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Atari

The company that invented the video game boom - and the crash

Defunct — The company that invented the home video game boom, then helped cause the catastrophic 1983 crash.

Atari was the company that invented the video game industry as we know it. Founded by Nolan Bushnell in 1972, it turned Pong into the national craze and then, with the Atari 2600 in 1977, made home consoles a household thing. At its peak Atari was growing explosively and had become as recognizable as an arcade in the corner of a diner.

But success bred oversupply. The early 1980s saw an avalanche of cheap games of wildly varying quality, and the market flooded. In late 1982 and 1983 the whole industry collapsed - the infamous rush of bad cartridges, most famously E.T., and the decision to dump unsold stock in a New Mexico landfill became the legend of the Video Game Crash.

Atari itself was sold, split, and churned through owners for years. The name survives as a licensing shell making retro-branded products, but the company that gave the world the video game console and then nearly killed it is effectively a ghost.

Quick facts

Founded
1972, by Nolan Bushnell
Breakthrough
Pong (1972); Atari 2600 (1977)
The crash
Video Game Crash, 1983
The myth
E.T. cartridges buried in a landfill
Today
A licensing shell/brand

Sources

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