Comment Harlan Ellison, Atari and Positive Experiences (Score 1) 143
Heh.. reminds me of a story from the early days, Atari in 1982.
As the story goes, Parker Brothers had just cranked out "Empire Strikes Back" as a 2600 cart, and for some reason Harlan Ellison had been hired by Video Review magazine to study and review it. Now as many know, Ellison's a cranky old man, and has been since long before he became an old man. He gave the game a shot, pointing out in the review that - like in many videogames at the time - all the player really did was shoot things (in this case, snow walkers) in endless waves until the player couldn't anymore. Impossible to win. Ellison compared it to the Sisyphus myth, damned to push a gigantic boulder up a mountain for eternity, only to watch it roll down the other side and be forced to start again - a staggering waste of time and energy (and in the game's case, money). Long run, it communicated nothing positive, only reinforcing the "can't win, don't try, can't quit" view of the world.
What makes the story interesting is that both the president and the chief scientist at Atari thought so highly of this review that they ordered framed copies for their offices. No doubt it significantly influenced Atari from that point forward.
And considering that Atari was the video game industry at the time, inspiring the Nintendos and EAs to come, it's quite possible that this one 1982 review by Harlan Ellison leads at least indirectly to the points made in this study.
True, albeit odd, story.
As the story goes, Parker Brothers had just cranked out "Empire Strikes Back" as a 2600 cart, and for some reason Harlan Ellison had been hired by Video Review magazine to study and review it. Now as many know, Ellison's a cranky old man, and has been since long before he became an old man. He gave the game a shot, pointing out in the review that - like in many videogames at the time - all the player really did was shoot things (in this case, snow walkers) in endless waves until the player couldn't anymore. Impossible to win. Ellison compared it to the Sisyphus myth, damned to push a gigantic boulder up a mountain for eternity, only to watch it roll down the other side and be forced to start again - a staggering waste of time and energy (and in the game's case, money). Long run, it communicated nothing positive, only reinforcing the "can't win, don't try, can't quit" view of the world.
What makes the story interesting is that both the president and the chief scientist at Atari thought so highly of this review that they ordered framed copies for their offices. No doubt it significantly influenced Atari from that point forward.
And considering that Atari was the video game industry at the time, inspiring the Nintendos and EAs to come, it's quite possible that this one 1982 review by Harlan Ellison leads at least indirectly to the points made in this study.
True, albeit odd, story.
