In the early 80s, Atari was desperate to portray video games as constructive social objects, rather than as the quarter-sucking homework-wreckers they actually

In the early 80s, Atari was desperate to portray video games as constructive social objects, rather than as the quarter-sucking homework-wreckers they actually were. In an effort to legitimize themselves and the market, Atari produced a "documentary" called Video Games: A Public Perspective (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gBWDlr3Rx0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gBWDlr3Rx0) which is full of stuff like "We're trying to put computer power into the hands of children..." and other projects of the fuuuuture. A powerful contingent in Atari management seemed to be ashamed of the industry's quarter-sucking past and desperately wanted to "go legitimate". There were internal mandates in some organizations that forbade the development of "shooting games". Atari had a corporate research outfit, a building not far from Corporate HQ where some luminaries like Alan Kay were seeded, and they were very plugged into the question of "Well, if we can't make shooty games, what can we do?". To answer this question they bought a lot of Vaxes and LISP machines and hired a bunch of other researchers you've definitely heard of. There was a lot going on. Atari also hired Chris Crawford to run a small group of game developers, presumably because "Your games look educational and this grants us legitimacy, do more of that." It was not a happy group (judging from the sidelines; a couple of my housemates worked in it) and its output reflected the group's turmoil. Infighting and bickering, game demos that were largely retreads of prior not-very-much-fun efforts, attempts at new forms of non-shooty games. My favorite mini-game was Gossip, a game involving facial expressions where you held conversations with virtual people and tried to get them to like each other. An anonymous member of the team turned the internal math on its head and changed the goal to "make everyone hate each other". The thing is, the politically incorrect version was MUCH more fun than the original. Crawford should have taken the hint. I don't think he ever knew how to do fun.