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richardhutnik on 07 September 2013
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archbrix said:
richardhutnik said:
archbrix said:

Bushnell had a clue... he's also the one who sold the company to Warner Comm. That speaks for itself.

My understanding is that he didn't leave immediately, but he did eventually leave.  He said this in an interview on why he left:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/interview-with-atari-founder-nolan-bushnell-no-acid-was-ever-used-at-atari-a-512798.html

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why did you leave Atari, the company you had created, in the successful year of 1977?

Bushnell: Atari management under Warner was increasingly stifling. I had Chuck E. Cheese going at the same time and just decided I was an entrepreneur and not a corporate guy. Atari had changed from an engineering-driven company to a marketing-driven company. Innovation wilted and died -- and they failed.

Yes, that's correct. From what I understand he sold to Warner to get the capital to help launch the VCS (2600) and left - or was forced out by Warner - whichever you prefer to believe (probably mutual) in '78, the year after it launched (or maybe in '77 as your link says).

In any case, much like the Titanic didn't sink the instant it hit the iceberg, Atari enjoyed success for a few years and proceeded to treat programmers like crap, which is why people like David Crane left to form their own companies... Activision anyone?

They also flooded the market with the worst shovelware the industry has ever seen, which of course led to the home video game crash of '83.

Yep.  Kassar considering those who made videogames on par with towel designers gave birth to the third-party software industry, with Activision being the first.  Imagic and others followed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kassar

Kassar shifted the focus away from game development and more toward marketing and sales. Atari Inc. began to promote games all year around instead of just at the Christmas season. R&D also suffered deep cuts and the discipline and security at Atari Inc. became strict. Kassar became unaffectionately known to many at Atari Inc. as the "sock king" and the "towel czar" (due to his previous years in the textile industry) after he once referred to Atari programmers as "high-strung prima donnas" in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News in 1979.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision

Atari programmers David Crane, Larry Kaplan, Alan Miller, and Bob Whitehead met with Atari CEO Ray Kassar in May 1979 to demand that the company treat developers as record labels treated musicians, with royalties and their names on game boxes. Kaplan, who called the others "the best designers for the [2600] in the world", recalled that Kassar called the four men "towel designers" and that "anyone can do a cartridge." Crane, Miller, and Whitehead left Atari and founded Activision in October 1979[10] with former music industry executive Jim Levy and venture capitalist Richard Muchmore; Kaplan soon joined the company.