More fun with The Ultimate History of Video Games:

Atari had deeply rooted problems that eventually infected the entire game industry. During its heyday, Atari became top-heavy with marketers and other executives. As several ex-Atari people later described the situation, the company had entirely abandoned its carefree youth and become a home for MBAs.

With the continuing growth of video games, some executives began to believe that they could sell anything as long as it came packaged as a video game.

Is it any surprise why I spend so much time railing on the Wii?  The only difference is that while Atari had no way of stopping third-party production, Nintendo merely doesn’t care.  Steve Race was V.P. of Atari’s international marketing division?  In the book, he recalls one of the underrated moments in Atari’s downfall:

We had 24- and 26-year-old MBAs running around making multimillion-dollar decisions.  I remember shortly after I first joined Atari, I guess I had been there for less [sic] then a month, and they had just signed up to do a video rendition of Rubik’s Cube.

There was a woman who was running the marketing for the North American side of the business, and she came up to me and asked me if international [the International division of Atari] would be interested in marketing it internationally.  And I said, “No.  Absolutely not.”

She was quite surprised that I could make a decision that quickly, and she said, “Well, why wouldn’t you be interested in it?”

I said, “Well, you’re going to have to help me understand why a 40$ electronic rendition of this product is better than the $3.98 [original] rendition that is more portable and that I can take anywhere I want. When you can convince me of that, I’ll be happy to consider this for International.”

Rubik’s Cube went on to be an incredibly bad disaster.

Go ahead and laugh.

Now cry.

Currently reading The Ultimate History of Video Games.  If the first hundred pages speaks for the rest of the book, and you have any interest in the history of games, just spend the thirteen dollars and buy the thing.

The setup: Nolan Bushnell, Atari’s founder, had a problem with his Research and Development department.  Al Alcorn, the department’s vice president, had a problem with Bushnell’s input.  Alcorn felt Bushnell was in no position to make suggestions for half-finished games that he did not oversee from the beginning.  Bushnell didn’t enjoy this.  Back-and-forth bickering ensued, and both laid out their master plan to stymie the other.  Bushnell won.

In an attempt to control Bushnell’s visits, Alcorn set up a security system. Whenever Bushnell entered Research and Development, Alcorn distracted him by leading him from project to project.  If Alcorn was out of the department when Bushnell arrived, his engineers could reach him with a special beeper.

According to Alcorn, this strategy worked for a while, but Bushnell eventually concocted a method of monitoring Research and Devleopment that even fooled Alcorn.  He placed an ally in the department to tell him about each project.  His informant would have to be unimportant, someone so small and insignficant that Alcorn would never notice him.  Bushnell’s informant was Steve Jobs.