Bushnell slams modern games

By Tom Bramwell Published 23 October, 2007

"Pure, unadulterated trash".

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell thinks modern games are rubbish. If he's talking about the ones with dropships in, we're with him.

"Video games today are a race to the bottom. They are pure, unadulterated trash and I'm sad for that," he told Electronic Design. Oh wait, that's it. Sound-bite, then.

The article itself is about Bushnell's current venture - the uWink family restaurants where you can play tabletop games, talk to hated family members and eat. There's one in Woodland Hills, California, and he seems pretty chuffed with it. And himself.

"I am the luckiest guy to be able to continue to innovate and create games and toys. Throughout the years, I added a technical twist to everything I did. I interpreted technology for the masses and it feels good," he explained. To be fair he was a bit of a wizard.

Sadly he doesn't add anything to his description of modern games, but he does tell us all about his personal favourite game, Breakout. "It is one of the games that everyone loved," he says. "It was very satisfying to play.

"It was like breaking down walls. And it was a metaphor. The world is better when you break down walls. Walls separate people. The more inclusive we can be, the better we can be as a species."

Yes, except the walls were at the top, and you generally got impatient with it and ended up bouncing the ball through gaps to smash the walls from the other side. Other than that, correct.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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