Let's start out with Nolan,

how did you arrive at this formula of

easy to learn and difficult to master?

Well remember Atari started out in the coin operated

game business and so we were sort of balanced between

how do you make a game that is satisfying immediately

upon dropping a quarter in?

But at the same time you had to get the person to fail in

three minutes so that you could get the next quarter.

Get money.

And so we decided that we had to make it

challenging enough that they wanted to come baCk

and get better and better and better.

When you were starting out you were not just

starting your own company as a young man

but you were essentially, it was the birth of a medium.

Nobody thought that games were a business

and so we always had no capital.

The other part was the technology was really lousy.

Pong had a square ball not because we thought that

square balls were cool, it was because that was about

as good as we could do.

(audience laughs)

And so we were constantly fighting what we wanted to do

with what the technology would let us do.

Dong what for you are the essentials of

effective game design?

At first I want make something that people can play

anytime, anywhere.

I want to make something that people can easily to remember,

like I have a background of city in the game and have a

blue sky that every of Nintendo games has.

What was the appeal of that generation of games for you?

The ritual game is more focus, I don't have to really

learn how to play, I can learn by my own mistake.

So you're talking about, really a frictionless

kind of entry to playing the game, which I think

is what we all remember about those titles growing up.

How did that influence kind of the design of Flappy Bird?

Instead of adding more content in the game,

I spend more time on tuning the game play to make it right.

Let's talk what was, until recently,

one of the great urban legends in gaming,

was that Atari had made so many ET cartridges

that they were buried in a desert in New Mexico.

'Cause Nolan if you knew those were there,

in the desert, and you just didn't tell anybody.

Well first of all I had left three years before,

so not on my watch, guys that were running Atari after me

didn't play games, they were suits.

They don't understand how critical the man-machine

interface is with the game play.

And in those days a good cartridge took at least

six months to design.

They thought that an ET game would be cool

so they did a licensing deal in late August but the

cartridge had to start shipping in middle of October.

In six weeks to do a full cartridge game,

it was impossible.

I actually got an early copy, it was unplayable

and so all of a sudden they had this tsunami of

returned cartridges and so the best thing to do was to bury

them in the desert and then pour concrete over top.

What kind of games do you see coming out on

these new forms of hardware?

I think VR has always been this promise of the holodeck,

for the Trekkies who are out there and that you're there

and I can tell you that the technology is sufficient now

that you can actually be in VR and not throw up.

Motion sickness was always a big problem.

I mean VR's been around on some levels for 20 years

but the motion sickness issue is you have a hard time

making a business when you make people sick.

(audience laughs)

All the game that I think is adult game, adult game.

Adult game?

Yeah.

But when you say that what do you mean>

'Cause adult came has a different conation.

Yeah. Right.

(audience laughs)

Because I was in Tokyo before this trip to New York.

Right maybe that is what you mean.

And I see a lot of adult games.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well anyway we're out of time but thank you.

(audience applauds)

(thoughtful music)