Once Upon Atari?

[krisjohn]

You can be creative and free-form without being an ego-centric prick. Make sure you don't mix up cause and effect. A corporate culture of misadventure is not the reason why Atari games sold so well. Activision was hugely successful and still exists today -- are there documentaries discussing early Activision employees walking up the walls?

 

Companies are sensitive to the behaviour of small numbers of staff. I'm sure it's all fun and games if you're the one screwing around. Meanwhile, everyone else is looking for a job where they don't have to work with you (or they're privately questioning why you haven't been fired).

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

Activision was hugely successful and still exists today -- are there documentaries discussing early Activision employees walking up the walls?

Nope. But keep in mind, the founding programmers of Activision were all at Atari during that time - they were there in the 70s, and before Nolan let go of the company and sold it to Warners, you can bet there was probably a whiff of marijuana smoke in the air. It's not an environment where I would choose to work personally, but hey, that's just me. It's kinda fun to hear the stories though. And keep in mind that it was a different time - drug use was generally much more accepted and open then, as was the whole "wild and crazy guy" mentality. It wasn't IBM. It was Atari. I'm in no way defending drug use or irresponsible behavior, but judging by the fact that you're here at all, I think it's safe to say that you enjoyed the results of all that manic brainstorming...and in the end, that's what counts.

 

So far as we know, and there's plenty of evidence to corroborate it, Once Upon Atari tells us some true stories, perhaps embellished, perhaps not, by the people who were there...and I'm not sure what else anyone buying it would be expecting.

[NE146]

Did they have any l33t orgies?

[AtariDude]

The DVD did mention one particular incident with one of the programmers where he was caught with one of the female employees and they were both in the all natural. I am pretty sure that there must have been orgies at some point but no one went on record saying such.