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Nolan Bushnell Condemns Grand Theft Auto
Thanks to Newsweek for their extremely short, but somewhat illuminating mini-interview with Nolan Bushnell, timed to coincide with this weekend's Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. The founder of Atari and creator of the RoboCat briefly summarizes Atari's glory days: "Since we were so limited with graphics then, we had to focus on gameplay", but is dismissive of today's violent titles, saying: "I don't like the ones that glorify antisocial behavior, like Grand Theft Auto and Vice City. We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up a tank, a plane, a car - but you couldn't do violence against a human." There are more complete interviews with Bushnell archived at the San Jose Tech Museum site and at Joystick101.org.
There is usually a human in the tank, plane and car. So I do not see the reason for this double standards. In a free society you should be able to manufacture and play whatever games you like. Anything else is a serious limitation of the basic human rights.
Entertainment is often controversial. Whether one is speaking of stage productions, film, television, novels, or computer games, one often runs the risk that certain individuals will leap to the conclusion that the existence of negative behavior, self-destructive actions, and antisocial characters proves the approval of such behavior or characters. If there is to be conflict in a story, film, or game, there have to be bad guys. Bad guys make the art forms more interesting and the victory more satisfying.
In computer games, the gamer wants to experience and cause the results, not merely watch or hear. The easiest way to allow the gamer to cause the results is to build in cause and effect contingencies. Unfortunately, portraying violence and its reprehensible aftermath is the easiest and most commonly used means to give the gamer this opportunity to directly cause something to happen on the screen.
How long before we can see skins for Vice City with his face?
I remember playing a game where 2 cowboys tried to shoot each other. So much for the no humans rule?
Or was it some sort of unauthorized game?
It was so long ago, might even ne confusing it with another console. But I definitely remember the blocky look being exactly like the 2600's graphics.
Bushnell-" Violence against humans is something we never would have tolerated in our games.. but violence against Dots that was openly supported.
Every day we had a new way to torment that dot from being smacked around by other dots or being eat by a big yellow duck."
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
But what about all those aliens coming to Earth that only wanted to share their knowledge and love of flying in formation with us? Huh? Insensitive bastard...
What makes a man want to be a mouse? (Python's Flying Circus)
What about Custer's Revenge? Doesn't that inflict pain on people. I haven't played it but it seems to be against the "but you couldn't do violence against a human" rule. That rule doesn't seem to apply to aliens and monsters as well. Does Atari have some bias against them? I do agree that modern games have less gameplay and more graphics especially violence than earlier in games' life.
Why don't you guys have friends or journals?
I guess Gunfighter was an exception to that rule, then (A game where two cowboys try to shoot at each other). And don't get me started on the violence of Human Cannonball. :)
After all the Degenatron is way cooler than any old Atari piece of junk. :-)
The Atari.. right the system that has a texas chainsaw massacre game(where you where you play leatherface) Custers Revenge (where you raped a indian woman who was tied up) and E.T. (where your childhood memories of the Spielberg classic where turned into a neverending nightmare of open pits.)
"I am a kernel in the linux army"
That's seems like some really relaxed rules you had. Where I work in the UK, the health and safety guy has banned us from blowing up anything.
Karma: Bad due to google bombing - Robert Watkins woz 'ere.
I worked for Nolan Bushnell at uWink, very quickly I heard his complaints about the excessive violence of first person shooters. His opinion never strayed. He praised non-violent games, and was disgusted with violent ones.
A quick look at the games uWink has should show his outlook. All the games uWink has are non-violent. The only games which could be an exception was Scarab and Baloon Popper, and they were:
A) Not in the least bit bloody.
B) Part of the Software aquired from Playnet. While Playnet technically had Nolan's name on it, it didn't have his active involvment like uWink.
All the games created by uWink don't even have a hint of meanness in them. They are all like Pong in spirit, in that they deal with falling blocks, cards, or mental puzzles. These are the types of games that Nolan wanted to create. If there was a bloody Atari game, it was probably created after the point where Nolan lost control.
Sangloth
I'd appreciate any comment with a logical basis...it doesn't even have to agree with me.
Can't do violence against a human? My freshly swallowed arrow-wielding squarebody surrenders.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Makes ME feel safe leaving my kids there.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
"Fascism:Extreme right-wing dictatorial government,belligerently nationalist,that merges state and business leadership"
A self-serving definition. Fascism is quite often left-wing as well (Stalin, Lenin, Mao). In fact, some of the worst fascists are left-wing.
It seems Mr. Bushnell must have forgot about Outlaw. The only goal in the game is to cap the other human in the dome. No tanks, cars, or planes to worry about at all, just bullets to the brain.
Published by Atari, not only are you hacking up wandering monsters but you slaughter Humans (and demi-humans) too. Your character also has the choice to be good or murdereously evil, so I suppose that renders his (don't harm humans) a rather moot point.
It seems a little odd for the inventor of a game where you manipulate breasts so that you can catch somone and "score" to be condemning anything. Not that rape is what is implied, but the lack of taste certainly is pretty evident. Yes, GTA is a violent game, and yes you are required to do some pretty nasty things to win. Technology limitations of the time notwithstanding, however, I find Gotcha to be more tasteless, especially when stopping to consider what the game if made with modern technology might look like.
Ok, sure, GTA3 is not filled with animated care bears.....but if you ever watch the shooting someone animation it truly is over to top, meaning to me that it falls past the point of being serious and to the point of being funny. I just got back into playing this game and I still love it. Now, I know he was refering to old atari games but lets look at a recent title by Atari "Enter the Matrix." I mean, you do nothing other then shoot people in that game. Well, I'll keep playing GTA3 and games like it as long as I can buy them legally.
peace be with you.
It should be noted that Rockstars games do one thing he should be proud of: Focus on gameplay. Is there a more replayable game on the market to rival the GTA's? I doubt it...
One question... How is Atari doing now? How is Rockstar doing now?
http://www.tomandemily.com
Suuuuure...no violence against humans. But criminy...how many of you had nightmares of being eaten by a blocky aligator like in "Pitfall"? I shudder to rehash those memories!
Or of being a frog and trying to hop across the street. I'm afraid to cross highways now for fear of being squashed. Wait...now that I think about it...there were scary aligators in that too.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up a tank, a plane, a car - but you couldn't do violence against a human."
THis coming from the company that paid their programers slave wages and gave no written credit for games authored. Yeah, Atari was a great comapny "back in the day"
On Wall Street they say "buy low, sell high" On the pad we say, "buy high, sell high" Isn't that somehow better?
He didn't mention any "high road", he mentioned "human rights" and "free society".
MORTAR COMBAT!
Outlaw most certainly glorified anti-social behavior and depicted violence against humans.
The vividness of the violence shown in current games is not at issue - Bushnell said he didn't allow any depiction of violence against humans, and yet he did (abstract as it was). He's being a revisionist, and you are being a Bushnell apologist.
i hear the new GTA will be called sin city..anyone know about this and when is it out.
We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up a tank, a plane, a car - but you couldn't do violence against a human.
So, in other words:
We actually had a rule at Atari, which seems kind of quaint now, that you could blow up three pixels, three pixels, three pixels -- but you couldn't do violence against three pixels.
I would hope there would be. GTA3 gets boring after about 5 minutes.
I'm sick and tired of GTA getting this flack because of its subject matter. It's a gangster game. It's also a simulation. Most of the violence the game is condemned for is the choice of the player, not the goal of the game. You can beat both GTA3 and Vice City without "beating a granny to death".
Let me tell you all something. I played a game on the Playstation once that was a racing game. You could race through cities. (I'm sorry, the name escapes me.) There are bystanders in the street. What happens when you try to mow them down? They magically jump back (not very realistically mind you, happens way too quick) and clear the car so they never get hurt. So what happens? You know you can't hurt them. You know your car won't slow down. You just keep driving right through them. Is this really better than what happens in GTA 3? At least in GTA's case, when you hit pedestrians, the police start chasing you. When the police start chasing you, the goal of the game gets monumentally harder. So what's the result? You avoid pedestrians like the plague! So tell me, when your reflexes are trained to avoid hitting people, how exactly is this something to condemn? The non-violent game creates a worse situation!
One other thing I'd like to point out that is rarely mentioned in these negative GTA articles is that the game has a number of proper elements to its appeal. Running people over or baiting pigs is a cheap laugh, it's not what the game is about. This is the type of information that one learns after actually playing the game instead of watching the 10 second clip.
"Derp de derp."
Why can't the same standard be held for games? Someone doesn't like violent games... well OK. Let them develop non-violent ones like they enjoy. I can still play Silent Hill and Splinter Cell if I want to.
Nolan Bushnel hasn't been directly associated with Atari for something going on ten (or more, 15?) years now...
He also lost control of the company prior to that... (Which is what allowed the creation of the Gunslinger/Outlaw Game.)
Perhaps 10 years back is before your time though...
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
It was actually more like 25 years ago...Warner bought Atari towards the end of the 70s, I believe.
Your point is moot, though. I wasn't blaming Bushnell for Atari's crap...I was reinforcing the parent's statement that violence isn't necessarily a substitute for gameplay. Bushnell is a bit more removed from industry than I thought if he actually believes that.
"I strongly urge both the faint of heart and the faint of butt to leave the room at this time."
- Strong Bad