http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8017909/site/newsweek/
Playing It Again
The inventor of Pong and founder of Chuck E. Cheese is getting back into the restaurant game. Adults welcome.
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]By Brad Stone[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Newsweek[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]June 6 issue - There are plenty of ways to describe Nolan Bushnell. Technology visionary. Catalyst of the computer-game industry. Unrelenting entrepreneur with sparkling successes and catastrophic failures. A man who was actually able to create a successful restaurant franchise with the name Chuck E. Cheese. Even maybe a matchmaker. Bushnell, who started the early video firm Atari and imposed Pizza Time Theatre on the masses, credits another of his creations for minting a whole generation of marriages. The pioneering '70s videogame Pong, once ubiquitous in college-town watering holes, gave guys and gals an opening to challenge each other to digital duels on its tabletop black and white screens. As a result, he says, "literally thousands of people have told me over the years that they met their wife or husband playing Pong."
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[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But Bushnell believes that somewhere along its journey toward 10 billion in worldwide sales, the videogame industry he kick-started with Pong has lost its way. Today's games isolate players in front of their computers or TVs, and the typically violent, complex gameplay alienates big swaths of the population, including pretty much all women. Even massively multiplayer online games like EverQuest are ultimately isolating, Bushnell says. "Games have historically been vehicles for socialization, not sitting alone in your underwear." Ever the dreamer, Bushnell, 62, now wants to get gamers out of the house. This week he will announce a new ventureby his count, the 24th in 33 years. The uWink Media Bistro restaurantchain (strike one: the name) will have screens at every table and bar stool, each piping videogames, media content and interactive menus to a young-adult dining crowd which will, he's convinced, use the shared-gaming experience as a chance to compete, relax and mingle.
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Playing It Again
The inventor of Pong and founder of Chuck E. Cheese is getting back into the restaurant game. Adults welcome.
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]By Brad Stone[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Newsweek[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]June 6 issue - There are plenty of ways to describe Nolan Bushnell. Technology visionary. Catalyst of the computer-game industry. Unrelenting entrepreneur with sparkling successes and catastrophic failures. A man who was actually able to create a successful restaurant franchise with the name Chuck E. Cheese. Even maybe a matchmaker. Bushnell, who started the early video firm Atari and imposed Pizza Time Theatre on the masses, credits another of his creations for minting a whole generation of marriages. The pioneering '70s videogame Pong, once ubiquitous in college-town watering holes, gave guys and gals an opening to challenge each other to digital duels on its tabletop black and white screens. As a result, he says, "literally thousands of people have told me over the years that they met their wife or husband playing Pong."
[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But Bushnell believes that somewhere along its journey toward 10 billion in worldwide sales, the videogame industry he kick-started with Pong has lost its way. Today's games isolate players in front of their computers or TVs, and the typically violent, complex gameplay alienates big swaths of the population, including pretty much all women. Even massively multiplayer online games like EverQuest are ultimately isolating, Bushnell says. "Games have historically been vehicles for socialization, not sitting alone in your underwear." Ever the dreamer, Bushnell, 62, now wants to get gamers out of the house. This week he will announce a new ventureby his count, the 24th in 33 years. The uWink Media Bistro restaurantchain (strike one: the name) will have screens at every table and bar stool, each piping videogames, media content and interactive menus to a young-adult dining crowd which will, he's convinced, use the shared-gaming experience as a chance to compete, relax and mingle.
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