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.
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Customer reviews
Before meeting Howard, I did not know much about the Atari. While reading his book during the editing phase, I believed Howard took my hand and guided me through his personal journey of trials, tribulations, and challenges to create E.T. within a 5-week span. Although I am not a technical expert, I am confident I gained a lot of newfound knowledge about computers, gaming systems, along with more technical verbiage I never knew before. In addition to some flashbacks and good laughs, I believe Howard hit it out of the park with his recollection of his time at Atari. It made me want to be there and see it all unfold in real time. I am looking forward to seeing where this new journey takes you.
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Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 25, 2022
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 30, 2022
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 12, 2021
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 classic game fan 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.
Great Inside Story of One of the Greatest Successes and Greatest Collapses in Business History
By Amazon Customer on March 11, 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.”By Amazon Customer on March 11, 2021
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 classic game fan 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.
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Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 23, 2022
Top reviews from other countries
The Investigator
Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle Waffle
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 31, 2022timothy o.
A wonderful journy from the start of it all from ET in a learjet to...well ET in a landfill
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 16, 2022
A wonderful journy from the start of it all from ET in a learjet to...well ET in a landfill
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 16, 2022
This book is a wonderfully well written and authoritative account of not just a games company but a cultural moment in time and works its way out from the New Mexico landfill by developing the two paralleled timelines of both Howard and Atari after he got there, gently exposing the reader to a lot of cool subtle observations .. like the problems with the industry or as he calls "BIG". You can tell that most of the Dilbert characters have met Howard, its that kind of book.Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 16, 2022
The stories of the people he interacts with are warm, personal and have some real pearls of wisdom in there as well.
It speaks to me on so many levels and was a thoroughly worthwhile and riveting read.
If you have ever written a line of code.. I implore you to read this book!
You will lose a Sunday afternoon but you will gain a contented smile.
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JamesH
Funny, fascinating memoir
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 14, 2021
Bentley Bear
Fascinating Read!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 27, 2021Frank Gasking
A wonderful look at one of the Atari 2600's most famous programmers
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 24, 2021
