Atari founder says the games of today are "trash"

[moycon]

Well, yeah, if you delude yourself into believing there's no such thing as Grand Theft Auto, or Manhunt, or Scarface, or Mortal Kombat, or Dead Rising, or...

 

Seriously, Moycon. You're making the weakest, most intentionally ignorant argument in the history of any video game forum, anywhere, in this or any other dimension.

 

You're delusional, There's little difference in killing a person in Outlaw than killing a person in GTA except for the graphics. You're killing someone or killing something. The games where you kill have been around since the dawn of the industry. In fact as far as I know there have been several more where the great goal was to fuck someone and at least one 2600 game where the sole purpose was to rape.

 

Don't tell me I'm ignorant friend. There's little difference between now and then, unless you think that because the story is told in the game instead of the game manual makes a big difference.

 

So graphics have gotten better and we have more buttons now. Big deal.

Edited October 21, 2007 by moycon

[AtticGamer]

Games are no different in concept than they were years ago. There are still action games and other single player games and there are family games, like in most consoles or computers.

 

Games haven't changed but people's vision on them has, it is not the industry's fault that the media focuses on violent games scandals more than on happy family games being successful.

Edited October 21, 2007 by Atari_kid

[birdie3]

If the VCS was intended to be a gaming system for one player, they would have manufactured it with one joystick port only.

 

How does a person really play any game with one's self?

 

If Bushnell is so dissatisfied with the video game industry, being the well known and respected person that he supposedly is, why doesn't he join the helm of some new project and produce something along the lines of what he is talking about? Rescue the minds and families of today from this onslaught of "trash" games. Put your money where your mouth is buddy.

[mos6507]

Well, yeah, if you delude yourself into believing there's no such thing as Grand Theft Auto, or Manhunt, or Scarface, or Mortal Kombat, or Dead Rising, or...

 

Seriously, Moycon. You're making the weakest, most intentionally ignorant argument in the history of any video game forum, anywhere, in this or any other dimension.

 

You're delusional, There's little difference in killing a person in Outlaw than killing a person in GTA except for the graphics. You're killing someone or killing something. The games where you kill have been around since the dawn of the industry. In fact as far as I know there have been several more where the great goal was to fuck someone and at least one 2600 game where the sole purpose was to rape.

 

Don't tell me I'm ignorant friend. There's little difference between now and then, unless you think that because the story is told in the game instead of the game manual makes a big difference.

 

So graphics have gotten better and we have more buttons now. Big deal.

 

If you think such a radical difference in graphics doesn't change how you experience a game like this you are insane.

Edited October 21, 2007 by mos6507

[Artlover]

If you think such a radical difference in graphics doesn't change how you experience a game like this you are insane.

So Gen Custer raping an Indian chick up against a cactus is ok because it's low res?

[Jess Ragan]

Agreed. There's a difference between firing a blip at a blocky silhouette of a cowboy and wrapping a wire around the throat of your photorealistic and clearly human nemesis, or sinking a baseball bat into his skull, or tearing off his arms. Saying, "But you're still killing something!" doesn't hold much water when what you're killing in old video games is an icon and what you're killing NOW seems almost real enough to touch. And yes, yes, it's all fictional, but it's still tapping into the same dark, bloodthirsty part of your psyche that convinced the Romans to builds the Coliseum and Michael Vick to start his dog fighting ring. The fact that you're fighting so hard to defend and preserve the outrageous violence in today's games speaks volumes about how important satisfying those primal urges is to you.

Edited October 22, 2007 by Jess Ragan

[+Psionic]

If the VCS was intended to be a gaming system for one player, they would have manufactured it with one joystick port only.

 

How does a person really play any game with one's self?

Good question..ask the folks at NEC who designed the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 with one controller port. :!:

 

@ Jess Ragan: I'm glad you're saying this stuff for once and not me.

[Artlover]

The fact that you're fighting so hard to defend and preserve the outrageous violence in today's games speaks volumes about how important satisfying those primal urges is to you.

And we're back to my previous point of being subjective. You can choose to believe the "outrageous violence" all you want, but it's clearly obvious not everyone shares that "opinion". We think you're just as wrong as you choose to think we are. Sorry, but some people just don't subscribe to your sense of morality. Doesn't make either one of us better or worse then the other.

[birdie3]

Good question..ask the folks at NEC who designed the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 with one controller port. :!:

 

Why did they not use an additional controller port on the TG16? They eventually sold a peripheral that allowed 2 players did they not? I am not sure what that had to do with what I was talking about regarding the VCS but I guess I can sort of see your point.

[moycon]

If you think such a radical difference in graphics doesn't change how you experience a game like this you are insane.

 

Don't be foolish, Of course it changes your experience in that it looks better.

It's 2007 now now, technology has progressed and will continue to do so. Expect the quality of movies and video game to continue getting better. If that's radical to you...fine.

 

Is raping someone Ok in your book as long as the person doesn't look all that good?

Is killing a person Ok in you book as long as you only use one button to do it?

Was fucking some great metaphor for an idealistic world back in the late 70's, early, 80's? Tear down the walls that separate people by running house to house banging chicks while avoiding the police? (Cathouse Blues)

 

If you answer "yes" to any of the above...Then someone is insane here, but aint me. There is little difference, don't try and convince me that there is.

Are you people suggesting that graphics should have never gotten better? Do you people still wear neon trimmed t-shirts and zipper jackets!!?

I might even tend to agree with you if every single game on the market today focused on killing something or screwing someone.

Look around....They do not.

For every GTA there are dozens and dozens Katamari's, Mario's and Mercury Meltdowns, just like years ago for every Custers Revenge there were dozens of Strawberry Shortcakes, Pongs, and Pitfalls.

 

Folks always have had and should always have a choice in what they play. Some chose Q*Bert, some chose Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Folks can try to blame violent acts on videogames, saying that it's the graphics today that cause people to kill others.

They are idiots in my eyes, but I guess they have the right to put the blame there if they want.

 

These same people might have a hard time explaining all the murder, rape, child molestation, and other heinous acts that have existed since the dawn of man. Some people think acts like these only just started occurring post 70's I guess. Just because news travels faster in the year 2000 doesn't mean terrible acts didn't exist before videogames people!! Hell, a week-end family outing 200 years ago might have included a trip to town to watch a public hanging. Might even encourage young Billy to spit at the condemned! There's some family together time for ya , eh?

 

So, I guess the gist of Bushnells "logic" is the video game industry today is sad because violent game graphics are better now and that is all gamers play anymore is violent games. It's hard to believe some folks actually subscribe to this point of view. but I guess everyone has their own beliefs, so...fair enough. You'll just have to forgive me for not agreeing with you.

[+Psionic]

Why did they not use an additional controller port on the TG16? They eventually sold a peripheral that allowed 2 players did they not?

Yes, you had to buy a multi-tap just to play 2-player games.

 

I am not sure what that had to do with what I was talking about regarding the VCS but I guess I can sort of see your point.

You said that if Atari wanted people to play solo, they'd have designed the VCS with one controller port...I was joking that NEC must have wanted people to game solo, because that's exactly what they did - design a system with one port.

[birdie3]

The essence of what Bushnell is saying is that he would prefer to see people engaging in video gaming as a peaceful and constructive socio-cultural gathering as opposed to casting their souls away to a commercialized carnal frenzy of hopelessly addicted reality escapism. Furthermore, for all of the ways for video gaming to have evolved, it is disturbing and disappointing for him to watch it all unfold as it has while many of it's participants seem to be completely missing the point of his original intentions.

[Jess Ragan]

The fact that you're fighting so hard to defend and preserve the outrageous violence in today's games speaks volumes about how important satisfying those primal urges is to you.

And we're back to my previous point of being subjective. You can choose to believe the "outrageous violence" all you want, but it's clearly obvious not everyone shares that "opinion". We think you're just as wrong as you choose to think we are. Sorry, but some people just don't subscribe to your sense of morality. Doesn't make either one of us better or worse then the other.

 

You can't be this deluded. Mirriam-Webster defines violence as "exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse," and outrageous as "exceeding the limits of what is usual" or "going beyond all standards of what is right or decent." Now consider the following events in M-rated video games...

 

* Tearing off an opponent's arms in Mortal Kombat Armageddon

* Using torture to interrogate a criminal in The Punisher, then killing them with the torture device

* Splitting someone's head with a baseball bat in Manhunt

* Killing small children in Bioshock

 

By Mirriam-Webster's standards, we can classify every one of these events as violent. And we can safely say they are outrageous as well. It doesn't matter that they are acts of simulated violence... they are still acts of violence in the context of the games, just as the deaths in Saw are acts of violence in the context of that movie. How many people would argue that Saw isn't violent because the acts of violence in the film are simulated? Well, that's how much sense your own argument makes.

[+remowilliams]

* Killing small children in Bioshock

Since you keep trotting this out for some reason - have you even played the game? Do you know what context that this is even presented in? Do you have any idea that it is presented as deeply powerful moral choice in who you yourself are, and what you become as a result in the game? Are you aware that no 'death' of a child is even shown?

 

Or have you been possessed by Jack Thompson?

Edited October 22, 2007 by remowilliams

[moycon]

The essence of what Bushnell is saying is that he would prefer to see people engaging in video gaming as a peaceful and constructive socio-cultural gathering as opposed to casting their souls away to a commercialized carnal frenzy of hopelessly addicted reality escapism. Furthermore, for all of the ways for video gaming to have evolved, it is disturbing and disappointing for him to watch it all unfold as it has while many of it's participants seem to be completely missing the point of his original intentions.

 

Does Bushnell know the world or something? I ask because I've personally never met the guy, but he seems to know what I play and why I play videogames. He speaks for all videogamers....and probably hasn't seriously picked up and played a game in decades. (Maybe he does play games, I dunno, but playing games doesn't mean you speak for the masses)

 

What's disturbing to this guy about a family getting together and bowling in their living room on a Sunday night? What is disappointing to this fellow in regards to a child racing Lightning McQueen to the finish line? What carnaled frenzy of hopeless commercialism exists when Billy builds his Pinata garden? How is gathering together online with your friends to battle a beheamoth a social faux-pas? I'll tell you why I'm missing his point...it's because his point sounds like it was made by a person out of touch with the world around them. If I remember correctly these guys did a lot of drugs back in the day. I believe it based on his opinion of videogames today.

Edited October 22, 2007 by moycon

[+Psionic]

Jess, save your breath...

 

Certain people on this site should stop their daily regimen of watching porn and playing violent video games and go read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for a change. But I doubt that will ever happen...you can't teach anything to nihilistic moral relativist...they have to be left to stew in their own juices. You may as well be banging your head against a brick wall - the wall doesn't move.

 

Go back and read my post about antisocial behavior...a good number of AtariAgers likely fit that profile...so the trash they play and the lengths they go to defend it should come as no big surprise.

[Jess Ragan]

* Killing small children in Bioshock

Since you keep trotting this out for some reason - have you even played the game? Do you know what context that this is even presented in? Do you have any idea that it is presented as deeply powerful moral choice in who you yourself are, and what you become as a result in the game? Are you aware that no 'death' of a child is even shown?

 

Or have you been possessed by Jack Thompson?

 

Yes, I've played the game. I thought I already made that clear, but it bears repeating... I've played the game. I stopped playing the game because it was just getting too creepy for me to enjoy it. I'm aware of the context; and how the game is quick to pass the Little Sisters off as monsters warped by genetic experimentation. The fact remains that they can be reverted BACK to children, and that Bioshock gives you more Adam (the game's currency for purchasing special abilities) for killing them.

 

I love how you frame this debate in black and white, by the way. Either you're got to accept ALL the content in video games, no matter how nasty it gets, or you're one of Jack Thompson's self-righteous crusaders. No thanks. I'm going to have to take a shade of gray on this one.

[moycon]

Certain people on this site should stop their daily regimen of watching porn and playing violent video games and go read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics for a change. so the trash they play and the lengths they go to defend it should come as no big surprise.

 

On my reading pile currently is Cisco CCDA study guide, BlueRidge magazine and Spoon River Anthology. The games I've been playing all this last week??.... The uber violent Rapala's Fishing Tournament and the nasty homo-erotic Puzzle Quest.

 

Not unlike Bushnell, you're flapping your gums without having a clue. No offense ment, like him, you might not realize you don't have a clue.

 

BTW, Jess, when all videogames are wiped off the face of the Earth, what will you blame peoples terrible acts on then? Will you go back to that tried and true spawn of Satan... ROCK MUSIC!!! Just curious.

Edited October 22, 2007 by moycon

[mos6507]

Don't be foolish, Of course it changes your experience in that it looks better.

 

Just 'better'? Uniformly "better" to all people?

 

It's like the difference between the sillhouette B&W violence in Psycho vs. Friday the 13th.

 

Expect the quality of movies and video game to continue getting better. If that's radical to you...fine.

 

Just because you can show something doesn't mean you should. I don't need a gunfighter game where you can pick up brain matter afterwards like something out of Pulp Fiction. Art is about filtering reality, not merely simulating reality down to the atom.

 

Folks always have had and should always have a choice in what they play. Some chose Q*Bert, some chose Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

 

For adults fine, but not for kids. If videogames can present images just as graphic as R or NC-17 movies, then they should have the same constraints on them as movies do.

 

Violence is a part of life and videogames can be a good escape valve for one's daily frustrations. But you don't want the violence to be so realistic that you have to check yourself into Walter Reed for PTSD afterwards.

Edited October 22, 2007 by mos6507

[+remowilliams]

The fact remains that they can be reverted BACK to children, and that Bioshock gives you more Adam (the game's currency for purchasing special abilities) for killing them.

Then you obviously didn't play it for very long. Besides not being a morally reprehensible monster by not helping the children, you actually are rewarded with far more Adam by saving them.

 

The game presents you with a moral choice, and then actually rewards you by saving them though it's not apparent at first. Which leaves you to decide your actions by your own morality. What a horrible lesson.

Edited October 22, 2007 by remowilliams

[Artlover]

You can't be this deluded. Mirriam-Webster defines violence as "exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse," and outrageous as "exceeding the limits of what is usual" or "going beyond all standards of what is right or decent."

Part 1:

 

"usual" "right" "decent". Evolving terms that have always meant different things to different cultures at different times.

 

You can't be this deluded. Mirriam-Webster defines violence as "exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse," and outrageous as "exceeding the limits of what is usual" or "going beyond all standards of what is right or decent. Now consider the following events in M-rated video games"

Part 2:

 

Custer's Revenge - Raping a bound woman.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre - Killing women with chainsaw.

Bank Heist - Robbing banks and blowing up cops

Halloween - Avoid or try to kill the homicidal manaic trying to kill children and their baby sitter.

Gunfight - Just try to kill each other old west style.

 

By Mirriam-Webster's standards, we can classify every one of these events as violent. And we can safely say they are outrageous as well.

Yes, you are absolutly right, by Mirriam-Webster's standards, we CAN classify every game I just mentioned as violent, even outrageous.

 

The problem with your arguments are you're being a hypocrit. You give excuses to justify why some outrageous violence and sex is ok when it suits you, and why some isn't based soaly on graphics quality. Can you please quote the part in Mirriam-Webster's dictionary where violence is excusable based on visual quality? Didn't think so.

 

With that said, your know 25 years ago, people like you were making the exact same arguments against games like Custer's Revenge and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, that even back then were considered mature and hidden in the back room or under the counter avaialble only by request or mail order. So let me ask you, do you consider them to have been correct, or, "deluded"?

 

Technology improved but is equivelant to the period, the violence is still the same however.

[MCHufnagel]

I think one thing everyone on this thread has missed is, it is Nolan Bushnell who made these comments. Everything Nolan Bushnell says is related to promoting Nolan Bushnell. I'm sure his comments on modern gaming being anti-social has nothing to do with his U-Wink venture.

[Jess Ragan]

Hey, I'm not here to defend Custer's Revenge or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. They've got the same issues as the video games of today, in that they sacrifice the truly important aspects of gaming for exploitation and shock value. However, those were the rare exceptions, NOT the rule. We're reached a point where there are more mature-rated video games than ever, and it's rare for them to have the kind of intellectual depth of a book, film, or television show written specifically for mature audiences. For every Bioshock or Eternal Darkness, there are three games designed solely to exploit the public's thirst for violence.

 

Also, there are degrees of violence. You can't say that stomping on a turtle in Super Mario Bros. is exactly as violent as turning a crowd of drug addicts into bloody chunks in NARC, because there's more explicit detail in the latter game. When you include arms torn out their sockets, internal organs spilling to the floor, fountains of blood filling the sky, and the horrified screams of your victim in a video game, there's a very clear distinction between that and whacking a cartoon character over the head with a hammer.

 

By the same token, the sex in Custer's Revenge is more amusing than erotic... the animation is stiff, the graphics are blocky, and the private parts are so primitive that they're barely recognizable. The Indian even smiles during the intercourse, suggesting that there's no actual rape in the game. Now if you were to take that same scene and illustrate it with the kind of photorealistic graphics possible in today's video games, it would make a HUGE difference. It's no longer an abstract representation... it's a close simulation of the real thing.

Edited October 22, 2007 by Jess Ragan

[Jess Ragan]

I think one thing everyone on this thread has missed is, it is Nolan Bushnell who made these comments. Everything Nolan Bushnell says is related to promoting Nolan Bushnell. I'm sure his comments on modern gaming being anti-social has nothing to do with his U-Wink venture.

 

Of course they are! However, he's sparked an important debate, even if he did it just to fill his pockets with cash.

 

How is U-Wink doing, anyway? I have no way to gauge its success, or the lack of it.

[ninermaniac]

Uh...um...Custer's Revenge, Beat'em, PORN....................Gotta love it. I just love IRONY!