הpp0¢הhd0¢הju1¢הlm1¢הrm38¢¢ o=o=o=o=o=¢¢The Atari Transformation¢¢August 26, 1998¢¢When I started playing video games, they were toys. You either dropped quarters in an arcade machine or played one of the hard-wired home units that dispensed one or more variations of Pong. Now electronic gaming is the world's most dynamic, fastest-growing hobby, enjoyed by millions of enthusiastic players around the world.¢¢Much of the credit for the miraculous transformation belongs to Atari, the Nintendo of its era. While speaking at last weekend's World of Atari convention in Las Vegas, I strolled through the museum with Joyce Worley and Bill Kunkel. With mounting surprise and delight, we pored over display tables displaying the milestones of that revolutionary journey.¢¢The Atari 2600 of hallowed memory represents the single biggest forward step in the entire history of video games. Before it became a worldwide standard, the field lacked continuity and cohesion. It turned the spotlight from toy-like, single-purpose Pong machines to the software-centered devices which have dominated the field since the late '70s.¢¢Atari wasn't the first to introduce a home programmable system. RCA, Fairchild and Bally preceded it, and the Odyssey2 debuted at roughly the same time. The Sunnyvale, CA, colossus gets the credit, deservedly, because it alone had the talent, perception and will to make the kind of games that converted non-players into enthusiastic participants.¢¢Not that Atari charged into this sunlit future without a hard push from behind. The concept of a software-centered game hobby was so alien to the company, which made its first mark with single-use coin-op units, that it originally opposed the concept of third-party software. Back when Bill Kunkel and I started "Arcade Alley" for Video magazine, we had to ration the reviews. We could only do two or three games a month, including coverage of lesser programmables like the Bally Professional Arcade, or we might not have enough titles for next month's column.¢¢When Activision, the first independent video game software publisher, opened for business, we immediately made contact and arranged to cover its first group of releases. Atari's reaction was immediate, anguished and angry. A company representative told me, in a tense phone conversation, that if we covered Activision we wouldn't get any more Atari games to review!¢¢They didn't buy my assertion that more games would ultimately mean more sales for Atari. So I told them we planned to cover all video games, not just those manufactured by companies that also make consoles.¢¢Atari snubbed us for awhile and made life miserable for Activision, Imagic and other pioneers. After awhile, though, sales proved the validity of a software-driven video game business. The hobby has never looked back. ¢¢Atari makes dull peripherals for home computers now. The 2600 is a museum piece. And yet as we play our PlayStation and N64 games, we should never forget what Atari contributed to our favorite pasttime.¢¢ o=o=o=o=o=¢¢¢
