8-Bit Apocalypse: The Untold Story of Atari's Missile Command

by Alex Rubens, Jeff Gerstmann Narrated by Ryan Burke

Overview

The first history of Atari's Missile Command, and its unforeseen effects on its creators and the culture

Before Call of Duty, before World of Warcraft, before even Super Mario Bros., the video game industry exploded in the late 1970s with the advent of the video arcade. Leading the charge was Atari Inc., the creator of, among others, the iconic game Missile Command. The first game to double as a commentary on culture, Missile Command put the players' fingers on "the button," making them responsible for the fate of civilization in a no-win scenario, all for the price of a quarter. The game was marvel of modern culture, helping usher in both the age of the video game and the video game lifestyle. Its groundbreaking implications inspired a fanatical culture that persists to this day.

As fascinating as the cultural reaction to Missile Command were the programmers behind it. Before the era of massive development teams and worship of figures like Steve Jobs, Atari was manufacturing arcade machines designed, written, and coded by individual designers. As earnings from their games entered the millions, these creators were celebrated as geniuses in their time; once dismissed as nerds and fanatics, they were now being interviewed for major publications, and partied like Wall Street traders. However, the toll on these programmers was high: developers worked 120-hour weeks, often opting to stay in the office for days on end while under a deadline. Missile Command creator David Theurer threw himself particularly fervently into his work, prompting not only declining health and a suffering relationship with his family, but frequent nightmares about nuclear annihilation.

To truly tell the story from the inside, tech insider and writer Alex Rubens has interviewed numerous major figures from this time: Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari; David Theurer, the creator of Missile Command; and Phil Klemmer, writer for the NBC series Chuck, who wrote an entire episode for the show about Missile Command and its mythical "kill screen." Taking readers back to the days of TaB cola, dot matrix printers, and digging through the couch for just one more quarter, Alex Rubens combines his knowledge of the tech industry and experience as a gaming journalist to conjure the wild silicon frontier of the 8-bit '80s. 8-Bit Apocalypse: The Untold Story of Atari's Missile Command offers the first in-depth, personal history of an era for which fans have a lot of nostalgia.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

09/10/2018
Rubens, a strategic partner manager at Google, delves deeply into the story of Atari’s 1980 arcade game Missile Command, the origins of which have long been shrouded in mystery despite the games seminal role in a fledgling industry. By convincing the game’s elusive creator, David Theurer, to tell his story, Rubens illuminates the company’s founding and the inception of arcades as a part of American popular culture. The author outlines Atari’s early history—the creation of Pong in 1972, its early leadership struggles, and its 1981 height of $2 billion in profits before the 1982 industry crash that ruined the company—as well as the cutthroat world of modern-day Missile Command tournaments. At the center is Theurer’s obsessive development of the game into a vehicle for his own political concerns: the final product climaxed in a no-win-nuclear-war scenario. With this stark antiwar message, Rubens shows, Theurer became the first game developer to realize the potential for games to affect players emotionally, an accomplishment that stands as Missile Command’s true legacy. Though repetitive in conveying Theurer’s rationale, Rubens’s history is an excellent analysis of Cold War–era fears and the escapism provided by video games. It will be fascinating to anyone interested in the cultural influence of entertainment. (Oct.)

Josh Tsui

This book brought back the sinking feeling of seeing THE END with that slow closing circle—followed by the sinking of more quarters. An amazing look into the human toll of creating one of the greatest video games of all time.

Tim Lapetino

Alex Rubens takes a fascinating deep dive into the making and cultural context ofMissile Command, one of the golden age's greatest arcade games. It's a haunting meditation on obsession and how the creation of one game became the stuff of nightmares for its designer.”

The Maine Edge

A remarkable snapshot of a moment in time, one whose underlying tension is largely unknown to later generations . . . Rubens captures it all with a deftness that makes for an engaging narrative. . . . thanks to extensive research and some storytelling flair, the book is a sharply-told representation of a specific place and time. That tremendous specificity is a huge part of what makes the book so successful—it is an exceptional piece of retrospect that throws the ultimate importance of a game like ‘Missile Command’ into sharp relief. Fans of video game history—and history in general—will be fascinated by 8-Bit Apocalypse.”

Geek.com

A fascinating story . . . That Theurer ended up having nightmares over his own creation speaks to how well he accomplished his mission, and it speaks to Rubens’ ability to discover an utterly captivating piece of early overlooked video game history. . . . if you want to read about one of the secretly smartest retro games around, pick up 8-Bit Apocalypse.”

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172263941
Publisher:	Brilliance Audio
Publication date:	03/26/2019
Edition description:	Unabridged

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