Atari timeline.

Atari was founded by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney from investments of $250. They launched their first project which was an arcade game prototype, Pong, which used a milk carton to collect the coin fee to play. Its main malfunction was being overloaded with coins. While not the first game of its kind, it is noted as being the first to grab the public’s attention on a large scale in the US.

Ted Dabney left Atari due to fears regarding manufacturing, while Bushnell decided to make exclusivity contracts with distributors that they will only sell Atari games. He also secretly partnered with his neighbor, Joseph Keenan, to start Kee Games. Kee Games would make identical games as Atari and sign contracts with secondary distributors in the areas Atari had contracts with. Together they monopolized the market, something that is still identified with in today’s culture of media business.

Bushnell began corporate retreats (which still exist) to relax his engineers in hopes of prompting more creative innovations. While new game releases and the fixing of prior technical issues did follow, Kee Games went further than creating copycat games and came up with their original Tank!, which was so popular that Atari distributors broke their contracts to sell it. This led to Atari and Kee Games merging, with Keenan becoming president of Atari and Bushnell’s financial problems solved.

Steve Jobs, hired by Atari in 1973 but who was now with HP, brought a computer to Al Alcorn, senior engineer of Atari, that Jobs and engineer Steve Wozniak had been working on in their garage. Alcorn said “no thank you” to them, which later became the Apple I computer. Risks can make or break a business, and it can be difficult to discern which one it will be. For Atari, this was a lost opportunity for what could have perhaps helped Atari advance in an upcoming technological development.

Also this year, Warner Communications bought Atari for $28 million. This move helped make their next launch come to fruition, as revenue was in dire want to build their next equipment milestone. Warner kept Bushnell on as CEO. When companies are sold, there are many caveats to consider, such as who will be key in keeping on, and what kind of personal business culture should be adopted to nurture success. Bushnell feared Atari’s would be too lax for Warner.

The launch of the Atari 2600 Video Computer System, which is one of the first successful home video game consoles. Home video game consoles would create a shift in the demand to play arcade games, much like how the advent of streaming platforms were a factor for movie theatres’ dynamic in US culture.

The great Video Game Crash did not leave Atari unscathed. Off-brand video games flooded the market and enticed consumers with their lower prices. However, their lower prices were due to lower quality and thus higher problems and disappointment. Consumers stopped trusting in video games and turned away from them. It wouldn’t be until Nintendo’s release of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985 that faith in dependable video games would be restored.