Author

Radical innovation is difficult to fund. It seems scary. And the really radical things seem even more scary.

In the early days of the video game business, everybody played. The question is, what happened? My theory - and I think it's pretty well borne out - is that in the '80s, games got gory, and that lost the women. And then they got complex, and that lost the casual gamer.

From Nolan Bushnell

We didn't do a square ball in 'Pong' because we thought it was cool. We did it because that was all we could do.

From Nolan Bushnell

Women were very, very good at 'Pong'. It was part of the dating scene. The number of people who told me they met their wife or husband playing 'Pong' was huge. They were shoulder to shoulder, talking and playing. It was body contact and verbal contact.

From Nolan Bushnell

I founded Atari in my garage in Santa Clara while at Stanford. When I was in school, I took a lot of business classes. I was really fascinated by economics. You end up having to be a marketeer, finance maven and a little bit of a technologist in order to get a business going.

From Nolan Bushnell

Atari showed that young people could start big companies. Without that example it would have been harder for Jobs and Bill Gates, and people who came after them, to do what they did.

From Nolan Bushnell

When I was running Atari, violence against humanoid figures was not allowed. We'd let you shoot at a tank... but we drew the line at shooting at people, with blood splattering everywhere.

From Nolan Bushnell

The subtle generational cues that make one thing cool and another uncool aren't always obvious to a parent. My children are my dinner-table sounding board. I've come up with some wonderful ideas that they universally dismissed as 'lame.'

From Nolan Bushnell

Young adults love to play games and they're thirsty for social interaction, but a lot of bar and restaurant experiences are quite unsatisfactory on the social level. What young people need is a place that has the feel of an unhosted party where they find themselves interacting with like-minded strangers.

From Nolan Bushnell

I believe there are Steve Jobses all around us. Really, what is happening is that they're being edited out of importance.

From Nolan Bushnell

Nolan Bushnell

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