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Once Upon Atari: How I made history by killing an industry
Video games set the world on fire, and Atari lit the match. This is an intimate view into the dramatic rise and fall of the early video game industry, as seen through the eyes of one of its most iconic pioneers. This book offers eye-opening details and insights, laying bare the issues and dynamics still taking place in modern software companies. A must read for anyone in high tech production, delivered in a compelling narrative, with a fresh voice and unorthodox style.
How much fun can you have inventing video games in a creative paradise? What behind-the-scenes corporate intrigue went on while making billions of dollars and launching a new medium? What really caused the video game crash of 1983? ONCE UPON ATARI is the inside story of how it all happened, and how it upended the life of one of its key players. An innovative work from one of the industry’s original innovators, delivered in a creative style that mirrors the industry it reveals. It is a compelling tale of innocence, joy, greed, devastation and ultimately redemption.
How much fun can you have inventing video games in a creative paradise? What behind-the-scenes corporate intrigue went on while making billions of dollars and launching a new medium? What really caused the video game crash of 1983? ONCE UPON ATARI is the inside story of how it all happened, and how it upended the life of one of its key players. An innovative work from one of the industry’s original innovators, delivered in a creative style that mirrors the industry it reveals. It is a compelling tale of innocence, joy, greed, devastation and ultimately redemption.
387 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 11, 2020
84 people are currently reading
613 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
December 22, 2021
Read this one while I was in the mental hospital
August 15, 2021
Kinda meandering and not very well edited, but there's some interesting stuff in here, like Howard's takes on what went wrong with Atari and software development. I docked this a star for the meandering repetition and not one but TWO Ayn Rand quotes.
June 13, 2021
I came for a fun romp through video game history. What I didn't expect was a surprisingly emotional study of work and life, of achievement and disappointment. Howard packs a lot of feelings into a book about "the worst game of all time."
Oh, and just to be clear: I still got that fun romp through video game history. Highly recommended for nerds & non-nerds.
Oh, and just to be clear: I still got that fun romp through video game history. Highly recommended for nerds & non-nerds.
March 20, 2021
The guy is a fucking genius and it shows.
February 15, 2021
Like a student essay
You remember when you were in school and you had to make your essay meet the set number of words, so you tried to make the paragraphs as long as possible? This is it, but in a book form. Some things are also repeated over and over again during the "non-linear" story and it made me really feel like I'm just wasting time with this book. Mr. Warshaw also thinks of himself very highly - he never forgets to tell you how he was always the best in everything he ever tried.
But I must say there were times when the book made me laugh. If you're interested in game dev, you might give it a try, but don't expect any useful info.
You remember when you were in school and you had to make your essay meet the set number of words, so you tried to make the paragraphs as long as possible? This is it, but in a book form. Some things are also repeated over and over again during the "non-linear" story and it made me really feel like I'm just wasting time with this book. Mr. Warshaw also thinks of himself very highly - he never forgets to tell you how he was always the best in everything he ever tried.
But I must say there were times when the book made me laugh. If you're interested in game dev, you might give it a try, but don't expect any useful info.
August 3, 2021
I’m not quite sure where this book went wrong. The premise of Once Upon Atari, the uncovering of “the worst video game of all time” in both the figurative and literal sense is fantastic. The author, Howard Warshaw, is a brilliant programmer and entertaining and engaging author. The first 50 to 100 pages of this book are superb; a must read for anyone entering the video game industry or engineering career. After that Warshaw runs out of material and Once Upon Atari, mirroring the video games of its era, becomes repetitive and stale. A co-author and/or better editing would have made this a four or five star book.
December 1, 2022
In the early 80’s, the Atari home video game system was just about the coolest thing ever.
In 1982, my family had one. We played games, shoveled snow to buy new ones, traded with others, went to stores looking for the next new game. I remember my dad staying up half the night to “flip” Pac-Man: when your score is so high that they run out of numbers and it re-sets. If you were a kid in those days, this is what you did. We played Atari and was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before.
Howard Scott Warshaw is something of a legend within the Atari community, having written the hit Yar’s Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Arc, and the infamous E.T, The Extra-Terrestrial Video Game. It is this third game that gained the label “Worst Video Game of All Time.” There is an Urban Legend that it was so bad that Atari buried it somewhere in the desert; that it was so bad that it single-handedly tanked the entire home video game industry in 1983.
And Once Upon Atari is a book about that.
There are many, many reasons for the video game crash, which he talks about. And there are more than a few reasons why this urban legend is false (why would a company go through the expense to bury something in the desert when it would be cheaper and easier to simply throw them in the trash? But hey, we are getting ahead of ourselves.) Warshaw details his days and experiences in the hallowed halls of the Atari Headquarters. It is a dream job at first. But it is only a matter of time before things go downhill and it starts with a leadership change.
But it is also an engaging history of a unique time when the home video game system was a whole new frontier. People were going crazy for the Atari system and Pac Man and Missile Command and a whole slew of new and (at the time) state of the art games. And Warshaw describes a fun, chaotic office full of fun people…and this is where the magic happened.
Interspersed within the story is the story of the 2014 archaeological dig into a garbage dump in New Mexico, where the ET video games were rumored to be buried….
The game itself has an interesting history. The hit movie was turned into a game where you move the little alien around and try to assemble pieces of a phone to “phone home” while avoiding the scientist and the FBI man who try to take away your supplies or capture you. Many players found it frustrating because of the ease with which you could fall into one of the many pits stationed throughout the game. It could be really annoying. But as someone who grew up playing that and many other games from the period, it really wasn’t dramatically worse than many other games that were out at the time.
But the important thing to remember is that through a series of cascading missteps Warshaw only had 5 weeks to complete a task that should have taken at least 10 months.
The story of the ET video game is a story about what happens when a company is run by the new management who doesn’t understand the product. There are many pearls of wisdom throughout that could be applied to certain enterprises today:
“When people think a core department in their company is unnecessary, it’s a sure sign of corporate pathology. A well-run company considers everyone’s input and MAINTAINS A STAFF WORTH LISTENING TO (emphasis is mine.).” Page 257.
Once Upon Atari is a delightful book, Warshaw has such a great perspective on his eclectic life (he’s a therapist now!), as well as a great sense of humor about it all. He wears the badge of Creator of the “Worst Game Ever” with a cheeky sense of honor.
Highly recommended for both the nerd and the non-nerd alike.
In 1982, my family had one. We played games, shoveled snow to buy new ones, traded with others, went to stores looking for the next new game. I remember my dad staying up half the night to “flip” Pac-Man: when your score is so high that they run out of numbers and it re-sets. If you were a kid in those days, this is what you did. We played Atari and was unlike anything anyone had ever seen before.
Howard Scott Warshaw is something of a legend within the Atari community, having written the hit Yar’s Revenge, Raiders of the Lost Arc, and the infamous E.T, The Extra-Terrestrial Video Game. It is this third game that gained the label “Worst Video Game of All Time.” There is an Urban Legend that it was so bad that Atari buried it somewhere in the desert; that it was so bad that it single-handedly tanked the entire home video game industry in 1983.
And Once Upon Atari is a book about that.
There are many, many reasons for the video game crash, which he talks about. And there are more than a few reasons why this urban legend is false (why would a company go through the expense to bury something in the desert when it would be cheaper and easier to simply throw them in the trash? But hey, we are getting ahead of ourselves.) Warshaw details his days and experiences in the hallowed halls of the Atari Headquarters. It is a dream job at first. But it is only a matter of time before things go downhill and it starts with a leadership change.
But it is also an engaging history of a unique time when the home video game system was a whole new frontier. People were going crazy for the Atari system and Pac Man and Missile Command and a whole slew of new and (at the time) state of the art games. And Warshaw describes a fun, chaotic office full of fun people…and this is where the magic happened.
Interspersed within the story is the story of the 2014 archaeological dig into a garbage dump in New Mexico, where the ET video games were rumored to be buried….
The game itself has an interesting history. The hit movie was turned into a game where you move the little alien around and try to assemble pieces of a phone to “phone home” while avoiding the scientist and the FBI man who try to take away your supplies or capture you. Many players found it frustrating because of the ease with which you could fall into one of the many pits stationed throughout the game. It could be really annoying. But as someone who grew up playing that and many other games from the period, it really wasn’t dramatically worse than many other games that were out at the time.
But the important thing to remember is that through a series of cascading missteps Warshaw only had 5 weeks to complete a task that should have taken at least 10 months.
The story of the ET video game is a story about what happens when a company is run by the new management who doesn’t understand the product. There are many pearls of wisdom throughout that could be applied to certain enterprises today:
“When people think a core department in their company is unnecessary, it’s a sure sign of corporate pathology. A well-run company considers everyone’s input and MAINTAINS A STAFF WORTH LISTENING TO (emphasis is mine.).” Page 257.
Once Upon Atari is a delightful book, Warshaw has such a great perspective on his eclectic life (he’s a therapist now!), as well as a great sense of humor about it all. He wears the badge of Creator of the “Worst Game Ever” with a cheeky sense of honor.
Highly recommended for both the nerd and the non-nerd alike.
April 17, 2025
Aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!
March 12, 2021
I just finished a remarkable book, one that tells the incredible and unlikely story of a programmer whose roller-coaster ride both mirrored and defined the early 1980’s: Howard Scott Warshaw’s “Once Upon Atari.”
For those unfamiliar with his tale, he worked at Atari at the height of its success, developing three groundbreaking games for the legendary Atari 2600: “Yars’ Revenge,” which got the highest pre-release test scores ever recorded by Atari focus groups; “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the first licensed movie-to-videogame translation in the history of video gaming; and “E. T.,” the legendarily disastrous release that became a scapegoat for the collapse of the video game industry — but which more accurately exemplifies the mismanagement of Atari under Warner Brothers that all but guaranteed the company’s eventual failure.
The book isn’t an apology for E. T., nor an exercise in finger-pointing, either of which could have been the case in lesser hands. No, this book ranges from hilarious to heartbreaking, provoking both audible laughs (I refuse to use that three-letter initialism) and justifiable anger. It’s the kind of story that can only be told by an insider. He was there. He was both beneficiary and victim of Atari’s wild ride. He revels in the distinction of E. T. showing up on “all-time worst” lists at the same time that Yars’ Revenge shows up near the top of “all-time best.”
Now, calling his games “groundbreaking” is more than just a hyperbolic adjective. A storyline runs throughout the book describing the 2014 event where the detritus of Atari was unearthed from a landfill outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, an event he attended and which is chronicled in Zak Penn’s excellent movie “Atari: Game Over.” There had long been a legend that Atari dumped millions of unsold E. T. cartridges in the New Mexico desert. While copies of E. T. were indeed unearthed, (spoiler alert) the dump contained a wide range of Atari product, including some of its best sellers — it was a warehouse disposal, not just one unloved game title. That written thread connects the endpoints of the journey, from the fateful day Atari asked “can you do this game in five weeks?” to seeing the fruits of his labors dug up in the company of cameras and anthropologists.
As a bit of a digital historian myself, I was primed to like this book. What I didn’t expect was for the story to be so personal, so human, so filled with memorable moments and characters and insider information I never knew. It paints a picture of a unique time in one of the most important crucibles of innovation, Silicon Valley at the birth of the digital entertainment industry. That picture is one filled with both glory and warts, hubris and collapse, brilliance and cluelessness. Howard had the luck or misfortune to be there when a new industry went through its first, chaotic, painful end-of-product cycle (before we even knew there were cycles), and we are all the beneficiary of his choosing to write about it.
I recommend this book to anyone who fondly remembers the early 80’s, but more than that, I urge anyone who ever hopes to shepherd their corporate offspring from entrepreneurial birth through long-term success, and anyone who oversees the business of creativity, read this book. It could save the company you love.
For those unfamiliar with his tale, he worked at Atari at the height of its success, developing three groundbreaking games for the legendary Atari 2600: “Yars’ Revenge,” which got the highest pre-release test scores ever recorded by Atari focus groups; “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” the first licensed movie-to-videogame translation in the history of video gaming; and “E. T.,” the legendarily disastrous release that became a scapegoat for the collapse of the video game industry — but which more accurately exemplifies the mismanagement of Atari under Warner Brothers that all but guaranteed the company’s eventual failure.
The book isn’t an apology for E. T., nor an exercise in finger-pointing, either of which could have been the case in lesser hands. No, this book ranges from hilarious to heartbreaking, provoking both audible laughs (I refuse to use that three-letter initialism) and justifiable anger. It’s the kind of story that can only be told by an insider. He was there. He was both beneficiary and victim of Atari’s wild ride. He revels in the distinction of E. T. showing up on “all-time worst” lists at the same time that Yars’ Revenge shows up near the top of “all-time best.”
Now, calling his games “groundbreaking” is more than just a hyperbolic adjective. A storyline runs throughout the book describing the 2014 event where the detritus of Atari was unearthed from a landfill outside Alamogordo, New Mexico, an event he attended and which is chronicled in Zak Penn’s excellent movie “Atari: Game Over.” There had long been a legend that Atari dumped millions of unsold E. T. cartridges in the New Mexico desert. While copies of E. T. were indeed unearthed, (spoiler alert) the dump contained a wide range of Atari product, including some of its best sellers — it was a warehouse disposal, not just one unloved game title. That written thread connects the endpoints of the journey, from the fateful day Atari asked “can you do this game in five weeks?” to seeing the fruits of his labors dug up in the company of cameras and anthropologists.
As a bit of a digital historian myself, I was primed to like this book. What I didn’t expect was for the story to be so personal, so human, so filled with memorable moments and characters and insider information I never knew. It paints a picture of a unique time in one of the most important crucibles of innovation, Silicon Valley at the birth of the digital entertainment industry. That picture is one filled with both glory and warts, hubris and collapse, brilliance and cluelessness. Howard had the luck or misfortune to be there when a new industry went through its first, chaotic, painful end-of-product cycle (before we even knew there were cycles), and we are all the beneficiary of his choosing to write about it.
I recommend this book to anyone who fondly remembers the early 80’s, but more than that, I urge anyone who ever hopes to shepherd their corporate offspring from entrepreneurial birth through long-term success, and anyone who oversees the business of creativity, read this book. It could save the company you love.
November 29, 2023
Lots of fun wordplay added to the entertainment of this book. At first I thought the humor was kind of corny and basic, but either it got better or wore me down into thinking it was funny. Listened at 1.25 speed. I used to own the ET game for the Atari 2600 - and I didn't think it was an industry-ending outlier in quality. It's amazing that he threw this game together in 5 weeks with the technology he had at the time - I would bet that he makes mention of this timeline no fewer than 50 times in the book!
March 8, 2023
Drags a little bit in the middle of the book, but Howard knows that. Overall his hindsight is excellent. Great peek into Atari.
January 6, 2023
An amazing, multi-dimensional story written by a brilliant, multi-dimensional man.
The story is brilliant and engaging, Howard Scott Warshaw is brilliant and fascinating, the writing is brilliant and witty, this book is brilliant and a must read.
This is not your usual story of a guy who was at the right place at the right time. This is a story about a man who made things happen for himself, his highs and his lows, and all the journeys in between. This is a programmer who worked his dream job, lost it, lost himself, and found his new dream calling as a psychotherapist while maintaining an anchor to his past. This is the story of a Cum Laude graduate with a double major in Economics and Mathematics, a minor in Theater, Master's degrees in Computer Engineering and Counseling Psychology, a film school degree, and even a real estate license. but more importantly, it's the story of a very human innovator. This is also the story of Atari, the company that gave birth to, and crashed, the video game industry in the 70's and 80's. Warshaw's experience, background, and multidisciplinary profile grant him a unique perspective and skill to tell this story.
This is not about saving face for E.T. "the worst video game of all time" (newsflash: it's not), or apologizing for crashing an industry (newsflash: he didn't), it's about telling the story of the amazing people who gave us the video game industry, the great things they did, the mistakes they made, the succession of multiple corporate faux-pas that brought it all down, and the legacy that was left for future generations of gamers and game developers.
HSW goes into a deep, well thought out analysis of the industry crash of 1983. He's been accused of single-handedly destroying the industry with the E.T. game, but he offers great insights into the downfall of Atari, starting from when Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for $28M, the appointment of Ray Kassar as CEO, and the impact it had on the Atari culture and employees at the time.
Seriously, I've read 12 gaming industry books by Schreier, Harris, Kushner, Craddock, Fils-Aimé, Meier, Williams, and now Warshaw. This was the absolute best of them. The writing is clever and eloquent, not apologetic about a few repetitions, insanely quotable, and remains riveting and engaging from beginning to end. It's a must read.
The story is brilliant and engaging, Howard Scott Warshaw is brilliant and fascinating, the writing is brilliant and witty, this book is brilliant and a must read.
This is not your usual story of a guy who was at the right place at the right time. This is a story about a man who made things happen for himself, his highs and his lows, and all the journeys in between. This is a programmer who worked his dream job, lost it, lost himself, and found his new dream calling as a psychotherapist while maintaining an anchor to his past. This is the story of a Cum Laude graduate with a double major in Economics and Mathematics, a minor in Theater, Master's degrees in Computer Engineering and Counseling Psychology, a film school degree, and even a real estate license. but more importantly, it's the story of a very human innovator. This is also the story of Atari, the company that gave birth to, and crashed, the video game industry in the 70's and 80's. Warshaw's experience, background, and multidisciplinary profile grant him a unique perspective and skill to tell this story.
This is not about saving face for E.T. "the worst video game of all time" (newsflash: it's not), or apologizing for crashing an industry (newsflash: he didn't), it's about telling the story of the amazing people who gave us the video game industry, the great things they did, the mistakes they made, the succession of multiple corporate faux-pas that brought it all down, and the legacy that was left for future generations of gamers and game developers.
HSW goes into a deep, well thought out analysis of the industry crash of 1983. He's been accused of single-handedly destroying the industry with the E.T. game, but he offers great insights into the downfall of Atari, starting from when Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for $28M, the appointment of Ray Kassar as CEO, and the impact it had on the Atari culture and employees at the time.
Seriously, I've read 12 gaming industry books by Schreier, Harris, Kushner, Craddock, Fils-Aimé, Meier, Williams, and now Warshaw. This was the absolute best of them. The writing is clever and eloquent, not apologetic about a few repetitions, insanely quotable, and remains riveting and engaging from beginning to end. It's a must read.
April 30, 2025
The framing on this book is not great, based on phrasing, you have to wonder if Howard himself is sort of giving in writing this. An oral history that he perhaps didn't even want to visit, but everyone wanted to know about. It felt like an oral history that had been re arranged in an attempt to heighten drama as much as possible.
The saving grace is that the story of Atari is insane, as almost everyone knows. It had a chance to become a monolithic super corp, but instead allowed some of its own employees to steal its own destiny (Activision). The mismanagement is legendary, from sprinkler lobotomies, uncooked turkey awards for generating millions in revenue and, of course, E.T. being made by going over the engineering manager's recommendations.
Howard's work at Atari is what a lot of people want to pretend their work was and is truly impressive.
The saving grace is that the story of Atari is insane, as almost everyone knows. It had a chance to become a monolithic super corp, but instead allowed some of its own employees to steal its own destiny (Activision). The mismanagement is legendary, from sprinkler lobotomies, uncooked turkey awards for generating millions in revenue and, of course, E.T. being made by going over the engineering manager's recommendations.
Howard's work at Atari is what a lot of people want to pretend their work was and is truly impressive.
February 9, 2022
Nostalgic, fun, and fascinating
As someone with fond memories of the glory days of Atari - both hours spent playing VCS games and, later, punching BASIC games into my Atari 800 with my two-fingered typing style, this really was a terrific trip down nostalgia lane. Though I do have to apologize, Howard; I never played your games much back in the day.
But, more than fun nostalgia, this was a fascinating and realistic view of tech culture, past and present. As someone who worked in Silicon Valley not so long ago, much of the culture and dysfunction felt very real.
Finally, this was a very human story of a life's journey: intimate and honest. I loved it!
As someone with fond memories of the glory days of Atari - both hours spent playing VCS games and, later, punching BASIC games into my Atari 800 with my two-fingered typing style, this really was a terrific trip down nostalgia lane. Though I do have to apologize, Howard; I never played your games much back in the day.
But, more than fun nostalgia, this was a fascinating and realistic view of tech culture, past and present. As someone who worked in Silicon Valley not so long ago, much of the culture and dysfunction felt very real.
Finally, this was a very human story of a life's journey: intimate and honest. I loved it!
Read
November 30, 2021I really enjoyed this book. (Though I'll admit that I have a special weakness for this era of videogame development.) I wasn't sure if I was going to survive all the puns at first, and HSW's very unique writing style, but in the end I'd put this up there with The Making of Prince of Persia as one of the best videogame-related memoirs I've read. HSW does an excellent job of painting the past in a lively and dynamic fashion that makes it come alive--something that is often lacking with these kinds of retrospectives.
January 13, 2022
Howards deeply personal tale transcends the industry it focuses on to be a universal human tale. A dreamer pursues his passion, faces a great chasm, and not only surmounts it but dedicates his life to helping others do the same. Steven Spielberg might be an alien, but Howard Scott Warshaw is a wonderful human being. You should read this to learn why.
April 17, 2021
this mans book is a inside view of what happen and how atari i knew and loved killed itself.
this is a must read for any atari nut like myself I'm still going wow i never knew what really really happened
a MUST read thank you mr hsw !
this is a must read for any atari nut like myself I'm still going wow i never knew what really really happened
a MUST read thank you mr hsw !
January 31, 2021
A complete retelling of the early years of the game industry told by someone who was actually there. Brought back a lot of memories of those days, but made me feel instantly old. :)
May 2, 2023
Repetitive and unorganized.
July 16, 2023
What a strange man
HSW is the authentic & quintessential misunderstood genius. His style and prose varies from understandable succinct in depth explanations of very technical jargon to wacky humorous anecdotes of the absurd life and thinking of an Atari developer (it reminds me of Vonnegut at his most satirical & witty). It is well written...apart from the corny puns and often differing style (it is the voice that sometimes feels like two different people - one a 23 year old with too much ego to safely be contained, but that's typical for highly intelligent 23 year olds; the other a well wizened 50 something man who has spent thousands of hours helping others and thereby himself get a clearer comprehension of what it means to be human - the incongruity tells the observant reader "These are authentic experiences being recollected and disclosed. Please hold judgement until the end. Howard is after all just telling things as they happened to him".
As for the subject, did Howard and E.T. the video game destroy the home video game industry? Spoiler: who cares? His amusing insider look at routines & commonplace happenings at THE gaming pioneers is captivating. The often personal touches he adds are the essence of gripping non-fiction. Never once did I feel or think about leaving this autobiographical work unfinished, often reading into the wee hours of morning with total disregard of sleep. If you like gaming his book is a must. It explains so much about the mind of game devs and the incredible highs and lows we all face as humans.
But what really held my attention was the tiny bread crumbs along the way that finally culminated in the big reveal - what was uncovered in the desert landfill? Is Howard responsible or is it another urban myth? How does this abject failure (E.T. is near unanimously voted the worst video game of all time whenever such a poll is taken) affect Howard? What really caused Atari and the home video game industry to crash so quickly? Well, you'll need to read the book to find the answers but it'll be well worth the journey to arrive at the answers to the gnawing questions... So in that regard, well done Howard...for Yars (I did play this - easy to learn, tough to master), E.T. (want & need to play this), and this account of Atari's rapid decline (played this and will play it again).
HSW is the authentic & quintessential misunderstood genius. His style and prose varies from understandable succinct in depth explanations of very technical jargon to wacky humorous anecdotes of the absurd life and thinking of an Atari developer (it reminds me of Vonnegut at his most satirical & witty). It is well written...apart from the corny puns and often differing style (it is the voice that sometimes feels like two different people - one a 23 year old with too much ego to safely be contained, but that's typical for highly intelligent 23 year olds; the other a well wizened 50 something man who has spent thousands of hours helping others and thereby himself get a clearer comprehension of what it means to be human - the incongruity tells the observant reader "These are authentic experiences being recollected and disclosed. Please hold judgement until the end. Howard is after all just telling things as they happened to him".
As for the subject, did Howard and E.T. the video game destroy the home video game industry? Spoiler: who cares? His amusing insider look at routines & commonplace happenings at THE gaming pioneers is captivating. The often personal touches he adds are the essence of gripping non-fiction. Never once did I feel or think about leaving this autobiographical work unfinished, often reading into the wee hours of morning with total disregard of sleep. If you like gaming his book is a must. It explains so much about the mind of game devs and the incredible highs and lows we all face as humans.
But what really held my attention was the tiny bread crumbs along the way that finally culminated in the big reveal - what was uncovered in the desert landfill? Is Howard responsible or is it another urban myth? How does this abject failure (E.T. is near unanimously voted the worst video game of all time whenever such a poll is taken) affect Howard? What really caused Atari and the home video game industry to crash so quickly? Well, you'll need to read the book to find the answers but it'll be well worth the journey to arrive at the answers to the gnawing questions... So in that regard, well done Howard...for Yars (I did play this - easy to learn, tough to master), E.T. (want & need to play this), and this account of Atari's rapid decline (played this and will play it again).
November 11, 2023
I feel like this is a book you could categorize in a lot of ways. It's a book about the history of computing, the history of video games, the history of the tech industry and big business, and also the memoir of an engineer. I think it's worth a read if you're a gamer, or if you're in tech, or if you're just interested in what it was like to work in Silicon Valley in the 80s.
One thing that helps it punch a lot above its weight is that so many other books about the history of video games focus (quite rightly) on the joy of being a player. What it was like to be a child (or even an adult) playing Atari games for the first time in the 80s. That's great, but seeing it from the perspective of an engineer adds so much more color to the experience.
It also stands out among startup memoirs in that, unlike books like "The Accidental Billionaires" or "Hatching Twitter" or "That'll Never Work", rather than focusing on the transcendental genius of the founder-at-work, this book is a memoir of a typical Atari engineer.
Okay, so that's a lot of praise, why is it a 4-star instead of a 5-star? Well, it has a few problems. For one, it has a repetitiveness problem. I think I counted three or four times that Howard rehashed the fact that he was given a 5-week deadline to make a game for the costliest IP license in Atari's history is a symptom of, not the cause of, the 1983 video game crash.
Also, Howard opens the book with an Ayn Rand quote, which is a very standoffish way to start a book for a general audience. It's interesting since his personality doesn't seem entirely like an Ayn Rand Libertarian, but apparently this was the quote he felt got across his personal views best of all. It's not even a very good quote, the quote is "You can ignore reality but you cannot ignore the consequences of reality." Huh? What? If I can ignore reality surely I can ignore the consequences of reality too. That's kind of just the same thing, like you might as well say "You can ignore the consequences of reality, but you cannot ignore the ramifications of those consequences!"
It's a good book, I did not anticipate liking it as much as I did given the foreward was written by Ernest Cline, who I think can fairly be called one of the worst sci-fi authors of the 21st century, and the opening quote was from Ayn Rand. But I decided to give it the 50-page test, and by page 50 I was indeed hooked.
One thing that helps it punch a lot above its weight is that so many other books about the history of video games focus (quite rightly) on the joy of being a player. What it was like to be a child (or even an adult) playing Atari games for the first time in the 80s. That's great, but seeing it from the perspective of an engineer adds so much more color to the experience.
It also stands out among startup memoirs in that, unlike books like "The Accidental Billionaires" or "Hatching Twitter" or "That'll Never Work", rather than focusing on the transcendental genius of the founder-at-work, this book is a memoir of a typical Atari engineer.
Okay, so that's a lot of praise, why is it a 4-star instead of a 5-star? Well, it has a few problems. For one, it has a repetitiveness problem. I think I counted three or four times that Howard rehashed the fact that he was given a 5-week deadline to make a game for the costliest IP license in Atari's history is a symptom of, not the cause of, the 1983 video game crash.
Also, Howard opens the book with an Ayn Rand quote, which is a very standoffish way to start a book for a general audience. It's interesting since his personality doesn't seem entirely like an Ayn Rand Libertarian, but apparently this was the quote he felt got across his personal views best of all. It's not even a very good quote, the quote is "You can ignore reality but you cannot ignore the consequences of reality." Huh? What? If I can ignore reality surely I can ignore the consequences of reality too. That's kind of just the same thing, like you might as well say "You can ignore the consequences of reality, but you cannot ignore the ramifications of those consequences!"
It's a good book, I did not anticipate liking it as much as I did given the foreward was written by Ernest Cline, who I think can fairly be called one of the worst sci-fi authors of the 21st century, and the opening quote was from Ayn Rand. But I decided to give it the 50-page test, and by page 50 I was indeed hooked.
September 25, 2022
I recently read Back into the Storm by Bil Herd, which inspired me to purchase Once Upon Atari by Howard Warshaw. This book is about Howard’s life and his time at Atari. If focused on the ET video game, the people, the environment, programming the 2600, and digging up unsold ET games.
However, there was a problem. Howard told the story in bits and started his book at the end of the story, which was when they were digging up unsold ET games. Each chapter told an additional part of this digging adventure. I would have preferred a linear story about his early life, education, other jobs, time at Atari, the ET game, after Atari, and then digging up the games. It made for a confusing read. Granted, I know authors try to “spice up” a story by telling it out of order, but the intended audience for this book does not need cajoling.
So, if you can get beyond the “post history” (I skipped the first 4 paragraphs of each chapter) (it reads like ET getting stuck in a pit:), then this is a good read. Howard led a remarkable life, and his description of the inception, creation and reaction to the ET game was mind-boggling. I could have summed the desert dig up in three paragraphs.
Is this book worth reading? If you want to know the history of Atari and what it was like to create games in the early ‘80s, this is a fantastic book. However, the out-of-order style is annoying.
However, there was a problem. Howard told the story in bits and started his book at the end of the story, which was when they were digging up unsold ET games. Each chapter told an additional part of this digging adventure. I would have preferred a linear story about his early life, education, other jobs, time at Atari, the ET game, after Atari, and then digging up the games. It made for a confusing read. Granted, I know authors try to “spice up” a story by telling it out of order, but the intended audience for this book does not need cajoling.
So, if you can get beyond the “post history” (I skipped the first 4 paragraphs of each chapter) (it reads like ET getting stuck in a pit:), then this is a good read. Howard led a remarkable life, and his description of the inception, creation and reaction to the ET game was mind-boggling. I could have summed the desert dig up in three paragraphs.
Is this book worth reading? If you want to know the history of Atari and what it was like to create games in the early ‘80s, this is a fantastic book. However, the out-of-order style is annoying.
July 30, 2023
This exceptional autobiography puts the reader squarely in the middle of the video game boom of the early '80s, when Atari was the undisputed king of the industry. Warshaw chronicles his four years at the company, during which he made two of the best-loved Atari 2600 games of all time (Yar's Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark), and one of the most infamous (E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, a game widely, if erroneously, blamed for causing the great video game industry crash of 1983). Reviewer bias: I loved all three games equally when I was a kid.
Warshaw chronicles a company in transition from the wild party days of founder Nolan Bushnell (in which employees openly smoked pot in the office) to the button-down conformity of Bushnell's replacement, Ray Kassar. Through it all, Warshaw shares the absurdity of the adventure (including a meeting with Steven Spielberg, in which Warshaw accused him of being an alien, massive paydays, working himself to the brink of a nervous collapse, creative ways of letting off steam with his coworkers, and much more).
Warshaw writes with immense fondness for the company, while also holding them accountable for consistently poor managerial decisions. He speaks with candor and humor about his legacy in the industry, and comes across as one of the most likable people ever to write a book. I bet he was fun to work with.
Warshaw chronicles a company in transition from the wild party days of founder Nolan Bushnell (in which employees openly smoked pot in the office) to the button-down conformity of Bushnell's replacement, Ray Kassar. Through it all, Warshaw shares the absurdity of the adventure (including a meeting with Steven Spielberg, in which Warshaw accused him of being an alien, massive paydays, working himself to the brink of a nervous collapse, creative ways of letting off steam with his coworkers, and much more).
Warshaw writes with immense fondness for the company, while also holding them accountable for consistently poor managerial decisions. He speaks with candor and humor about his legacy in the industry, and comes across as one of the most likable people ever to write a book. I bet he was fun to work with.
December 31, 2021
This charming fusion of oral history by way of biography employs a very personal lens in examining the silver age and waning days of Atari in the early 80’s by way of a narrative of the making of the E.T. VCS game. By turns groaningly punny and honestly emotional, Howard Scott Warshaw’s tale of his tenure at the tech giant that established an industry is immediately relatable and human, while still retaining the feeling of watching a car accident in slow-motion.
Easy read, full of non-technical explanations of very technical problems, and a reminder of how nuts Atari was. Highly recommended for students of pop culture history, or video game history in particular.
Easy read, full of non-technical explanations of very technical problems, and a reminder of how nuts Atari was. Highly recommended for students of pop culture history, or video game history in particular.
April 1, 2024
I listened to the Audiobook vs. reading it but either way it’s a bit of a tough listen and I feel would have been a tough read due to the length versus the content.
The author seemed to go into many tangents that just made the book somewhat painful at times.
It’s definitely geared for people with a much smaller technical background than the average video gamer has. I had personally hoped they’d go into a little more detail of some of the processes, but the book fails on that part.
Was it interesting at times? Yes!
Was it far too long based on the material presented? Absolutely.
It might be a good book for a long car ride, flight, commute, etc.
The author seemed to go into many tangents that just made the book somewhat painful at times.
It’s definitely geared for people with a much smaller technical background than the average video gamer has. I had personally hoped they’d go into a little more detail of some of the processes, but the book fails on that part.
Was it interesting at times? Yes!
Was it far too long based on the material presented? Absolutely.
It might be a good book for a long car ride, flight, commute, etc.
August 22, 2024
Excellent author with a strong distinct voice, funny but forthright, giving a really great blend of history, reflection, autobiography where it overlaps the history, and great insight into how even (or especially) innovative companies lay the foundations for their own downfall.
There is a lot of repetition throughout, as if the author is reminding themselves of where they are, that perhaps a more forceful editor could have prised away. It shows the admitted long timeline in the construction of the book.
But ultimately I am glad I read it.
There is a lot of repetition throughout, as if the author is reminding themselves of where they are, that perhaps a more forceful editor could have prised away. It shows the admitted long timeline in the construction of the book.
But ultimately I am glad I read it.
June 6, 2025
As a game developer in the modern day gaming industry, I owe a lot to Howard and Atari from starting this industry from scratch. It’s easy to look back and judge Atari’s many decisions, but the gaming industry wouldn’t be the same without these first few stones.
Howard does a really good job to explain in great details how it was back then, mixed with snippets of personal essays about the industry and culminating with a coming-of-age second career.
I really like the book, it opened up my mind, inspired me and made me believe we can find a place where we’re truly belong.
Howard does a really good job to explain in great details how it was back then, mixed with snippets of personal essays about the industry and culminating with a coming-of-age second career.
I really like the book, it opened up my mind, inspired me and made me believe we can find a place where we’re truly belong.
August 14, 2025
This may be one of the best books I’ve ever read on game development and the culture surrounding it. Howard brings unique insight, having been one of the renowned programmers that made Atari the best game company of the 80s. His unique blend of humor and practical insight makes this a must read for anyone who wants insight into the world making video games. But this book goes deeper than the geek memories of a video game nerd. It teaches important lessons of life that anyone could gain from. Read this book!
December 31, 2023
Very entertaining and personal story of the author experience in Atari, I think the book it’s really well written and it has a lot of humor, specially for nerds like myself, the only reason I give 4 and not 5 is that it doesn’t really meets the expectations I was hoping for more technical or more product based stories and focus more in very subjective personal ones, it’s great and definitely recommended thought.
March 2, 2021
Overall a great book on the behind the scenes history of Atari. A compelling read. Knocked off one star due to the writing style, as it's very informal and a bit disjointed. Not bad but at times I found it distracting. Well worth reading despite the writing style. Definitely recommended for any computer or video game history buff.
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