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Atari's Bushnell Talks About His 'Homecoming'

Posted April 19, 2010 by James Brightman

Following today's surprise announcement that Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari, has come back to the company as a member of its Board of Directors, IndustryGamers chatted with Bushnell on the phone to get his reaction to rejoining the company he's best known for.

"It kind of is a homecoming. I think Atari has made some really nice strides in the last few years, and I feel like it's the right time and right place," he told us. "I've known [CEO] Jeff Lapin and some of the guys [for quite a while], and I bumped into them a few years ago at E3 and had some dialogue. It just all of a sudden felt natural I think for both sides."

Although Atari has been around for well over three decades (at this point approaching four), Bushnell still feels like the brand resonates very well with consumers across the globe. "I feel like one of the real assets for Atari is it has a really, really  cool worldwide brand, and I think there's a lot of good things to do with that brand and name recognition. And with all of the things that are happening online and in the casual games space [there's a real opportunity] to revitalize some of the classic Atari games," he said.

With that in mind, Bushnell thinks that his return to the company now is perfect timing since he knows so much about the legacy games. "I'm kind of a storehouse of legacy knowledge that I think will be helpful, and I think there are a lot of things that I can help the company with some unique capabilities," he commented. "So I'm a Board member, which is very different than a line officer, but I think it's the right thing for me at this stage in my life."

Bushnell also commented that his other successful ventures, like Chuck E. Cheese and uWink, for example, definitely have given him extra knowledge that can be applied to the new Atari.  "I've been on several boards of other game companies, and I've kept my oar in the water of the games space consistently, and so I believe my 'institutional knowledge' will be very helpful," he stated.

Overall, he's just hugely excited about all the growth that's happening in gaming right now, and he thinks Atari has a bright future in this evolving business. "There are so many fun tools that we could only dream about when I was running Atari before. Right now there is such a broad and diverse creative palette available to game designers and all you need is a little bit of out-of-the-box thinking and a little different approach, and I believe the best days are yet to come," he said. "I'm ecstatic about the tools, graphics potential, etc... and other things like the iPhone accelerometer, the Wii-motes and some of the new controls like Microsoft's Natal. All of these things give the designer a magic way to interface with the world, and I think it'll be great."

And while Bushnell is now getting up in age, he's still a gamer, he said, and he joked, "But my kids really, really beat me. A lot of people don't realize, but you lose about a millisecond of reaction time with every year past the age of 18. Unless it's a game where stealth and guile and cheating come in, I'm really toast."  

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.