Shawn K. Quinn, Author at Rant Roulette

Further thoughts on the Nolan Bushnell GDC award saga

Upside down Atari
So not too long after or perhaps even right before that previous post went live, the Game Developers Conference made the predictable, easy, and feel-good decision to rescind the Pioneer Award they planned to give to Nolan Bushnell. For reasons stated previously, I think this is the wrong move.

I’m going to go as far as to say that the GDC’s action to rescind Nolan’s award does far more to devalue it than proceeding with the original plan to present it to him ever would have. Apparently, now it’s acceptable to judge 1970s conduct by 2018 standards. This is grossly unfair to those who just “went with the flow.”

One post shared to the AtariAge group on Facebook, by way of a group called Classic Home Video Games, states “Sounds like he’s guilty of nothing more than partying, consensual/casual sex, and living in the swingin’ seventies.” This roughly aligns with how I feel.

Another post to the AtariAge group said, simply, “Nolan responds with class” and includes a link to Nolan’s official statement, posted to Twitter as an image, reads as follows:

I applaud the GDC for ensuring that their institution reflects what is right, specifically with regards to how people should be treated in the workplace. And if that means an award is the price I have to pay personally so the whole industry may be more aware and sensitive to these issues, I applaud that too. If my personal actions or the actions of anyone who ever worked with me offended or caused pain to anyone at our companies, then I apologize without reservation.

Maybe a lot of people see it as classy, but I am disappointed in Nolan’s response. The apology is understandable, but rolling over and saying in effect that it’s okay to go back and basically rewrite history is not. We know what acceptable conduct is in 2018. We know a lot of what went on in the 1970s and early 1980s would not fly by the standards we have here in 2018. I don’t see what’s so wrong with acknowledging that in the same breath as recognizing the good associated with the Atari and Chuck E. Cheese brands as the video gaming institutions that they are, by giving the founder the originally announced award.

There’s no nice way to say this: Nolan Bushnell got robbed, and the GDC really stepped in Bantha poop this year. I would go as far as to interpret Nolan’s statement as being made under duress, that that can’t possibly be what he really wanted to say, and the only reason we are reading what we are is he’s speaking out of fear of never getting this award. There’s really no other logical explanation for rolling over and saying it’s okay for the GDC to do this. Because it was not okay. A lot of the stuff that went on at Atari in the 1970s wasn’t okay either by today’s standards, but the reality is the same Atari where Nolan wore his “I love to fuck” T-shirt is the same one where all that magic happened.

I am not taking the side of sexual harassers of decades past, but instead, I am taking the side of fairness and decency, and recognizing the good achievements of someone even if there is some not-so-good mixed in with them. However, I am going to find it very difficult to recognize whoever gets the 2018 Pioneer Award in Nolan’s place to have received something that rightfully belongs to them, or to recognize the award at its full value. I can already tell you the very best case is that I’m going to be rather annoyed unless the GDC fully reverses course. At worst, my outrage knob is going to be turned up to eleven.

Here’s to hoping the GDC comes to its senses in 2019 and give the award to Nolan Bushnell as it was supposed to be this year. I’m hoping this #metoo stuff will have finally blown over by then.

(For those expecting my take on the State of the Union address, I have not forgotten about it; that will be addressed in a post no later than Friday. I have a huge backlog of draft posts to finish; hopefully, I’ll be caught up before Valentine’s Day.)

Nolan Bushnell versus the #metoo movement

I grew up during the genesis of the video game industry. I had an Atari 2600, an Atari 1200XL computer, an Atari 7800, and an Atari Lynx growing up (I also had a Nintendo received as a holiday gift one year, which I requested once it became obvious the 7800 was lacking in decent titles). So I identify quite clearly as a member of the “Atari Generation” (not to be confused with the “Pepsi Generation”, as I mainly drank Coca-Cola and iced tea).

Fast forward to a few moments ago, when I found out from this article published in The Verge about how Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari (and also Chuck E. Cheese, another 80s video gaming-related institution), was due to receive an award from the Game Developers Conference. Unfortunately, as you can see by the title of the article once you read it, this decision is not without controversy.

From the article:

In a 2011 interview, former Atari exec Ray Kassar recalls arriving on his first day in a suit, only to find Bushnell wearing a t-shirt that said ”I love to fuck.” In a Playboy profile from 2012, Bushnell wistfully recalls the “wild environment” of the ‘70s Atari era. “It was post–flower revolution, women’s liberation, no AIDS yet, and lots of company romances.” It also describes how the engineers at Atari code-named their projects after attractive female employees; “Darlene,” the code-name for the home version of Pong, was inspired by a woman who Bushnell described to Playboy as “stacked.”

And further down:

[Steven L. Kent’s book The Ultimate History of Video Games] also quotes Pong designer Al Alcon, who describes one such meeting. “Nolan needed some papers and documents so he called his office and said, ‘Have Miss so and so bring them up.’ We were in this tub [when she arrived], so he proceeded to try to get her in the tub during the board meeting. Nolan’s attorney was miffed [because] we got his papers wet. He was not in the hot tub and he was not amused by any any of this. That was the sort of fun we had.”

My stance on this is not cut-and-dried one way or the other. I support the #metoo movement in principle. Sexual harassment and sexual abuse is unacceptable conduct in decent society. We as a society have made great strides in this over the past quarter century or so. The portions of Nolan’s conduct which qualify as inappropriate in retrospect should be condemned. I consider such conduct indefensible, at least by today’s standards, and I’m not going to try to defend it.

However, I feel that denying Nolan the award by judging his 1970s and early 1980s conduct by 2018 norms is completely unfair. That’s how some guys acted back then. Obviously, that conduct would never fly in a corporate environment in the present day. The 1970s were a different time with a different set of cultural norms. It would be like discrediting Benjamin Franklin’s contributions to science and the founding of the United States just because he once wrote an essay entitled “Fart Proudly” which some might find distasteful. (Yes, I’ll admit my inner 10-year old giggles a bit when imaging the guy pictured on our $100 bill letting one rip. But I digress…)

Further down in the article, game developer and US House of Representatives candidate Brianna Wu is quoted as saying “Bushnell is an important figure. But this isn’t the year to honor him.” While I feel Brianna has a point, I have to look at it from the other side. Will we be ready next year to honor Nolan’s pioneering work in video games? Is it the intent of the #metoo movement to disqualify Nolan from getting such an award one year at a time until he dies, and possibly even after? That’s certainly what I see happening; this is the top of a potentially steep and very slippery slope.

I also have a feeling Atari wasn’t the only company in the industry where such things happened. If we’re going to say Nolan doesn’t deserve the award because of this, that too is the top of a potentially steep and very slippery slope. And the end result of it would be that a lot of people who made the video game industry what it is today will miss out on a lot of awards they otherwise would have received. I’d like to think that’s not really what the #metoo movement is after.

So in conclusion, despite the opposition, I think GDC is doing the right thing by giving Nolan the award they have announced. However, I would not be opposed to the GDC condemning the instances of Nolan’s inappropriate conduct from four decades ago. I also do not feel Nolan’s rather belated apology for that conduct would devalue the award itself, nor the presentation of the award to him today in 2018. Times change, and we should not throw the proverbial baby out with the bathwater just because of that.

Profanity and racism: an example of how not to lead

This has to stop somewhere and somehow. I know I haven’t been the most active in writing about this flimsy excuse for an administration, but this simply cannot be ignored. This post will have profanity in it, but only because I’m quoting our supposed “leader” here in the US.

Continue reading Profanity and racism: an example of how not to lead

Fifteen seconds before midnight

Unlike most of the stories I write on this blog, this is not sourced from an existing news story but from personal experience. The story begins back on December 21 or so. I ask mom if she has any plans for New Year’s Eve. She finds the event at Memorial City Mall and proceeds to reserve a hotel room for us for the night with the idea of avoiding both potentially icy roads as well as “amateur hour”, i.e. the potential drunk drivers.

And so it was decided that’s where we would be to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Given what we had expected versus what we actually found awaiting us, “celebrate” could be a bit generous of a term. We arrived somewhat early at around 9:20 pm. I certainly arrived ready, complete with a face paint design I had been practicing for several days prior (I know I don’t have the best of expressions here, but it took me a while to really get in the spirit of things and this was before we even left):

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The weather outside wasn’t too bad at first, but it started feeling colder due to the wind, and eventually, we would spend the majority of our time inside except for key moments of the Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve broadcast (and that was often me outside alone). There were no festivities as such inside, but there was a church group having some sort of gathering, which was unannounced on the website alongside the mall’s NYE celebration. The cash bar was present, but given the chilling temperatures, there weren’t many takers for cold beer and wine. It would have made more sense to sell hot chocolate, hot coffee, and hot tea (the vendor appeared to only have a beer and wine license as that was all that was being served, so hot coffee with liqueur wouldn’t have been legally possible).

I did catch Mariah Carey’s set and the countdown to midnight for New York City and the eastern time zone. I will briefly mention it was nice to see Mariah’s set happen without any technical issues; in a later post, I will go into more details on this.

After that, we spent some time inside planning what exactly to do, with the key decision being stick around or head back to the hotel early. The way I was looking at it, with us being a couple of hours into it, it seemed silly to head out some 20-30 minutes before midnight in our time zone (with the televised celebration showing New Orleans and a fleur-de-lis dropping instead of a ball like the Times Square celebration in NYC). At one point we went out and there was some rap group playing on the TV.

Finally, the moment came. We were outside watching the countdown. I get up and start a live Facebook stream for the final 2-3 minutes or so. We get down to about 15 seconds… and then the big screen TV goes dark.

Obviously, the crowd is unhappy. Finally, someone figures out where in the countdown we should be and we count down the final 7 seconds on our own.

I’m not sure what the management of Memorial City Mall was thinking. The mall’s own Twitter account promoted a no-cover event at 024 Lounge and didn’t even mention the event at the mall itself (which we found out about on the mall’s website). Looking back it is now pretty obvious that the event we attended was an afterthought, even though it was announced at least a good week and a half in advance.

I quipped to my mom that had I know how this was going to turn out, I would have done a full face Mr. Yuk instead of the festive red, white, and blue 2018 design. I probably wouldn’t in reality (if for no other reason that the green paints are a bit harder to wash off than other colors) but all kidding aside, while the rest of the event may have technically been as advertised, I don’t know what can be said for cutting the power to the big screen TV a full 15 seconds before the end of the countdown when the mall’s own calendar showed the event as running until 12:30 am. The fool that either put the TV on a (sloppily set) timer or, worse, intentionally powered it down early should be made to answer to whoever does the PR for Memorial City Mall, and in turn to those who attended. Maybe that seems harsh but said fool is the one responsible for ruining the experience for the crowd that did gather.

It’s been a couple of days, and whoever is in charge of the Twitter account has not responded to my tweet. I will update if I get an answer from anyone representing the mall.

Below is the full live video on Facebook, as originally aired (smartphone video with no tripod, so it is a bit jerky/wobbly in places):

Net neutrality protests today at selected Verizon stores #stopthefcc

I know it’s been quiet over here, and yes, I definitely know it’s 2 in the freaking morning (Houston time). But, this is important and can’t wait for daybreak. For those still tuned in and following the blog, I want to get the word out about this. Today, December 7, is the day for Team Internet’s protests of the planned repeal/rollback of the rules protecting net neutrality.

For those of you new to all of this, net neutrality means the equal treatment of all traffic on the Internet. It means Internet providers aren’t allowed to give preferential treatment to certain websites (particularly sites owned by the same parent company as the one providing your Internet service, such as Yahoo for Verizon, or NBC News for Comcast). Perhaps more importantly, it means Internet providers aren’t allowed to slow down or block blogs like mine here because I criticize their dubious and unethical business practices (like I have criticized Google so many times in the past). Put another way, it means the Internet is not just “cable TV for computers” where one has to pay extra to access certain sites; one is not stuck using Google because it costs extra to access DuckDuckGo.

It disgusts me that we have someone in charge of the FCC (Ajit Pai) who used to be an attorney for Verizon and who is apparently still Verizon’s puppet. Yes, DJT put him there, but this goes beyond the presidency. We still have a week to compel Congress to act.

For those of you in the Houston area, there are two main protests. I signed up when only the protest at the downtown Verizon store was available. That store is at 930 Main Street #103, right next to the northbound Main Street Square station on METRORail’s Red Line, across the street from a Metro bus stop for (inbound) routes 40 and 41 (also 212, 228, and 262 but those are more expensive commuter routes), and about a block and a half from the southbound Main Street Square station. (If you’ve been downtown a lot, you’ll remember at one time it was an AT&T store, and before that, a Krispy Kreme donut shop.) The protest at this store is at 5:00 pm, but I will try to be there no later than 4:45 pm to help get things started and/or meet and greet. There is apparently a second protest scheduled at the downtown store for Friday at 6:00 pm; this may be an alternate date due to the weather forecast (the hourly forecast I am seeing has no chance of rain during the 5:00 pm hour, but a 40% chance during the 4:00 pm hour and 30% during the 6:00 pm hour).

The other Verizon store protests listed in the area (current as of very shortly before the time of this post) are at the Galleria area store, 6 BLVD Place (1800 Post Oak Boulevard) at 11:30 am (on Metro bus route 33, also a relatively short walk from the Post Oak stop on route 82); Pearland store, 10904 Memorial Hermann Drive at 2:00 pm; and Pasadena store, 3830 Spencer Highway at 1:00 pm.

If you are outside the Houston area, please consult the event map. If you can’t attend a protest, you can still help out by spreading the word.