10 People Who Changed The Video Game Industry Forever

Nolan Bushnell is the founder of Atari, the first company to realise what a lucrative opportunity (as well as a creatively limitless business) video games could be.

Bushnell is known mainly for being associated with the phenomenon Pong, “Bushnell’s Law” (the idea of a game being simple to play but hard to master), establishing the Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theatre chain, and educational software company, Brainrush. He quickly saw the potential for what games could be capable of beyond a way of killing time in the lobby at the movies, and pursued the idea of getting video games in to households.

This vision was realised in the form of the Atari 2600 and became the foundation that the video game console market would be based on. The console altered both the consumer and manufacturer perception of video games, and with that epiphany, an entirely new avenue of the industry manifested itself.

Nolan Bushnell has established many companies during his career, but none are more important than Atari and the dizzying heights of popularity it reached. He gave us gaming in our own homes, and for that, he deserves a great big thank you.