Once Upon Atari Book Review by Howard Scott Warshaw (HSW)
Howard Scott Warshaw, a titan in the Atari circles, well known for having created many hit games for the Atari 2600 including Raiders of the Lost Ark, Yars Revenge, and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial has recently released a NEW book titled “Once Upon Atari – How I made history by killing an industry”. The book mostly covers those glorious years in which he was employed by the fastest-growing company in US history, the Atari Corporation. The title itself a play on “Once upon a time”. If it’s not already obvious, you can get a quick sense of what it was like working for such an organization, being perhaps at the pinnacle of the programming world, just by taking a glance at the image on the cover of the book. Here we see Howard donning a T-Shirt and sandals, long hair, mustache & beard, cigarette in hand, keyboard in his lap, smiling for the picture. In the background, we can see his development workstation with E.T. displayed on one of the monitors. You see around that time, Howard was working on the video game version of the 1982 monster Hollywood Hit “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial”. In the photo, he seems pretty laid back, but the reality was he was in a really challenging and tense environment, the type of pressure that Howard actually thrived on during his four-year tenure at Atari. The development timeline for E.T. for example was a mere five weeks, which included, having to come with the game concept, getting it approved by the film director Stephen Speilberg, making the game, testing, and getting the final sign off. Only Howard Scott Warshaw would have the guts to say, yeah I can make that work, AND THEN actually pull it off.
The book yields tremendous insight and sort of reads as a biography of Howard’s time at Atari. He does so while employing humor and managing to let his personality shine through. On the back cover of the book, broadcaster Bret Burkhart says it best,
“Howard Pulls back the curtain on an industry that exploded into our family rooms… incredible behind the scenes stories of how that curtain came crashing down, a must-read”.
I have to say Howard does a great job in the book of describing those glory years at Atari, going into tremendous detail and giving us great insight into the games he developed while there. He certainly did pull back the curtain on Atari, and let us glean from his point of view, the story of the video game market crash.
He discussed his wildly popular best-selling video games Yars Revenge and Raiders of the Lost Ark in tremendous detail. The end of the book spends a great deal of time on discussions pertaining to E.T., perhaps being the worst video game of all time, and even causing the video game crash, ideas which I believe to be ridiculous. If it were true then as he had mentioned he had BOTH the best-selling video game of all time (Yars Revenge 4.5 million copies) and the worst video game of all time, E.T. Every game he put out while at Atari sold in the millions, making him a cash cow and a bit of rock star. He did point out several times that although E.T. was panned by many, it did still manage to sell over 1.5 million copies even after accounting for returned games and stock buried in the desert. Having said that E.T. only had a 5-week development schedule whereas his other games had at LEAST 6 months of development time.
If I had to be critical of anything regarding the book, I am not really a fan of the time-traveling technique of starting a story in the present time, then right when it gets interesting, jumping back in time to tell another story, then continuing with the original story. I prefer more of a sequential timeline, but I understand why it was done, to sort of build up excitement and generate interest later on in the book.
Overall, I found the story contained within the book to be entertaining, humorous, and eye-opening.
Howard Scott Warshaw’s personality shines through exceptionally. He mentioned a few ideas he had if he were to ever create a part two to Yars Revenge and how he could have improved E.T. had there been more time before its release. He also spoke of a game he worked on which was released 20 years after he left Atari, called “Saboteur”. We can only imagine what kind of games he would have created had he continued with his programming career.
As we came to find out, after leaving Atari, Howard floated around for many years trying to find the right career fit for himself, something that would consume his intellect, both at creative and technical levels. I was glad to find out that he found the perfect career for himself, Therapy, and is now employed as a psychotherapist. The last few sentences of the book put it well. Howard:
…loves cultivating new skills and finding creative ways to apply them. Howard is a complex person who can be summed up in five words. Passion with a balanced perspective.
My friend and fellow Atariage user “Steven Ramirez” had this to say about the book:
This book is not just about Atari or “the worst video game of all time”. This is an intimate, insightful and inspiring read. I for one am grateful that Howard took whatever amount of time was necessary to complete this book, which affords us the opportunity to join him on his life’s journey from Video Game Pioneer to Psychotherapist. – Steven Ramirez
And here’s a really cool photo of Steven Ramirez at the 2015 Classic Game Fest.
I want to thank Steven Ramirez for sharing this photograph and for sharing his amazing quote with me.
Howard’s ideas and genius were cultivated during a unique period in history when one single individual could come up with a design idea, implement the code, and essentially complete an entire video game by himself. Howard took that exact approach several times during his tenure at Atari. I took my time slowly reading this book, sort of savoring it a chapter a time.
When I was growing up the only Howard Scott Warshaw game that I had was E.T., which I had received for Christmas the year it came out, and I was a happy camper. It captured the spirit of the film and it was fun to play.
You can pick up the ebook on Amazon.com for about $10, and the paperback for $15.
Highly Recommended!
Purchasing website:
