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Video Game Pioneer Speaks Out
GreyGusMan writes "Ralph Baer was playing video games before many of us were born. CNN has an interview with the man who helped invent video games back in 1966, talking about how the idea came about - and getting his thoughts on what the industry has become. He doesn't like videogame violence, but he scoffs when asked if he thinks it's tied to real world violence." When the person talking not only created the Magnavox Odyssey, but also devised the tragically addictive 'repeat the sequence' handheld Simon (no relation), you'd better listen up.
Oh, and first post.
Your reality is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. - Baron Munchausen
So does he have a patent yet? I want my daily dose of bitching damnit!
"3D games were tried once - and failed because they weren't properly executed, but now that the processing power's there, who knows?," he said.
it almost makes you wonder if he was interviewed a long, long time ago...
... that he doesn't like GTA3? I can't find any reference to that. Either the story submitter forgot to mention other interviews with this guy, or he drew a conclusion based on a comment he did make.
Oh well. If GTA3 is any indication, people (parents in particular) take video games way too seriously. If playing a game was all it took to make a kid do something stupid, then television advertising would be a much more succesful business than it is today.
"Derp de derp."
"even he realizes that Games.Slashdot.org is dying "
Yeah, just like Apple, BSD, and Stephen King.
"Derp de derp."
He doesn't like Grand Theft Auto, but he scoffs when asked if he thinks video game violence is tied to real world violence.
One thing I've never understood is how the "videogames cause violence", "TV causes violence", "movies cause violence", etc crowd can explain that somehow all these things -- which are available to the entire world -- only seem to cause violence here in the US? Does anyone know what their answer is?
GMD
watch this
To say that Baer is the sole inventor of video games is to say that Newton is the sole inventor of calculus. He was one of many people, and his contributions, frankly, aren't even among the most significant.
Personally, I see little reason to listen to him. His ideas sound well out of date, and while he displayed technical innovation, none of his games are sitting on any "greatest games of all time" lists.
When David Crane, Richard Garriott, or Shigeru Miyamoto speak out against GTA, let me know, and maybe I'll think about it.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
"Still, I wish there was a little more content in some of this stuff."
Legitimate point. Although, Wired had an interesting article that has me hoping that the Enter the Matrix game might start a trend to change that....something like the Virtual Boy most likely...
Actio personalis moritur cum persona. (Dead men don't sue)
Quick, guys! Get all your gaming in while you're still in the prime of your life!
I was watching a documentary on TLC (I think, Tivo removes the connection shows have with channels) on the history of video games called Gamerz, and Ralph came up. Apparently Nolan Bushnell stole the idea for Pong from Baer when he was demonstrating what would become the Odessey. I had never heard of this before, but there was a lawsuit involved and Ralph got some money, but none of the fame.
There's more info at http://www.designboom.com/eng/education/pong.html
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
At least I ain't the ONLY person that doesn't think bashing innocint people with a baseball bat and stealing their car is "fun". It may not cause violence, but this glorification of the "bad guy" is pretty fucked up.
I believe it's been mentioned on slashdot before. This factoid is rarely mentioned but the first videogame actually dates back to 1959 when Higinbotham set up a tennisgame on an oscillocsope .
This is the article from an issue of Creative Computing.
P.S
You can also find a short obituary of Higinbotham achievements at the FAS site. I'm not sure if Higinbotham would have approved of how things are turning out now.
WHO REALLY INVENTED
THE VIDEO GAME?
There was Bell, there was Edison, there was Fermi.
And then there was Higinbotham.
By John Anderson
The Space Age had just been birthed. Sputnik was a new and somewhat ominous presence in the evening sky--my father tells me he carried me to the roof of our apartment building to see it. I don't remember. The year was 1958, and I was two years old.
Dave Ahl, my boss, was a high school student. He had won a scholarship, one benefit of which was a tour of Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, NY. Something he saw on an oscilloscope there remained fixed in his mind for many years, and caused, among other things, a recent pilgrimage of my own.
Nearly 25 years after the fact, I found myself on the Long Island Expressway. I was trying to pass an eighteen-wheeler spewing gravel off its trailer, while I looked for the Brookhaven exit. It occurred to me that the Lab was hardly a stone's throw from Shoreham Nuclear Power Station, that controversial patch of multi-billion-dollar poured concrete. I wondered if the proximity was mere coincidence.
Brookhaven is a government installation, and I get nervous at checkpoints. The guard at the gate had a familiar kind of hypertensive bearing. I wished then I had shaved that morning. I proffered my press card with clammy claw. He told me to pull my car off to the side; I knew the jig was up. I was a spy, an agent, a saboteur, and it was all over.
He handed me a piece of paper and said those chilling words: "Have a nice day." Upon inspection, the paper seemed to be a visitor's map. My adrenalin level began to subside.
It's really very simple to get to the Department of Nuclear Energy. You make a right near the linear accelerator, and pull into the lot next to the alternating gradient synchotron. If you see the tandem Van de Graff, you've gone too far.
From there, only one flight of stairs separates you from one of the great, unsung heroes of our time, Willy Higinbotham.
There was Bell, there was Edison, there was Fermi. And then there was Higinbotham.
Willy was responsible for the display Dave saw on that fateful day in 1958. Willy, you see, invented the video game.
We've received several manuscripts which attempt to set the record straight on the history of the video game. If you claim and can document a video game predating 1958, let us know.
Otherwise, give Willy Higinbotham his profound and historic due. Much to the chagrin of large corporations involved in current litigation, he did it first, and he has proved it.
Though he stands about five feet four inches tall, Mr. Higinbotham commands quite a stature. He very nearly chainsmokes unfiltered cigarettes, which he wolfs down with great voracity for a man of 72 years. His eyeglasses magnify to the point where his corneas seem as large as quarters. He laughs easily and likes to play the accordion, though he admits it's been a while since he's played at a party.
And, as a physicist in the Manhattan Project, he witnessed the detonation of the first atomic bomb.
Before we sat down to speak in earnest, Willy called an old friend, Dave Potter, and asked him to join us. Dave had worked with Willy on the original game designs. We adjourned to a conference room. As Willy got started, other scientists would wander into the room, find a perch, and listen along. "Isn't he something?" one of the scientists whispered. He sure is.
Back in the 1950's, when tours of the Laboratory were first instituted, they were rather static