Speaking at BAFTA, Pong Creator/Atari Founder Nolan Bushnell, deemed online gaming "not cool" saying, "Social is buying someone a drink. Sitting in a dark room in your underpants talking to thousands of people might seem social, but it's not cool. The public space is always going to be here." He also described the internet experience as "stilted and flat". Bushnell also talked about his latest gaming endeavor uWink, and "entertainment dining experience" where people play games at their tables while waiting for their meal.
Source: GamesIndustry.Biz [ more info ]

If James Brown was considered the Godfather of Soul, Nolan Bushnell could well be considered the Godfather of Gaming. And most of the time, what Bushnell says tend to rings true with me. But dismissing the social nature of online gaming put me a bit on tilt. Maybe he's not really considering the inherently social nature of MMOGs. But those are the gaming circles I move in; so obviously, I'm biased. And I don't like to be called "not cool" for my social interaction preferences especially when it comes to how/where I choose to play games.

There's no part of me that says in order to play a game socially I have to be sitting in a restaurant or bar with other people around me interested more in their food or drinks than in their game. That being said, of course Nolan Bushnell would want people to play games in a restaurant. The man was responsible for Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's. His life has defined the basis of his opinion, unfortunately it seems out of sorts with the opinion of a vast majority of online gamers. We like our darkened gaming spaces and the freedom to play in our underthings if we like.

Yes, I know "hath" is used incorrectly in the comic's title.

My first console was an Atari 2600. I'm as old as AD&D. I was first introduced to those games with graph paper and funny dice when I was four. One of my first video gaming experiences was following instructions for a Commodore 64 on how to program Space Invaders with grey blocks on a blue background. I've had an NES, SNES, N64, PS1, XBox and 360. I've played (and owned) every edition of D&D except the 1974 one. I have tried and failed to fit all of my video games, dice, books, miniatures, and consoles into an empty Jeep Grand Cherokee.

If anyone, including Nolan Bushnell, thinks telling me that I'm "not cool" is going to make me put that all aside at this point? Yeah. I've got a Head of Vecna I'll sell them.

I've played games at restaurants before (the kind with the trivia and the rather large wireless boxes). Yeah, it's social.

But so is playing online. They're different social dynamics, but just because you can't reach over and punch the person next to you doesn't mean that it's not social. Just because Bushnell doesn't recognize a different dynamic doesn't make it any less 'social.' For one thing, online is a helluva lot easier and quicker, and when time is a factor (and when isn't it?) hopping online for 30 minutes beats spending the same time watching TV, in terms of social interaction.

I think I can see what Nolan Bushnell is trying to say.

MMOGs have an entirely different social atmosphere from "restaurant gaming". I believe Nolan is of the idea that in online gaming, you're not being social if you're taking on an entirely different persona. I think we all know about the kids in online games who shout obscenities all the time because they think it makes them "cool".

So, a person who would in a face-to-face social situation act reasonable can become a douche-bag online and it can ruin the social atmosphere. The opposite is also true however.

Perhaps its a victory of the internet that we can judge people by how they act as opposed to how they look. But it can also be seen as a form of deception (the suburban white kid talking like he's from the ghetto and others).

I think that's what Nolan is trying to say. It may be completely wrong, but I think we can agree that suburban white kids talking like they're from the ghetto are annoying as hell.

First off, I am a long time reader first time poster

Secondly I feel that the idea of “be social” is relative to our own personal idea of what “being social” involves. Me personally, I love my MMO’s just as much as the next guy, but, I have more fun with 3 or 4 of my buddies over at my house drinking beer and playing Capcom vs. Street Fighter or Street fighter 4.

I think the point Mr. Bushnell is trying to make is that even though MMO’s let us connect to and interact with thousands of people, the bottom line is we are still isolated in our rooms/houses, in the dark…. In our undies , ….. with the webcam turned off hopefully

On one hand, the comments Bushnell made strike me in much the same was as the other comments. I like my MMOGs for their social aspect, among other things, and I play them with my (real life) friends. I'm not really sure what about the scenario makes it not social or un-cool other than the typical stereotypes.

On the other hand, I really like the idea of going to a restaurant with a group of friends once in a while to play the same games. I've never really done the cybercafe thing, but the idea of getting (hopefully halfway decent) lunch or dinner and playing a game with people strikes me as pretty neat. As long as I didn't have to deal with this guy talking down to me during my meal, I think I'd be pretty happy with it.

i think he fails to see the social side of mmog's i personallly have made a lot of friends and have even meant a few in real life. but i bet if he was making money off them he would suddenly think their the coolest thing since sliced bread
stormcaller it would take a real paper dungeon and dragons fan to know that comment

Plllbbbttt!!!

I've been playing online games with a group of friends one night a week since April 1999. We started with Everquest as part of our Wednesday Night in Norrath encounters. People have left the group and people have joined the group but we still have some of the original core players.

We have since transitioned to City of Heroes/City of Villains, mostly because when everybody wasn't able to show up on a game night (yes, we have lives too) the effectiveness of our EverQuest party was greatly reduced and it was just too hard to find pick-up players to fill in. We don't have that problem in CoX, so long as we have a diverse group of characters.

In that ten years of playing people have moved, changed jobs, had babies, etc. We've had 8 year old daughters join us in our adventures. When we saw ";flsdiwjq409ue" appear in our chat window, we'd reply "Hello, Hannah!" knowing that Mark's toddler daughter was sitting in his lap while he played.

Not social? HAH! We're as social as you can get! Doubly so since we've moved on to using Teamspeak.

You know his Uwink isn't original at all. Godfather's Pizza had tabletop console games built into the tables back in the 80's. Centipede, Space Invaders, Asteroids and Digger were four of the first games I remember playing while snarfing greasy pizza.

Only way it'd be more original is if they had plasma wall screens to show play at other tables over each table or at a center console tower that the whole room could watch if they weren't playing.
But can you imagine the cacophony of noise and smells? And yes I'm including the majority of the unwashed masses that zombie themselves out of their basements and put on something over their underwear to get to a uWink to feed their faces and game socially in a public environment...
Thank you, but no thanks.
B

"Not social" my big fat butt. I've met some of the nicest people while I was hanging out on WoW and Voyage Century. I was in a guild where I lived in the same city as my guild leader and didn't know it, we probably would have gotten together to play D&D had I not left that server. I've gotten other guild members hooked on Ravelry and have hung out for hours in Vent talking about the glories of games gone by. I bet this guy would argue that the old 976 chat lines were social but chat rooms aren't. He's the kind of tosser who can't imagine that there's an actual person behind typed text, the same kind of jerk who is probably rude to people because "it's just the internet".

And hey, what about people who don't drink or can't afford to go out to eat with their friends? Those whose work guarantees that they can't hang out with anyone locally at all? They're supposed to just sit alone and beat themselves up for not being affluent enough to be social? Screw that, I'd rather be online making friends in New Zealand.