces a painful loss at a very young age.
01:21His dad, who runs a construction company, dies suddenly, leaving Nolan fatherless.
01:25My dad and I were very close, and then I kind of felt cheated.
01:31He was kind of launched into the position of being kind of the breadwinner and the responsible one.
01:35He didn't grow up with a silver spoon in your mouth.
01:38You just know that this is a guy whose own energy got him where he is.
01:42He works at an amusement park while earning an electrical engineering degree from the University of Utah.
01:48I was manager of the games department at 19 years old.
01:51I knew the economics of game business.
01:53I've always felt that my work at the amusement park was my MBA.
01:59As technology advances, so does the curious young visionary.
02:04Somebody programmed a game called Space War, and that was out of MIT, and the software was brought over to
02:12the University of Utah, and that was the first video game.
02:15And people say, gee, Nolan, you invented the video game.
02:18I said, no, I didn't.
02:19Russell did from MIT.
02:21So Nolan Bushnell graduates and heads out west where the magic is happening.
02:26I could hardly wait to get out of Utah.
02:28And if you're going to be an electrical engineer, and it's the late 60s, early 70s, you're going to be
02:35in Silicon Valley, in the center of the action.
02:37It's 1970, and he's working double duty.
02:41Engineer by day.
02:42Video game creator by night.
02:45Computer space was the first game, and what I was trying to do was really bring Space War to a
02:53cost point.
02:54Computer space was a monumental flop.
02:57It didn't make it to very many venues, and where it did make it, it wasn't very popular.
03:02All my friends loved it.
03:04All my friends were engineers.
03:05It was a little bit too erudite for the masses.
03:09With the aid of Al Alcorn, another young engineer, Bushnell sets out to make his second game, a game that
03:16sneaks its way into history.
03:18So I told him I wanted the paddle game.
03:21I wanted a ping pong.
03:22I wanted to go.
03:27And the ball would go back and forth.
03:29But I had actually defined it so that there was a button.
03:32So you'd position it, and then the button would swing a little racket.
03:37Well, Al got it to the point where it just had the two paddles, and it was knocking the ball
03:43back and forth.
03:44And it was so much fun.
03:45I said, stop.
03:46We don't need to go to the next step.
03:51And so we did, and the rest was history.
03:57The rules for playing were quite simple.
04:02In third quarter, ball will serve automatically.
04:05Avoid missing ball for high score.
04:07We named Pong just because you couldn't own ping pong game.
04:11And so we just truncated it and called it Pong.
04:19It's time to debut the game, and Pong is placed in a Sunnyvale, California bar for testing.
04:27When they called three days or two days after we put it in, there was a failure.
04:33We thought, uh-oh, maybe we've got a problem here.
04:35There was too many quarters in it, so it actually jams, and it's short of the machine.
04:39And that's a problem we can fix.
04:42In November 1972, the fledgling Atari company ships its first commercial version of Pong.
04:49Shortly after, original partner Ted Dabney leaves the company.
04:53We also had no money, and we were making factories out of, you know, old roller skating rinks and various
05:00things.
05:01But we were scramblers.
05:03They were also risky young things.
05:06They'd have their goals to shoot for, and then when they'd reach them, they'd have huge parties.
05:11Almost everybody went home with everybody else.
05:13It was a loose atmosphere.
05:15I think that Nolan ran it more like a hippie commune than it probably should have been.
05:22And it was, everything was consensual and everything.
05:25So, but it was a, it was a really, really different time.
05:28But the flip side was, it was a very creative environment, and a lot of good and interesting product came
05:33out of that environment.
05:37In 1973, sales at Atari reached $3.2 million.
05:43While they awaited patent approval for Pong, others seized the opportunity.
05:49We were heavily, heavily copied.
05:51It was a very successful game, but there was TV tennis, winter.
05:56All the big Chicago factories came out with a version.
06:01Another innovative game from Bushnell raises lots of eyebrows, but very little money.
06:07It's called Gotcha.
06:09It was really one of the first pornographic games I ever saw.
06:13Everyone's talking about the phallic nature of joysticks.
06:17And so we thought, well, maybe it would be good to have two big pink rubber controllers on the face
06:24of the game.
06:24In which you were manipulating breasts.
06:27Some people went for it, some people didn't.
06:29Nolan was creative.
06:31There's no question about it.
06:33Meanwhile, nearly 100,000 Pong-like arcade games are produced.
06:37Yet Atari sells only 10,000 units.
06:40Nolan continues focusing on a series of other arcade games.
06:43But profits plunge as Bushnell pins his hopes on a home version of Pong.
06:49Consumer Pong.
06:50Everyone says, well, you know, it was, boy, what a great idea, da-da-da.
06:53We took it to the toy show in New York, and we sold none.
06:59Zero.
07:00So we went to the TV appliance stores.
07:03We sold none.
07:06Zero.
07:08And so you say, what am I going to do?
07:22By 1975, Atari, the precarious video game company founded by Nolan Bushnell, has experienced failure and incredible success, including the
07:33much-copied Pong.
07:35But Atari's eyes are on the future, and their next venture is to bring Pong into our living rooms.
07:41But video game companies slam their doors on Nolan and his idea.
07:47Everybody just, they didn't get it.
07:49They didn't like the sound of it.
07:51The head of sales at that time heard that Sears had put a consumer pinball machine in the sporting goods
07:59department.
07:59And so he called up the head buyer from the sporting goods department at Sears, and he was on our
08:06doorstep the next day.
08:08Sears wants 100,000 home Atari games for its 1975 Christmas season.
08:14Atari sales rocket to nearly $40 million.
08:17At last, Nolan Bushnell experiences financial freedom.
08:21Well, maybe not.
08:23A growing company is actually consumes cash.
08:28You can very seldom throw off cash fast enough to grow as fast as you want to.
08:34So it was either take the company public or sell it to somebody with really deep pockets.
08:41Those pockets belong to Warner Communications.
08:45In October 1976, Bushnell sells Atari to the communications giant and personally nets a reported $15 million from the $28
08:54million sales price.
08:56After years of struggle, Nolan and his family become the poster family for Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
09:03I said, you know, I can earn it faster than I can piss it away.
09:08You should never do that.
09:11He enjoyed his toys.
09:12There was no question about it.
09:14And Nolan's toy box includes two private planes.
09:18Taking planes to go have lunch.
09:21I remember arriving at a place and the door opening and diapers falling out.
09:26Sailing all over the place.
09:28I had a house in Woodside, a house in Aspen.
09:32It always sounded more, I think, more glamorous than it actually was.
09:36I had a house in Georgetown and I had a house in Paris.
09:38Nolan was a guy that wanted to play with his money.
09:43He wasn't a guy that was interested in making more money.
09:47The house in Paris was a simple little 15,000 square foot place in the park right next to the
09:52Eiffel Tower.
09:53Damn, it was fun.
09:54It was just fun.
10:03Of course, after the sale, your bubbles get popped one by one by one by one.
10:08And a lot of your pet projects get killed because they don't see the future.
10:15Atari continues to dominate the arcade business with popular titles that include Breakout and Night Driver.
10:23Yet there are now more than 70 versions of the Pong home game.
10:26But Bushnell has an idea.
10:28And it's called the 2600.
10:32In the home game business, we thought of a single game.
10:35And Nolan said, no, no, this is a business that we have to be able to treat it like a
10:40record player and put new records in.
10:43Demand for the new console is weak.
10:45And Bushnell's unhappiness reaches a peak in November 1978.
10:50I felt that the company was taking some foolish risks.
10:56At the same time, I felt, I don't know, I kind of didn't like working for somebody else.
11:03Nolan's exit as head of Atari is quickly arranged.
11:06But a document he signed two years earlier would haunt him.
11:10The non-competitive agreement bans him from the industry he helped create.
11:14When I signed it, I had no idea that I'd ever want to leave Atari.
11:19It just wasn't on my radar screen.
11:22It was only later on where I said, oh, Mike, what have I done?
11:29Atari would go on to even greater success.
11:31But its founder, unable to work in the business he loves, has no choice but to shift his energy elsewhere.
11:40Nolan always fancied himself as an entertainment guy, not as a video game guy.
11:45And by that time, Chuck E. Cheese was doing well.
11:48See, Chuck E. Cheese was starting inside Atari.
11:51They didn't want to pursue it, and so I bought it out.
11:54It becomes the place that adults hate and kids love.
11:58Culinary aspects just didn't seem to matter to Nolan, and I think he's wrong.
12:01I don't eat at Disneyland.
12:02You know, I don't eat at amusement parks.
12:05So, and Chuck E. Cheese was an amusement park.
12:07Kids don't like spicy.
12:09They just as soon have plain cheese pizza.
12:11The chain becomes known for its arcades and animated characters, including its namesake.
12:17Can you say Chuck E. Cheese without smiling?
12:19Because we wanted to smile.
12:21Chuck E. Chuck E. Cheese.
12:23We wanted to smile.
12:24We wanted this name so that you couldn't say it without smiling.
12:28But kids don't care about the bad food.
12:30They just want to play games.
12:32Chuck E. Cheese is soon franchised into 180 locations nationwide.
12:36I remember going to a couple of the openings.
12:38It was just fantastic.
12:40I mean, it was really a blast.
12:41But Bushnell can't stay still for long, and his eyes once again lock onto the future.
12:46He forms a venture capital group that backs innovative ideas.
12:51Some say too innovative.
12:54There's shopping on computers.
12:57Try by video and enjoy the newest shopping experience.
13:00That was so early in the days of computers.
13:03The technology wasn't ready.
13:05We used laser disc players that, in the early days of the laser disc, the machines were buggy.
13:12And automobile navigation systems.
13:15I felt that people could drive more efficiently.
13:18That was incredible.
13:20And we had those in our cars.
13:22And it would take a lot of stress out of driving.
13:24And I always thought, I don't know how I lived without this before.
13:28But his favorite and most enduring dedication to futuristic technology is the personal robot.
13:34Now, that was a fixation that I didn't share with Nolan.
13:37We joke, though, that I do have this robot fish.
13:41I mean, I really love robots.
13:44And I've lost a lot of money pursuing them.
13:47My question was, why do you want a robot to go get a beer out of the refrigerator?
13:51She says that she wants to put me in a robotic 12-step program.
13:55While Nolan concentrates on his robots, another venture is about to go under.
14:01His brilliance can at times be a distraction and can diffuse the focus of his attention.
14:09I had turned over the running of the restaurants almost eight months before that.
14:15And I'd been focusing pretty much on sailboat racing and the game side of the business and really not watching
14:21the pizza side.
14:22They tried to make the pizza better, I think, was a problem, wasn't it?
14:25Like, it ended up costing too much money and kind of threw the whole business model out of whack.
14:29And they said, we're going to miss our numbers.
14:30But we're not going to just miss numbers, we're going to report loss.
14:33Which I thought was just absolutely impossible.
14:37You know, just not possible.
14:51By the mid-1980s, the innovative Nolan Bushnell has made and lost a fortune.
14:57Our family, we've really managed to kind of roll with everything.
15:01Like, we've definitely hit, you know, some super hard times.
15:04The fact that Nolan has had his ups and downs is one thing.
15:10Nolan deserves to be as economically successful as Walt Disney.
15:14And Nolan truly deserves more than what he has.
15:18His fascination with the future has cost him millions.
15:23In many cases, I read science fiction and looked at the world.
15:28And my objective in life is to try to make the world happen a little bit faster.
15:33Sometimes the world is ready and that the infrastructure is in place.
15:37Sometimes it isn't.
15:40Although his personal robots never catch on, Nolan's furry animated creatures do.
15:46I felt that there was a market for an electronic animal.
15:50The thing about a petster is, it does what it's told.
15:53And so we created the petster line.
16:00And the A.G. bear.
16:02That I really liked.
16:03The idea that a child could, you know, get a reaction from a teddy bear.
16:08I still think it's an incredible product.
16:10It was a bear that you could believe was talking to you.
16:14Hello, A.G.
16:15I thought it was going to be successful, but I was surprised at how big a success it was.
16:20He sells more than $15 million worth of animated animals.
16:24But Bushnell's next robotic toy, TechForce, launches a controversy.
16:28Signals controlling the robot's movement would be transmitted through a children's cartoon series.
16:34I think they felt that there was somehow something subliminal going on in which these controls, if they control the
16:41little guys, maybe they can control the kids.
16:44Maybe they can control us.
16:46I think that the whole idea that we can control things through the television set is frightening to a lot
16:51of people.
16:52The protests helped derail the TechForce toys and TV show.
16:59After years of dipping into other creative ventures, it's time for Bushnell to reunite with his first love, video games.
17:07He becomes a consultant for Hasbro, Bally, and a string of other top names, including one with a rocky past,
17:15Atari.
17:16Decades have passed, yet three of Bushnell's early inventions are still alive and still evolving.
17:23Newly configured Chuck E. Cheese is a smash hit, again.
17:27Atari is now part of the InfoGrom family.
17:30And Pong, the simple game that started a revolution, has entered a whole new dimension.
17:45But Nolan and his family have moved on to U-Wink.
17:50We started this together.
17:52We are bringing the supply of simple games back.
17:56A new project that brings him full circle, with a twist.
17:59Our games are very short-form focused.
18:02They're all two-and-a-half to four-minute strategy parlor-type games.
18:08People that don't even play video games get stuck on these.
18:11It's a new generation of video games to be played in public places.
18:15Let the interactive games begin.
18:18We make touch-screen tournament games for bars, restaurants, hotels, airports.
18:23You put them in one of these locations and they dial up to the internet so we can download new
18:26games to it, download new trivia questions, and play national tournaments.
18:36Decades ago, Nolan lost a fortune when his landmark game, Pong, was copied by others.
18:42There is concern that it could happen again.
18:44It is my belief that Nolan's biggest competition will come from competitors that he spawned himself, who will take his
18:52good idea and take it to the next level.
18:54But Bushnell is already looking ahead.
18:57I'm still more focused on what I'm doing next.
19:01Like, the stuff that I'm going to come out with in the next two or three years is just going
19:05to knock your socks off.
19:10I already know about several other ideas beyond Ewing that he's got in store for the future.
19:16And he wouldn't retire.
19:19That's why he didn't retire back in the day when Atari was big and Chuck E. Cheese had made it.
19:25He enjoys the game.
19:27He's the perpetual optimist and, like, really excited all the time.
19:33And it's impossible to get him down, really.
19:35I mean, he's got, like, a fire from inside, really.
19:40Nolan has pulled me in directions that I never would have gone.
19:45And I've had experiences I never would have had.
19:48And I think likewise.
19:50Well, I've always said that it's been such a roller coaster.
19:54But certainly not boring.
20:07He is the guy that made the video game business.
20:12If I were to look back and talk to my kids and say,
20:15who founded this business, who made this business the reality that it is,
20:19it is absolutely categorically Nolan Bushnell.
20:24You know, life is as interesting as you want to make it.
20:28And too many people just decide to sort of settle.
20:33As long as you're not willing to settle, you can constantly be pushing the envelope.
20:37And you need to be a really, really good beginner.
20:45Because if you enjoy being a beginner, then pretty soon you can start a lot of different things.
20:52And I just feel like that's what I try to do.
20:56Be an elegant beginner.
21:12Be an elegant beginner.
21:13Be an elegant beginner.
21:15Be an elegant beginner.
21:16Be an elegant beginner.
21:16Be an elegant beginner.
21:16Be an elegant beginner.
21:16Be an elegant beginner.
21:16Be an elegant beginner.
21:17Be an elegant beginner.
21:19Be an elegant beginner.
21:20Be an elegant beginner.
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