Bushnell/Russell - National Heroes of US Game Culture
Since the history and culture of gaming in the United States is filled with so many notable heroes and anti-heroes, when selecting two to highlight, it makes sense to give deference to the those who helped begin the movement, such as Steve Russell and Nolan Bushnell. From Russell's creation of Spacewar!, the first all-digital computer game on the PDP-1, to Bushnell’s Pong, it is clear that both of these men are among the founding fathers of the video game industry. Ethnocentrically speaking, without the early contributions of these two men and others within their teams, there may not be video game culture as we know it today in the West. Of course, since their time, other heroes have emerged with innovative gameplay, leaps in technological advancement, and other paradigm shifts, yet when looking for heroes within a culture, the beginning is a great place to start.
In 1962, while attending Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Steve Russell and other members of the Tech Model Railroad Club developed and programmed Spacewar!, the first fully-digital game played on a video screen. Spacewar! was developed on the PDP-1, and due to the vast access to these computers in universities across the United States, the game became a hit. Unfortunately for Russell, video games were not yet seen as intellectual property, hence he did not copyright the game. Therefore, although the game and its hundreds of clones popularized the very notion of video games, Russell did not make any money from his creation (Kent, 2001).
In contrast to Russell, whose name remains relatively unknown, most avid gamers are aware of Bushnell and his contributions to gaming culture. Inspired by Russell’s Spacewar!, Bushnell got his start in the production of arcade machines, but it wasn’t until he partnered with Al Alcorn that he become a legend. Soon after the pair founded Atari in 1972, Bushnell and Alcorn created a table-top tennis arcade game. The game was so popular during its testing phase that in 1973 - its first year in production - Atari shipped over 7,000 units (Kent, 2001). That name of the game was, of course, Pong.
Pong consoles were only the start for how Bushnell would help to create video game culture. In the early years of the video game industry, knock-off and direct copies of games were a serious issue. The patent process for video games took so long that multiple copies would already be on the market before the paperwork went through. To combat this, Bushnell constantly pushed for innovation. One of these innovations was the creation of the Atari VGS, or 2600 as it would later become known (Kent, 2001). The VGS was the first popular cartridge-based gaming console. Before its release, if someone wanted another game, they had to buy another console devoted to it. Now gamers, and especially gamer’s parents, would be able to buy a single console and multiple compatible games.
The games on the VGS were simple, but the idea of cartridge-based gaming was able to revolutionize the industry, which was already still so fresh. Today’s games are now either on some sort of disk or a completely digital format, but the concept of one console playing multiple games stems from Bushnell’s work with Atari. Eventually Bushnell was pushed out of Atari, however, and although Atari made him very rich, he did have to stand by and watch as outside businessmen nearly destroyed his company and the entire video gaming industry in the Video Game Crash of 1983. Unlike Russell, who has stayed out of the public’s eye, Bushnell has continued to remain visible in one form or another, participating actively within the video game industry and culture.
All of the information within this paper has been derived from Steven Kent’s The Ultimate History of Video Games: From Pong to Pokémon and Beyond, which was included in last week’s literature review. Since the book focuses heavily on the start of the video game industry, Russell’s and Bushnell’s contributions are thoroughly discussed. Kent does a fair job creating an even portrayal of Bushnell as both an innovator and a less-than-perfect businessman, but some of the passages read more like a fanboy’s description. This infatuation with the legacy that is Nolan Bushnell, which is far from specific to Kent, is most assuredly due to the fact that he is credited with the creation of modern video gaming.
Being born in 1987, my first foray into video game culture was on the Nintendo Entertainment System. I did not see an Atari console or play Pong until I was much older, but I can appreciate the genius it took to create a completely new industry. Although both pinball games with some electronic elements and computer games like Spacewar! (available for play at universities) existed, Atari brought video games to the arcades and then, importantly, to the home. Without Russell’s Spacewar!, there may have never been a video game, and, without Bushnell, there may never have been a video game culture.
References:
Kent, S.L., 2001. The ultimate history of video games: from Pong to Pokémon and beyond: the story behind the craze that touched our lives and changed the world, Roseville, CA: Prima Pub.
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