The 50th Anniversary of Atari: Have You (Still) Played Atari Today?
So, the 50th Anniversary of Atari was earlier this week on the 27th of June. It was on this day in 1972 that men named Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney incorporated under the name of ATARI. Their big idea was to engineer electrical/video amusements and sell them to bars and the like. Their first one, Computer Space, looked super rad but the controls were too complex and it died on the vine.
Their next one though, a little game called Pong, was a massive hit and from that success, a company (and an industry) was born...
If you weren’t there, it’s hard to describe just what a revelation Atari was with both its arcade and home games. They were white hot in the late 70’s – early 80’s, just so blisteringly cool in so many ways, making innovations left and right, and writing the rules for the multi-billion dollar industry that they birthed. To put it simply, none of what you are playing today (whether it be on a mobile device, a console, or on a PC) would exist today if Atari didn’t initially make video games a “thing” back in the day.
Ultimately though, Atari flew too close to the sun…and they had a loooong way to fall. At their zenith in 1982, Atari enjoyed $1.2 billion in sales; a scant two years later they were sold to a ruthless dude named Jack Tramiel for $75 million – mostly because of the 1983 Video Game Crash which they certainly helped bring about.
I’ve written about this before, but it was a good seven years ago, so I can repost parts of it here because it truly encapsulates how much I loved Atari then and the “Atari-mania” I experienced firsthand.
The year was 1981. And, oh man, was it ever a great year to be a 10-year-old kid. Pac-Man had invaded popular culture. Raiders of the Lost Ark had plundered theaters. All of the local, Philadelphia sports teams were doing rather well. And, of course, the Atari Video Computer System (soon to be rebranded as the 2600) was in its heyday. That rectangular, black-and-wood-grain box was the crowning jewel of most living rooms of that era. It was a status symbol of sorts—a status symbol of never ending fun!
Unfortunately, I didn’t own an Atari VCS for the majority of that year. Being 10, I couldn’t do much about that fact except nag my parents incessantly and beg my friends to hang out at their houses to play. And I shamelessly did a good amount of both, truth be told. Hey, I needed my Space Invaders fix. So sue me.
I would actually have to ask my parents for the Atari for Christmas. Being a big man of 10, I had given up the ghost on Santa a good two or three years prior, and asking my parents was the only viable option I had left.
So I asked. And I waited. When you are a child, that period between Thanksgiving and Christmas seems to last for untold eons, but Christmas morning did finally arrive before my head exploded with giddy anticipation.
My parents liked to unbox the toys, put them together and set them up for us under the tree. Yeah, they went all out. It was a nice touch that made that special day just a bit more special. But it also enabled a greedy young lad such as myself to do a quick scan of the haul to see if that year’s “big ticket item” was tucked under the tree.
Alas, the Atari VCS was not waiting there for me on this crisp December morning. I was dejected, sure, but there was a ton of other cool stuff under that tree for my younger brothers and me, so I merrily took to checking out the all other gifts that “Santa” had brought for us.
After about a half hour of play-testing and gawking, I noticed a rather large, wrapped present leaning against the back wall, almost behind the tree. As I mentioned, my parents didn’t wrap our presents, so this was rather odd.
“What’s that there?” I hopefully queried.
“Open it and find out,” my mother said rather flatly as she shared a furtive, sheepish glance with my father.
My immediate thought upon grabbing the box was that it was my Atari, and my cruel parents were playing a trick on me. My uncle and aunt had done a similar thing to my cousin the last year. He badly wanted Space Invaders for his Atari. The game was all he could talk about. They bought it for him, but they wrapped it in a massive box filled with newspaper and the Space Invaders cart was in another wrapped shoebox at the bottom of that much bigger box. He was very happy he got the game, but was quite vexed throughout that whole unwrapping ordeal.
I ripped off the wrapping paper in a blink. Yes, it was indeed the Atari VCS I wanted so desperately. I started to gleefully scream as only a 10-year-old boy can, but my father held up his hand to put an end to my youthful ebullience.
“It doesn’t work,” were the sad words that came out of this mouth.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was this all part of the elaborate ruse they had concocted? Did my parents hate me? They had to hate me to continue this nasty, unfunny prank for so long.
My mother continued: “I bought it back in October and it’s been hidden in the garage since then. When dad went to set it up last night, it wouldn’t turn on.”
This wasn’t real. This couldn’t be happening. I felt faint. It wasn’t my parents who hated me; it was Santa and Jesus who hated me. They conspired and collaborated against me to make this happen on their shared holiday because I didn’t believe in either of them any longer. That was certainly it!
Long story slightly less long: it all turned out OK in the end, and I got a functioning Atari VCS system, but please do read the remainder of that essay if you want to see how things truly shook out on that fateful Christmas Day…and the day after.
Atari is still around today, but they are nowhere near the company they once were...but I still love ‘em to death. Case in point, I even own one of their new Atari VCS consoles which I bet you didn’t even know existed. Regardless, in celebration of this golden anniversary, the company announced a new title called Atari Mania which looks rather cool, and the “interactive experience,” Atari 50, which looks quite intriguing as well. Also, Nolan Bushnell did an interview with the current Atari CEO, Wade Rosen, in which they discuss the past, present, and future of Atari.
And if you are interested in learning more about this fascinating company (and like to read), I can highly recommend three books to you: Atari Inc. – Business Is Fun by Marty Goldberg and Curt Vendel; Once Upon Atari: How I Made History By Killing an Industry by the irrepressible Howard Scott Warshaw; and Breakout: How Atari 8-Bit Computers Defined a Generation by Jamie Lendino.
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