Sex, Pong, And Pioneers: What Atari Was Really Like, According To Women Who Were There

[Fluffernutter]

Long, but good read.

...If it isn’t the women of Atari who paint a bad picture of Nolan Bushnell, it’s the culture he created there that, decades later, has mushroomed into something else. It’s a culture where bragging about “stacked” secretaries as late as 2012 garnishes Atari’s mythos instead of muddying it. It’s a culture where Carol Kantor’s groundbreaking research isn’t evoked as often as a hot tub purchased to lure in new talent. It’s a culture that, today, celebrates the sexiness of Atari’s early women employees more loudly than their contributions. If it isn’t the women of Atari who paint a bad picture of Nolan Bushnell, it is his braggadocio attitude, his carnival-barker hype with a chauvinist tinge, that does.


https://kotaku.com/sex-pong-and-pioneers-what-atari-was-really-like-ac-1822930057

 

[The Clinch]

 

[rob mafia]

mentions "chauvinist" in the first paragraph. yup, it's kotaku.

"journalism" in action.

 

[Ashton]

Long, but good read.

...If it isn’t the women of Atari who paint a bad picture of Nolan Bushnell, it’s the culture he created there that, decades later, has mushroomed into something else. It’s a culture where bragging about “stacked” secretaries as late as 2012 garnishes Atari’s mythos instead of muddying it. It’s a culture where Carol Kantor’s groundbreaking research isn’t evoked as often as a hot tub purchased to lure in new talent. It’s a culture that, today, celebrates the sexiness of Atari’s early women employees more loudly than their contributions. If it isn’t the women of Atari who paint a bad picture of Nolan Bushnell, it is his braggadocio attitude, his carnival-barker hype with a chauvinist tinge, that does.


https://kotaku.com/sex-pong-and-pioneers-what-atari-was-really-like-ac-1822930057

I expected that to be a feminazi hit piece, I'm pretty surprised at how fair it was. That was actually a pretty good read. Definitely not the usual Kotaku article

 

[Fluffernutter]

For those who the article is TL;DR, here is a paraphrase:

Hypothetical journalist:
"As a woman that worked at Atari in the early 1970s, were you objectified by your male bosses?"

Hypothetical employee from the 1970s looking back on her time at Atari from her home in 2018:
"Yes and no. First off, it was the 1970s. There was sex, drugs, and Rock & Roll. There were also inappropriate comments thrown around. However, if a boss asked you out and you said "no" then that was that.

Plus, Atari was a company in SiliconValley that actually hired women. Many women became executives rather than assistants to executives.

After Atari was sold and became more corporate, doors started closing to women as they worked up the ladder.

Sure, the hot tubs and pot were gone, but female executives at Atari were told that they would have no chance to be executive in the more corporate companies in Silicon Valley."

 

[Eazy123]

So we're gonna build a #metoo time machine now?

 

[Fatt Hughes]

so it was "Mad Men'' type atmosphere but with video games during a period where they could have gotten away with it. Good for them.

 

[ThulsaDooom]

Don't want to white knight for Kotaku because anime makes me puke but Jason Schreier is the best gaming journalist working today by a landslide. Shout out to my boy Danny O'Dwyer for making awesome behind the scenes documentaries with No Clip, too.

 

[xcvbn]

For those who the article is TL;DR, here is a paraphrase:

Hypothetical journalist:
"As a woman that worked at Atari in the early 1970s, were you objectified by your male bosses?"

Hypothetical employee from the 1970s looking back on her time at Atari from her home in 2018:
"Yes and no. First off, it was the 1970s. There was sex, drugs, and Rock & Roll. There were also inappropriate comments thrown around. However, if a boss asked you out and you said "no" then that was that.

Plus, Atari was a company in SiliconValley that actually hired women. Many women became executives rather than assistants to executives.

After Atari was sold and became more corporate, doors started closing to women as they worked up the ladder.

Sure, the hot tubs and pot were gone, but female executives at Atari were told that they would have no chance to be executive in the more corporate companies in Silicon Valley."

So, ban corporations? I'm down.

 

[Ice That Jaw]

There was a G4 show called Code Monkeys that has cameos from Bushnell and satirizes the atari gen programmers. It's fucking hilarious but sadly only lasted 2 seasons.

Hulu, Netflix, etc don't have it but it's on Dailymotion.

 

[Woldog]

Just remember the guys who run video game companies and create video games are usually socially inept nerds to start with. I'd be surprised if some of these women didn't do things to advance their career early on, after a while sure I can definitely see these guys turning into Weinstein types.

 

[rob mafia]

There was a G4 show called Code Monkeys that has cameos from Bushnell and satirizes the atari gen programmers. It's fucking hilarious but sadly only lasted 2 seasons.

Hulu, Netflix, etc don't have it but it's on Dailymotion.

code monkeys was great

 

[facePuncher7]

Kotaku reused unlicensed content that I produced, did not respond to any of my emails asking them to take it down, and shortly after wrote a piece about the evils of piracy.

I have no time for any opinion pieces written on that site.

 

[AronaBeatsJones]

Kotaku reused unlicensed content that I produced, did not respond to any of my emails asking them to take it down, and shortly after wrote a piece about the evils of piracy.

I have no time for any opinion pieces written on that site.

Fuck--post this shit on their Reddit.

Just did the same recently with my cell phone provider, who keep charging me a bogus data fee, and then screwed around with me on Twitter with a variety of excuses, so I did put their shit on blast on Reddit, and got results the next day.

 

[facePuncher7]

Fuck--post this shit on their Reddit.

Just did the same recently with my cell phone provider, who keep charging me a bogus data fee, and then screwed around with me on Twitter with a variety of excuses, so I did put their shit on blast on Reddit, and got results the next day.

It happened a number of years ago, it was a collection of gifs from a game I was working on but never released. They didn't mention they were from a game or who made them, used them in some other context.

I didn't make the gifs, I'm assuming someone from their offices made them from a video of my game.

 

[Seano]

Metoo# sort of made people not care about this stuff real quick.

 

[funcrusher2007]

So we're gonna build a #metoo time machine now?

Foreal,fuck it..let’s go back to Jim Crow era and segregation..we can outrage about shit that not one of us alive had anything to do with...


Wait....fuccckkkk

 

[funcrusher2007]

It happened a number of years ago, it was a collection of gifs from a game I was working on but never released. They didn't mention they were from a game or who made them, used them in some other context.

I didn't make the gifs, I'm assuming someone from their offices made them from a video of my game.

Ahh I wanna see!