Computer Space (1971)

Yes, this gets five stars for sheer historical importance only. The game itself is like a 2.5-3 star game, but for starting an industry that we all love, five stars it is.

But this review isn't so much to talk about this game, but to talk of one Ted Dabney.

Who is Ted Dabney? He was the "other" co-founder of Atari. The one you never hear about. The one who started a gaming giant, only to ride off into the sunset, a mere footnote in the history of video games.

Dabney died in 2018. After leaving Atari, he worked at a couple other companies in electronics before leaving tech. He and his wife moved to the Sierras of California, opened a grocery store, and lived a simple life. In interviews he stated he had no involvement in the video game industry and his only knowledge of video games came from watching his grandchildren playing games on their consoles.

Towards the end of his life, he began giving out more interviews and getting more involved with video game conventions and history. I think a lot of it had to do with the behavior of his co-founder at Atari, Nolan Bushnell.

Nolan Bushnell, to me, is the Thomas Edison of video games. A man who took other people's ideas and made money off of them. Computer Space was based off of a game called Spacewar! Bushnell and Dabney took the concept and made it commercially viable. Thanks to them, the commercial video game industry began, but it took both of them to get there, and it took the foundation of those before them to get that idea in the first place. Bushnell always seemed to forget that when he would talk about coming up with this game.

Then Pong was next. Again, they took an idea already done, this time by Ralph Baer, who might be the inventor of video games, and made it their own. Pong made a ton of money, but Bushnell acting like it was a fresh idea when there is evidence he went to a demonstration done by Baer is more of his "flash over substance" style.

And that is also basically where the story of Ted Dabney ends. He left Atari shortly after Pong. He said he left because Bushnell was turning into a greedy man. Bushnell said bought out Dabney and fired him because he was holding the company back. Regardless, after that, Bushnell always called himself the founder of Atari and never gave any credit to Dabney. While I'm glad towards the end of his life people started focusing more on what Dabney did, it's sad it took so long to get there. Similar to how DC Comics didn't recognize Bill Finger as co-creator of Batman with Bob Kane until well after he passed away.