... and this episode was quite a coup, getting the INVENTOR OF THE VIDEO GAME to appear on it.
As for the true 'father' of the video game (ie: Baer vs Bushnell), it's probably safe to say that Nolan made the industry grow by introducing the arcade machine to the public in order for there to be a mass market for home consoles that would follow (Fairchild, Atari 2600, Odyssey 2, Intellivision, etc).
It's quite simple really, in my opinion. For every technical/engineering genius, there needs to be a great businessman to make magic with what that genius comes up with. Sometimes that genius is one in the same, like an Edison, but often-times, they need to be at least two different people. Baer never had the fortune of being paired with that business genius. Woz had Jobs, and people like Gates, Tramiel and Bushnell had a whole cadre of genius engineers that they could work their business magic on. It's a fact that Bushnell's idea for Pong came straight from Baer, but it was Bushnell - in conjunction with Alcorn - who pared the game concept down to its essentials and made it the first hit arcade videogame.
Baer had Magnavox in his corner and while they were pretty good at litigation, they were not particularly adept at things like marketing and R&D, which more nimble and less risk averse companies like Atari, Commodore and Apple weren't. It's foolish to say that Baer's career was in any way a failure because of his lack of pairing with a business genius - after all, he had tons of hit toys, including the iconic Simon - but it's probably fair to say that there's no telling what could have been accomplished if he had been.
... and this episode was quite a coup, getting the INVENTOR OF THE VIDEO GAME to appear on it.
As for the true 'father' of the video game (ie: Baer vs Bushnell), it's probably safe to say that Nolan made the industry grow by introducing the arcade machine to the public in order for there to be a mass market for home consoles that would follow (Fairchild, Atari 2600, Odyssey 2, Intellivision, etc).
It's quite simple really, in my opinion. For every technical/engineering genius, there needs to be a great businessman to make magic with what that genius comes up with. Sometimes that genius is one in the same, like an Edison, but often-times, they need to be at least two different people. Baer never had the fortune of being paired with that business genius. Woz had Jobs, and people like Gates, Tramiel and Bushnell had a whole cadre of genius engineers that they could work their business magic on. It's a fact that Bushnell's idea for Pong came straight from Baer, but it was Bushnell - in conjunction with Alcorn - who pared the game concept down to its essentials and made it the first hit arcade videogame.
Baer had Magnavox in his corner and while they were pretty good at litigation, they were not particularly adept at things like marketing and R&D, which more nimble and less risk averse companies like Atari, Commodore and Apple weren't. It's foolish to say that Baer's career was in any way a failure because of his lack of pairing with a business genius - after all, he had tons of hit toys, including the iconic Simon - but it's probably fair to say that there's no telling what could have been accomplished if he had been.
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director | Armchair Arcade, Inc.
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Bill Loguidice, Managing Director
Armchair Arcade, Inc.