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[UbiSoftologist]

Restaurant + Video Games...

Source: The New York Times (link )

1) Bushnell's ''innovative'' idea...

Nolan K. Bushnell, the creator of the Pong video game and founder of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain, is innovating again. He is about to open a restaurant where the servers will have novel attributes: triple redundancy and backup batteries.

In this case, the servers will not be human waiters but powerful central computers that will record food orders and display video games that customers can play while they eat.

Mr. Bushnell calls the concept the Media Bistro, and he plans to open the first one in West Los Angeles this fall. The point, he said, is to get gamers out of the house.

Video games today "are about social isolation," Mr. Bushnell said. "There needs to be a place that brings a little more balance and brings people together."

In an interview last week, he described how the 300-seat restaurant and bar would combine food and drink with ubiquitous interactive media. Touch-screen monitors, installed at every table, booth and barstool, will allow diners to place food orders, play some 70 different video and trivia games, and even take instant pop culture polls.

2) Wall Street analysts' comments

Some game industry analysts, however, find it hard to imagine that consumers will want to combine a night out with playing video games, which they can do at home.

"Do I need to marry those two things?" said Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Morgan Securities. "It's like saying you're going to combine a restaurant and a barbershop."

Others, like P. J. McNealy, a video game industry analyst with American Technology Research, said the mass-market appeal of video games had led to an intersection with other forms of entertainment, like movies. Combining food and video games, Mr. McNealy said, "continues the trend of business model experimentation."

Given Mr. Bushnell's successes as a serial entrepreneur and his experience with video games and restaurants, industry analysts said they were generally cautious about second-guessing his concept.

3) Bushnell's business plan

Mr. Bushnell now runs a small public company called uWink, based in Los Angeles, which develops short-form video games, like poker and trivia games. He said the company had invested about $12 million in developing software for Media Bistro. He said he hoped the restaurant would attract 21- to 35-year-olds.

He said he expected the restaurant to turn a profit by holding down costs. Instead of waiters who take orders, it will have food runners who deliver orders to the tables.

The restaurant will also have "tour directors" who will help diners choose video games and use the screens, Mr. Bushnell said.

 

[DarienA]

...no.

 

[Wario64]

i would never touch controls or the screen while eating. that's just disgusting

 

[Shogmaster]

When I was a kid, I thought the Chuck E Cheese's pizzas were the greatest pizzas in the whole wide world. It might have been all the free token it came with....

 

[djtiesto]

I remember going to Buffalo Wild Wings (it's a whole chain of restaurants - the one I went to was ironically enough, in Buffalo's suburbs) and they had something like this - a trivia game where you'd enter a user name and compete online (through many different restaurants) against people.

 

[DarienA]

I remember going to Buffalo Wild Wings (it's a whole chain of restaurants - the one I went to was ironically enough, in Buffalo's suburbs) and they had something like this - a trivia game where you'd enter a user name and compete online (through many different restaurants) against people.

There's a restaurant here that does that... it's part of a local chain I think... except you are competiting against other people in the restaurant..Rocky Run I think it's called...

 

[tedtropy]

What makes him think gamers want to leave the house? Has he forgotten what happened to the arcade scene? No sir, we gamers like our skin pastey and our gaming in an optimal subterranean environment.

 

[ToxicAdam]

Sounds like a good idea to me. Sure the hell beats Applebees or some other crap chain restaurant.

 

[monchi-kun]

South Korea uses games to lure people out of their homes. Those net cafes and MMO-R-Cades are big booming buisnesses in one of the world's most connected countries

It's a nice way to meet gamer chicks and breed

 

[tedtropy]

Sounds like a good idea to me. Sure the hell beats Applebees or some other crap chain restaurant.

I refuse to acknowledge that Applebees is a restaurant. Eatin' good? Not in my neighborhood.

 

[UbiSoftologist]

South Korea uses games to lure people out of their homes.

''Gamer'' is a profession in SK, isn't it?

 

[Jonnyram]

Wow, I had no idea that Bushnell came up with Chuck E. Cheese. What a loon!

 

[DrEvil]

I think this guy watched back to the future 2 a bit too much.

 

[Koshiro]

Fail.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Search for the Most Influential thread last week-- a lot of Bushnell talk there.

I think he shoudl be considered the #1 most influention person in videogames-- and not just for Pong.

That said, I don't thik he's managed to do anything interesting in 20+ years. Perhaps he should not have given up coke! :lol

 

[Banjo Tango]

I thought Bushnell wasn't the actual creator of Pong, though... Wasn't it some guy working under him who created Pong as a proof-of-concept while Bushnell tried to figure out how to create a cost-effective Space War cabinet?

Hrm, Google produces several results that say "Al Acorn" was the guy who actually created the game, but none of the sources look too credible.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I thought Bushnell wasn't the actual creator of Pong, though... Wasn't it some guy working under him who created Pong as a proof-of-concept while Bushnell tried to figure out how to create a cost-effective Space War cabinet?

Hrm, Google produces several results that say "Al Acorn" was the guy who actually created the game, but none of the sources look too credible.

It's even more complicated.


Higgenbottom (forget his first name) made a rudmentary form called "tennis for two" on oscilliscope even before space war.

Ralph Baer (who conceived putting games on a TV screen) made a pong-like prototype. Bushnell saw it and some expo, and instructed Al Acron to make a game out of it. Hence Pong was born. Bushnell's first big idea was coin-op videogames fo any sort, Pong being the first.

 

[aoi tsuki]

i think it's a good marriage of two different concepts (eating and gaming), but the direction is flawed. People don't go to restaurants to play games. They go for the food. If the idea was to have quick games people could play while they wait for food, like what some restaurants such as Mongolian Barbeque are doing, that could be successful.

 

[Banjo Tango]

It's even more complicated.


Higgenbottom (forget his first name) made a rudmentary form called "tennis for two" on oscilliscope even before space war.

Ralph Baer (who conceived putting games on a TV screen) made a pong-like prototype. Bushnell saw it and some expo, and instructed Al Acron to make a game out of it. Hence Pong was born. Bushnell's first big idea was coin-op videogames fo any sort, Pong being the first.

Cool, thanks for the info.

 

[Kobun Heat]

Al Alcorn.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

No prob.

Back in the day, I disliked Atari compared to other companies (Namco, Bally/Midway, Williams, Stern, Cinematronics) but as time has marched on and people have forgotten what an amazing innovative company Atari was (and Bushnell-era in particular) I find myself defending them/him a lot.

I mean, we're talking the company that pioneered most of the control scemes (trackball, joystick, wheel) that are still used today (and a few that aren't). The company that conceived that people would pay to play games on a monitor. They were also a huge force into making home computers game-friendly. And while I am not a fan of all of their classics, I certainly am a fan of some of them.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Al Alcorn.

Hey, I'm the guy who was talking abotu Nolan Bunshell, too. Typing is not strong suit!

 

[ToxicAdam]

I think the BW-3 "games" show that people want interaction. The games better be multiplay, or have some kind of competitive scoreboard for everyone to see. Just sitting there and playing a Bejeweled knockoff while waiting for your spinach dip, just won't cut it.

 

[djtiesto]

It's even more complicated.


Higgenbottom (forget his first name) made a rudmentary form called "tennis for two" on oscilliscope even before space war.

Ralph Baer (who conceived putting games on a TV screen) made a pong-like prototype. Bushnell saw it and some expo, and instructed Al Acron to make a game out of it. Hence Pong was born. Bushnell's first big idea was coin-op videogames fo any sort, Pong being the first.

Yup - Willie Higgenbottom. Done at the Brookhaven National Lab (about 15-20 minutes from me). Suffolk County - my home and the birthplace of video games.

 

[Dragmire]

Yup - Willie Higgenbottom.

Sounds like a hobbit.

 

[TheDiave]

OLD!

...well, to me anyways. I read it in the paper this morning.

 

[TheDuce22]

Sounds like a great idea!!