Cheap settling, it is time for a brand new episode of the bar cast. I am Jamie bendele Jamie Hernan and dome. Hey see how you did Adam there? We're good. No, no, no. How did you say Adam? No, stop it. I kind of I kind of said that dumb. Yeah. Oh, that's pretty third grade. That's pretty third grade Have you even for you? That's a little bit below the belt. I was a little silly. Yeah, I'll say ah. Anyhow, do sheep Welcome back. We missed you. This is an interesting episode. But you know this the start of Season Four. We have a guest who premiere of season four premiere, we better bring it. I mean, we have the red carpet out here. The launch better bring it because honestly brought it because our guest on this episode is terrific. I'm very excited about our conversation with him. Perhaps he's notorious in some respects some circles. Yes. Well, if you ask yourself what happened to the death of a gaming company called Atari? My friend here. He's the guy who did it. Alright, but so you're you've raced ahead to the end. Yeah, there was a time when gaming gaming at home meant board games. Yes. meant tag in the backyard. a simpler time. It was a simpler time. And then gaming. The arcade came home. The arcade came home and it went on to our television screens. Yes. And gaming systems were fast and furious. Pretty soon. Now. We're losing teenagers to it all the time. Well, they're fast and furious, or they were the Intellivision. Well, they're competing systems. There were winners and losers in among the competing systems, right? Yes. Some children got winning systems. Yeah, like Atari other children got systems that last? Wasn't that kind of a sign of whether your parents loved you? Like what system they would give you? I don't think we need to go there. It's Yeah, no, no, his parents are I actually think that your parents truly loved you. Because they didn't want they want to stay wanted to invest in the growth of your brain. And so they gave you the world's hardest gaming system? Is that what they told you? were the worst when parents wanted to basically put a babysitter into a wall outlet. They got you Atari. If they gave you the Intellivision. They know you just go play outside. No, they were like, there's no way that this guy is going to be a lifetime sustaining member of our local PBS channel, if we don't give them Intellivision at the age of 11. That's right. And someday we may need this kid to be the anchor of one of the hottest podcasts in the entire world. Right? So let's not waste that time with Atari. Is that right? Yeah. who's who's the anchor? Oh, that's okay. All right. So we got a guest coming out. Alright, so we have a guest, we're going to learn a little bit about that. Those of you that are familiar with the movie, et you may not know that there was once a highly anticipated video game based on the movie et and we will learn a little bit about the story of what happened next. It's gonna be good, cheap. You're gonna have some fun. We're gonna learn something. And we'll laugh a little maybe we'll cry a little. Maybe we'll grow a little. How much gaming Do you do right now? Are you a gamer? The COVID thing has is reintroduce gaming to me. I'm playing with some friends around the country. Because it was Yeah, it was actually some dads and I were just like, what, let's see what these kids are up to. And then we found out it was kind of fun. What's the game a choice? Oh, I'm playing fortnight with some with some other dads. Yeah. And it was originally we started playing and ironically, yeah, ironically, like let's let's make fun of the kids. But then it was like you do need a break from your family in the COVID world so this was our break from the family thing you know dying skins for yourself on? Oh, yeah. So it's a it's a free fortnight is a free game that the four of us have definitely thrown about$700 into so how often are their kids mocking you on that game? Because you are a grown man. So when we originally started playing fortnight, the game was not skill match, mate. So what would happen is the game is much like Hunger Games, you know, where you kind of go and you land and you try and find stuff and then you kill everyone until your last minute standing. Our games would be like this. we land on the ground. We'd start gathering stuff together, we get all ready to go and then someone would say I see some words that were dead. Right? That would be like there's somebody on the right or that was ever more Then 60 seconds he was it was after contact like it we could survive a pretty long time as long as we had no contact you at night for night yeah, if you heard footsteps The game was about to be over. But now they have matchmaking and you get you get paired with people of similar skill. So it's great so most of the guys we play against they're like continuing to run into a wall like when you see them playing like they're just trying to run through a wall. So that's that's our level second you guys are competing in participation trophy level fortnight it's not even participation level I think like most of these people were playing against like it's the first time they played this I mean, you guys are staying basically in T ball. Oh yeah. Have you haven't even gotten to dad pitch yet? dumbed down your place so that you don't know it doesn't sound like it? They are Oh no, we're playing full bear with that level words you don't want you don't want this is like this is true. This is level truth. Right which is what I call it 14 year olds first five games is our you know, 75th ADF game? Yeah. Yeah, it's been a lot of fun that we have a lot of fun. You should you should be monetizing that. Because if twitch if you could stream dad's playing fortnight Oh yeah. should all be millionaires at this point. It's it's there are people who've done it but like the some of the conversations we have are just incredible. And also thing is somebody's done it there's always a new Yeah, there's some new 14 year old who hasn't seen dads playing fortnight before so we played with a guy who I'm not gonna say his name but he's known around here is the ginger. Okay. And the ginger you know who you are? Yeah, yeah. And when he got when which by the name by the way is a great fortnight name. Yeah, yeah, right. So my fortnight name is dirty or cheese dirty or cheese? Yeah, I don't know why it just that you can pick random at the beginning. But yeah, dirty or choose my anyhow, the ginger would literally with at the beginning when we played with the non matching if he killed anybody in the game like one eliminate. Now we're getting 2025 eliminations. If we got one kill, the ginger would talk for about 20 minutes. He'd be like, you like that son? Can you see me and he dance over the guy and he knew all over the guy who was probably a 13 year old. Yeah, Shona tears. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's a fun time. We could talk to our guests a little bit about it. The world has changed. And the economics of gaming has changed the whole pay for skins, which I thought could never work is just crushing because we do want the new skin we want to look like Batman, we want to look like Rambo. We want to look like I would assume if you were doing dad fortnight all of your skins would be cargo pants. So there's a lot of cargo actually avatars around here. I think it would be sandals shorts. polo shirt. Yeah, you're not you are not landing in the world. I don't I've never played fortnight. Even I know. You cannot expect to survive in fortnight and flip flops. Oh, there are guys and flip flops. Oh, yeah. But they're clearly among the dead. Yeah, there's no way you're advancing to a higher level. If you kill someone in flip flops. Can you then pick up first of all dirty or cheese? Yeah, it's a dirty word cheese. There's a number that comes out. Right But I don't want all our listeners to start like hitting me up on dirtier, right, dirtier cheese? Yeah. is not a flip flop Where? Oh, no, no, I mean, he's seen some stuff. Oh, yeah. Dirty. Your cheese is usually a sock monkey. That's That's why I play as Yeah, like a monkey. Like Asana is but not and he he's he's like a mercenary. Yeah, he got washed out in the Rangers. He's a sock puppet whose favorite dances Never Gonna Give You never gonna let you? Yeah, yeah, that's that's he's been through some stuff outside of running into that wall. You're doing a little flip off of the wall. Yeah, you've been rigged rolled. You just got Rick Rule. It's a pretty fun game though. Yeah, it's pretty fun to play. Go bear hug the guy running into the wall. It's okay. That could be their job. It's okay. Hey, Jamie, go tackle the guy running into the wall. No, I'm gonna go down I'll shoot him in the leg. I'm gonna go kneel behind him so that you can knock him over. Oh yeah, good. fortnight prank mode. Yeah. That would be a great game prank mode. Yeah, it has to be he can only kill people with pranks. Oh, they have different versions of the game like hand buzzer like one is where you're doing like they have like you Only you have like jokey jokes flame thrower. Look, flower button on the wall zapper weird it's it's a whole environment though. Now like they have you keep talking to us about this game. Like we care about it. Now. They have concerts in the game. Like everyone goes and attends a concert. And they do the concert live. And it's like real big stars are doing the concerts in the game live and you're just in there killing everybody knocking them out while they're watching the show you It's a no kill mode when there's an ear if you're in the concert area, anyhow, check it out my drum. Yeah, but and I don't want anybody to have listened to the precursor to our interview here, right? I don't want anyone to listen to that get the wrong impression. Oh, okay. about the fact that I have chosen to spend the majority of my adulthood non gaming. Okay, I don't think anybody had that confused you don't seem like a gamer. I just want to be clear on the fact that I bring other things to the table that my knowledge of the worth of gaming so for example, so what you're not going to do the intro when the guest comes Well, I'm saying I'm fine. No, actually you should do the intro. Why don't you do it for how can I do that hurt and dirty you just say the words and come back and you act like you you're gonna introduce the guest you crazy person right now? No, I'm just saying oh you sound insane Yeah, I mean what fantasy you maybe do like Fantasy games, hurtin can barely talk on the show. Are you talking about him doing the intro? Think about how many takes we're gonna have probably at least more than one correct? Yeah, one take Bendel over here. He hits it every time on this a big guest is the premiere show of season four. And when you're going to we're going to do this so I'm the narrator of Season Four. Kill me now. Skills now she know do one worst intro please don't hit unsubscribe. Let's let's treat it like it's a new skin that's available in the pretend world of podcast fortnight. My avatars name is Juan take one tick quantit base. And let's see what you can do. You can do when we come back with the game you don't have to go practice gonna be interesting she we're gonna have Hernan Okay, let's see what it feels like. Let's just try it on. Oh my god, I feel weird. I'm ready. I'm ready. This is my moment. We're gonna go back we are going to have Howard Scott Warshaw. And it's gonna be like the Howard Scott warshauer phone. Oh, make your noise. Hit the sounder. When three podcasts hosts get together and play one game a fortnight it gets pretty crazy. Alright guys, we got a we're on the back. Wait, I dropped my flip flop. I gotta go back and get it. No, no, no worry about your flip up. Get yourself a gun. You got it. We got to drop out of this Ariela pacifist, I don't like that and we're gonna land Don't be a baby. We're gonna have to you're gonna have to get over that. So here we go. Jamie, I know you haven't played a lot. So, Jesus, it's gonna be the Y button. You're gonna hit the Y button to jump out of the bus. Okay. Okay, so my only question is we are going to build forts. Right? This is what we're doing. Like we're just part of the game but really, that's the more higher level stuff like honestly just hit Why? Because we're gonna What am I suppose I have like nine Bed Bath and Beyond bags full of pillows and towels and big sheets. Like mark. I feel like he may have deceived him on this one. The fortnight that fortnight was it's like the two week fortnight it's not like forts. I am ill equipped Yeah, so anyhow, we're gonna help Can I kill people with the throw pillow? Sure. They don't have a true pill but they have grenades you can throw grenades if I put a grenade in a throw pillow. We don't actually have beds we can we can smash beds. I haven't couch kingsize twin sheets in three of these bags. Yeah, just kidding. I don't think you can smash that was going to get swarmed. Honestly, if you don't jump out of the bus soon, Jamie got ahead of us have a plane which What? We're out we're out. We're good flying bus but I only have one flip flop. Okay, well when we hit the ground was to flip up. Honestly, stick around with three dads on the fortnight it's gonna get crazy when three podcast hosts play fortnight together. It doesn't go well. Alright guys, so now First off, congratulations everybody. You made it to the crowd. I didn't think we're gonna get out of the bus or the helmet flip flop Don't worry about your flip flops honestly, we got to start finding stuff we got to start finding guns we got to start gathering stuff don't come in my direction. I've run into a wall you run into a wall couple times. Yeah. Okay, so then I'm just gonna walk up and down the wall and see if I can find a way out okay, that's not gonna work. But what you your flip flop just let me know. honestly just stop pushing the joystick forward because if you pull it back you won't just keep running to the wall like if you hit the door open button hit X hit exit that'll open the door. Oh my god, you know the X. It's right next to the other joystick on your right can I run over to where you are? Where are you? I'm right I'm right. Look on the map. If you look on the map, you can see me I'm right. I'm like maybe not seeing a man put on some clean little thing and green kind of workloads honestly guys. There's people coming Alright, I'm hearing footsteps now. There's Are you coming to find If it's not, I can't talk right now. I'm getting shot at Hold on a second, guys. Okay, I think I'm down. Oh, forget it. Just forget it. Alright guys, tonight's episode has been all about gaming. Yep. I am excited about a brand new video game that you can play with your closest friends. Yeah, it's funny how we get a show about gaming. And we have a sponsor. This is amazing. Yeah, this game is called Bed Bath. And beyond the premise of the game is your player gets a to do list, okay, and you have to complete all of the tasks on the duelist in the allotted amount of time. So it's basically marriage, it seems like marriage sounds like any given Saturday. But the difference between marriage and the game is that in the game, you get rewards for completing the tasks. Can we talk about sponsors because honestly, we if we're going to keep sponsors, we have to promote this game like this game. Or this villain in this game, you never actually get to see the villain. You just sense the villain, or a nagging voice. It's weird, it'll pop up and it can add things to do to your list by so you think it does just like mad if you didn't get things that even weren't on your list. That's what happens. What happens if you go home without something on the list? You die and then you get dropped back into one of the places on it to God This sounds horrible. Hope or she played the game. But do you? I really don't. Here's the please just buy the game. Here's the catch. You're playing the game whether you want to. You literally wake up every Saturday and I'm just playing the game. You're in the game. So this is kind of like the matrix to the sheet get anything in the game. You get a 20% off coupon you can reduce the number of things on the list by 20% by using podcast is that like the coupon that comes in the mail in real life? It's actually it just creates a bonus period where you can do something for yourself. So it's like a little personal timeout. No, it is a fantasy game. It is not about product. Kill me now. All right, welcome back sheep. This is the bar cast Jamie bendele Jamie, Hernan Adam. Hey, today. Sounds a little different. Right? You normally you'd hear Bendel starting off What's going on there? Well, we've got a guest who I think he doesn't like Bendel. And I think that he would probably describe himself as a little bit different. It's I don't know if that's fair. But our guest is Howard Scott Warshaw. Welcome, Howard. Hello, there. It's great to be here on the J. J and a show. I like it. I like it. So Howard is the author of a number of books. But he's recently published the book called once upon Atari, how I made history by killing in his industry. You know, I was thinking, Howard, you go by Howard Scott Warshaw, and you've been described as someone who killed an industry and usually, you know, the three name thing the middle name is reserved for serial killers and assassins and assassins. Right. So I didn't know if did that. Did you start using your middle name after the ET situation? Oh, no, I, I've used my middle name practically since birth. It's been there all along. It's like an old friend that never goes, there was a time when I didn't use my middle name. I started using my full name in seventh grade. I do remember actually, when it happened, what happened? I went, I went through that test. No, it's all through. I don't know if it's criminal, but it certainly was not a good demeanor was just basically i didn't i just got tired of the sound of Howard worship, I thought I wanted to change my name. So first, I changed it to h Scott. And I had my teachers I told my teachers to call me h Scott. And there was a problem with that, because they were started calling me a Scott and I didn't respond when they say that, so they just kept calling me Howard. And then I just got to the point of saying, you know, I just prefer the full name. I like the sound of it better. So I've been doing that for a long time. They honestly, as someone who doesn't like his name very much, I've always considered, you know, trying to switch it up and bring it in, I think a seventh grader who's willing to go ahead and make that that move is pretty gutsy, it's a new school, was it a new school, and you just, you decided to make the shift there or it really wasn't I mean, it just, it was just sort of one of these things where it's like, you know, I'm tired of this situation. How long am I gonna go on tolerating it? Is it possible then that that was maybe the first precursor to what eventually became a career in therapy, making that assessment of how long things were tolerable before change was necessary? I could tell you, it was certainly the source of contributing to someone else's career as a therapist. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, I did want to be a therapist, when I was in high school, in fact, A friend of mine and I, my very close friend, and we're still very close friends, we were going to develop our own personality theory. You know, that was our plan when we were in high school. And then I went off to college and started studying economics and eventually computers. And he went off to the Air Force Academy, and started studying, you know, avionics and military stuff. And, you know, I wound up a therapist and he wound up marrying a therapist, interestingly enough, I be tough to be married to a therapist, I think me married to a therapist has got to be like being married to a lawyer. I don't know, my wife all the time says, I hate being married to a lawyer. I stopped thinking like a lawyer. That's what they say. or stop questioning me. This isn't a deposition. Right? And oh, with a lawyer, you know, I actually took the LSAT, there was there was a time where I was going to be a lawyer. I've always found law. Very interesting. I mean to study, I don't know if I would really like the practice of it. But I took the LSAT is I was all set. I was going to go to law school. And you know, how are we we usually ask our guests what's on your business card? But I'm not sure we could do that with you. Because Is there a job that you have not done? No, I have like the fan whole business card. Sort of dripped down. There has been a lot currently I have some pretty cool stuff on my on my you know, right now my business card. What it says is passion with a balanced perspective. And it also says insight, compassion and inspiration because that's what I have to offer. Now, when you were at Atari designing video games, would you have Can you certainly you had the passion? But would you have considered yourself to have had a balanced perspective? Absolutely not. I was totally imbalanced everything at Atari was totally imbalance. And therefore it would never have lasted. Although we all desperately wanted it to keep going on as it was it couldn't possibly there wasn't quite the Weibull maybe dig in a little bit about how the book came to be what was sort of the catalyst out of that, you know, Britain, for a person who's maybe more familiar with games, generally. But some of the retro or historical runners. Yeah, in the industry? What how did how did the book come to be? Well, so the book came to because you know, as As you may or may not know, I've been writing for many years, I enjoy writing, actually, actually. So it's really disingenuous to say I enjoy writing. The truth is I enjoy having written. Writing is rough. But only because I expect it to be good. You know, I gotta keep hammering at it until it gets there. But the book, I mean, people literally for 20 years, people have been asking me or people actually have been like, Oh, you haven't written it yet? What's the matter with you? What's wrong with you? How are you haven't written that of all the things you might write, you haven't written the authority story yet. And then, in the alamogordo, did, you know through the process of them creating Atari game over that movie, I realized that this is I there's now enough, I now have enough distance from Atari enough other ancillary incidents and material. And, and I was becoming a therapist. I was a therapist at that point. And I just thought it was taught. So Howard is someone who's I, the reason we and we talked about it before we came on, but we do have an example of your game here. And so I do collect the retro games. And one of the reasons I like to collect those really retro Atari Games is because the artwork on the outside of those boxes is pretty incredible. Like when you go back and you look at like, and so I want to dig your pick your brain a little bit about inside the industry. You know, when we talked about like, if you look like the air land, sea games, and the warlord games in the yars Revenge games, like the artwork on the outside of those boxes was always so and I hate to use the word but oversold right, the game, right? Oh, yeah. And, and so how, and that continues on, I think all the way to today, where you see, when they release a game and they show an ad for it. It's always the theatrical cut of the game. It's never real gameplay. Oh, yeah. No, it's the cutscenes it's the thing that took six weeks to render. And they all said, it's not the real time graphics, that's for sure. Yeah. And so and I think that the E t, as we as you know, circling back to you is, is was almost a victim of that right, the over promotion of a game to the point where it couldn't meet the expectations. And so we'll talk about that balance between the marketing and the actual game of its, you know, and how those played out. Well, you know, there's an old joke that many people probably know about, this person dies and goes up to the gates in the there and He has the choice of going to heaven or hell, he thinks, well, that's not much of a choice. Of course, I take Heaven, they go Wait, and they show him this video of what hell is actually, like he goes, you know, we get a lot of bad press, you know. And at the end, he goes, wow, that does look good. And he decides to go to hell and, and it's horrible and actually miserable. He's like, what the hell? You know, what, what's all this? They? Do? They go, he goes, Oh, yeah, he goes, you saw the marketing video, too. You know, and that's the thing. I mean, you see the marketing video and people get hyped up. But, you know, the problem with et? Where do I start? I mean, no, in my book I go well into I mean, I do one of the most elaborate discussions I've ever done of like, what was the issue with et? And what were the implications of that? And, you know, the thing with the team was more like the schedule, you know, there was only five weeks to do it, marketing was going to super hype, the game, whatever was going, you know, there's a fundamental conflict between marketing and engineering. Where is that? You know, engineers tend to under promise and over deliver, because that's what they like to do. They like to not have too much expectation, and then dump a whole bunch of extra features on you. And Whoa, aren't you impressed? You know, that's what engineers really like to do. And marketers like to over promise and under deliver, because they like to promise well beyond what's possible, because they want someone to buy into it. And you know, we're all motivated. We're all reasonably motivated for what we're trying to do. The animosity comes at no additional charge. So you go to Atari, you develop yars Revenge, which is a big success. But in developing that you were really supposed to be adapting an arcade game that you thought didn't wouldn't work, you had your own ideas about what would work and it ended up with yars Revenge. And the same with Raiders of Lost Ark, you know, your next game, you develop that. And when you got to et, if I recall, you Spielberg kind of had an idea that he wanted a Pac Man style game. And you weren't Yeah, right. That was a beautiful moment. That was a beautiful moment. And it's funny in light of what we were talking about at the top of the show, right, is that, you know, with yars Revenge, I was assigned to coin ops in version. But you know, I don't like just going along with something that I'm not comfortable with, as opposed to trying to change it. Right. So there I was. And you know, and I did get into in the book, the whole story about how tough it was to get into Atari for me in the first place, and that they rejected me if I had a bag my way in. And when I got that I was on probation when I got that first assignment. And even though I was in a compromised position on probation, I still had the, whatever you want to call it to say, Hey, you know, this thing you want me to do, I think it's gonna be stupid. I don't want to declare. Here's something I think would be better if I didn't just say that sucks. But I couldn't afford to have my first game suck. It's hard. It was one of the first places in my life, that I really cared about what I was doing. It was important to me. Now as a therapist, I super care about what I'm doing. But there was a long drought in between where I didn't really care much about what I was doing professionally. When the game was being developed the CEO of Atari called who I've heard you refer to as your grand boss, your boss's boss, and said, we've got this I think it was July 27. In back in 82. right in and I don't know when the boss but they said we need the game in five weeks. And your boss's boss said, hell no. There's no chance that's happening. And then the call comes to you. And you say absolutely no problem. We've got have. Totally, I was totally convinced I could do it. But when you went when Spielberg wanted a Pac Man style game for 80, would that have been easier to to deliver in five weeks? No, I think that would have been impossible to deliver in five weeks. See, the thing is, I was sure I could do a game that I could do in five weeks. I did not say absolutely. I can do whatever Spielberg wants in five weeks. I didn't phrase it that way. If I could do five weeks worth of work on this. Right, I will give you a five week game. Yeah. I guess the question is, how many weeks would it have taken to make? Make it a game that you'd like if you had to do now starting from scratch? How many weeks would you a lot to do the project to do the game. I want to review the game that Spielberg wants to do the game he wanted to do the game. It's a deceptively difficult question. And what I The reason I say that is because if I would have had more time, I probably would have entertained different kinds of design. The design that I did was really The main reason I chose that design was because I knew I could get it done. Now I could if I if I would have had another week. I mean, in the book I people always say, Well, what would you do differently? Right? And it's like, you know, given what I had, I couldn't do a lot differently. There are a few things if I would have had one more day to work on. There are several things I broke it down into, if I had one day more, if I had one week more on one week would have been like a 20% increase in the schedule, which would be huge. And then if I had just a bunch of time, because there was, you know, how I would do it definitely depends on what the circumstances right. But the first thing that I would have done was fix it. So you just don't fall back into the pits as much as you do. You were saying like you going to you know, going to Atari was a big deal for you. And getting in there. And now you're really concerned about your work. In the book. It sounds like the time or the Atari environment was a pretty wild Bacchanalia school, you know, of work. Do you think that description? Do you think that's still happening in the gaming world, as people still are being pushed hard, like designers are being pushed hard coders are being pushed hard? Do you think that it's a similar worldview? How do you think that world is changed? Oh, yeah, yeah, that's the that's something I did is when I went to 3d. A years later, I really talked a lot in the book about how, how gaming, then and and, and now, which was back then, and now is different. And there's different, it's not I mean, in some ways, it's the same in some ways it's changed. Right? Like most that, right? It's, it's the same in that, yeah, people are still working a lot. They're really throwing themselves at it, and giving up on their lives and a lot of other of their time to make games happen, and to put them together. The difference is that now, the industry demands that time from people work all the time at Atari, people work all the time. Now, the difference is that now, people demand it of you management demands that that's what you do at Atari, you couldn't keep us away from right. We wanted to be there all the time, as we think about like the then and now. One, when you were at Atari, could you imagine the world that we have now where you have eSports now being this huge thing, and we have, you know, mods, you know, multiplayer games that are happening at the level that they're happening? What, what I'm interested to see kind of what the Atari, you know, developer thinks about the world today of gaming, did you see this coming? Or is it bigger? And, you know, more amazing than you could have imagined? I would say honestly, the answer is both. Okay. And what I mean by that is, you know, back at Atari, at least for me, and for a lot of the people I was working with, we knew that gains were here to stay that this was this was something that was going to go on, it was going to be bigger and bigger. We even already had the 400 800 computer, right? So we knew that gaming was going to get better than the 2600. And if it can get better once it can get better many times. So we knew gaming was here to stay, because it was such a fundamental and amazing thing to do. You don't invent a new media, and then see it just disappear unless it gets replaced by something even better. Right? You just don't see that. And we were all aware of that. So on that level, absolutely. You knew it was going to get bigger, it was going to get bolder it was going to be amazing. Moore's Law was just really, people are just beginning to really appreciate it back that, right. So Moore's law where technology quadruples, every two years or so, right? To really truly imagine what we have now where we got to see this. I couldn't imagine that per se, right. So I, I would say that I saw in the future, but a little to the left. So at some point, you make the transition out of game development into building this therapy practice. Okay, okay. How much of game design translates into life design, from a therapy standpoint? Is that are there are there similar? a really good question? No, that's a really good question. You know, the way I think a lot of people think that making the transition from programmer you know, even game programmer to therapist is a very weird transition. It's a very odd one. And I've never seen it that way. To me, it's a very natural progression. Okay. And the reason I say that is because if you think about it, engineers and therapists were all systems analysts, right. It's just that now I'm working on much more sophisticated hardware, the Human Brain, right? It's the same job on someone. Now, game design, where you if there is an analogue between game design and therapy, okay, because in game design, what you have is you have a clue, usually you have a clear goal, the player knows what they're supposed to arrive at what they're trying to achieve. They're just not sure how to do it. And they have to go through a lot of experimentation, a lot of practice, and cultivate skills and build some knowledge. And then usually they're able to achieve the objective. And on that level therapy, it's very similar to therapy, right? Because therapy, a lot of times someone comes to therapy, they have a goal, you know, they know how they want to be different, or they know how they want something to be different around them. And they don't know how that is, and they're not clear. But it's not as easy to tell where you develop skills and what the map is, and how do you work your way there. And what do you practice? So the the overall plan, you see is pretty similar. But I think it's a lot, it's a lot trickier kind of a thing to help someone define their map and develop their skills in a therapeutic relationship, then it is for a gamer where usually there's a much clearer progression, and it suggests itself. And, you know, in games, you have a lot more hints along the way and no NPCs, you know, giving you special information. And in therapy, there's only one NPC and and they're not NP into into play on the cliche, there are probably a lot of people who enter therapy with the mindset that the person sitting across for them is really just going to provide cheat codes. Right? Yeah, that's very well put, that's very well put. And it's true. It's for individuals, it's like people will show up to you, and they expect you to fix their problems. You know, and I always have to explain to people, no, no, no, it's not my job to fix you. I tell them, it's their job to fix them. It's my job to open their eyes, and help them see you know, where the tools are. So they'll have some things to work with, you know, couples, it's a different thing. I do a lot of work with couples, also, I do a lot of relationship therapy. And that's always interesting, because what I like to say is that every couple of times to therapy, knowing exactly how their partner has to change. And, and they want me they want to enlist my help in fixing their partners so that everything can be okay. Well, for you to fix my partners in this podcast. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, Jamie just got a not only a good question, but a great follow up. So I mean, I think there's one guy that needs to get fixed. And it's not the Jamie with the beat. I love the idea that it that you could sit down maybe in a session with Howard, and he's gonna say, so here's the problem. You're a Sega system, your Nintendo. Yeah. And unless you guys get on the same system, right, it's gonna be very challenging. For this, your game pads are totally different. You can't speak to each other. You don't even have to be on the same system, but you must at least define an interface. That's right. We're all roughly the same age and hosting the podcast here. And so so I was of the of the generation where it was the first at home gaming systems. Yes. And the system that my parents chose for me was Mattel's in television. Hmm. And I think that that led to a lot of therapy. It turns me off gaming. Yeah, almost. Find your life coming here. It really did. I was I was the clear outlier in the neighborhood. You know, the holes of current gamers like they look at the kids who are like the really intense gamers and the Intellivision group is almost not represented. It really caused most kids just to give up gaming. Apparently, monopoly and chess champions though. Intellivision was big in their youth. I know. It's a sad story. It's a sad story. Like, you know, yeah, no, no, they gave him an Intellivision and he said Holy colico mom and dad. We actually have a local high school here. So where we live where we record this there is a brand new magnet stem High School. Yep. And it does not have any traditional athletics. Right. But they do have eSports Yeah. And there's a magnet school. I'm guessing that their mascot is a polar bear. Oh, shorten the podcast. I am I am texting a school board member right after this. to tip you and to make sure that it becomes scanadu. Yeah. So Howard, we've got some questions we normally ask our guests, but I've got a couple quick questions for you before we get to that. Sure. So in the documentary high score, I noticed that you know, they do a great job with bringing in pixelated graphics that sort of play to what they're they're talking about. How cool was it to see a pixelated Atari 2600 VCs version of yourself in that documentary? I gotta say, that was pretty cool. That was pretty cool, though. That's happened before I was on an episode of code monkey once. You guys really used to run on g4. Yeah, yeah. So there was I was on the Brian episode, I think and it was Matt was fine. And there was a pixelated version of that, but I actually use as my avatar for a while, you know, it's some people have the goal of doing the, the kind of embossed like the Wall Street Journal photos that they do that that's a goal in life to get to get your photo and you know, done like that. Other people. It's just pixelated. Give me Give me the 64 bit pixelated, you know? Yeah, you know, they say give me pixels, or give me a bit depth. There you go. So when you finish the game, my understanding is that you went and played the game, or presented the game to Spielberg, right. Actually, he played he played it right. And did did the issue with fallen into the pits come up in conversation, not a bit of it. I mean, he fell into the pits, um, he, he was able to work out of it. See, the thing about the pitch that everybody that people overlook is, one of the problems that I had with the game that you're going to do in five weeks is where's the gameplay? Hello gameplay, you need some kind of gameplay. And for me taking an avatar that that's the right size, that having a maneuver through small passageways at some point. That's part of the gameplay, and there's a penalty for touching the sides. So that was that was purposeful. I mean, I designed that in, I just didn't think it was going to work out so poorly as a game again, one of the problems with it was that the graphics were so good. I mean, for the 2600, it has pretty good graph. And because it had pretty good graphics, the weird thing was it created a phenomenon that I'd never experienced before on the VCs, which is that people expect things to work the way they're supposed to, as opposed to them just being stuff on a screen and you get the rules and you're black. And I have Jerome, to fake slash blame for that. Who did the graphics for it? And I would say slash blame him except he's dead. He actually died a few years ago. I actually right now I am looking at his ashes. I have his ashes. We were tremendously good friends for many, many years. Hold on a second. Do you have all of his ashes? No, I have given some away and I have I have distributed so I'm in the process of taking Jerome to a lot of places he likes and leaving him there. Jerome, in his afterlife is becoming geographically diverse. And I am hoping that by I wish I had known about the distribution portion of this. Yeah, let's get into it. Okay, so at some point, okay. I actually have never discussed this on any podcast before. This is an exclusive that you guys. I don't think I've ever talked about this on a podcast. Alright. So So and I don't know. So I want to be cautious in the introduction to this was I was rushing me to CrossFit. Well, okay, open minded. Alright, was Jerome aware he was dying? Not really, your drone had a massive heart attack. And I think we're very late 2015. Okay. So he knew he had exposure, but he was doing well. And he'd had a lot of surgery and he was recovering. And he was doing all okay. And then he had a sudden, final fatal heart attack very late in 2016. All right, so for that last year, he knew he was sort of on the fence, but he felt he was more on one side than the other. And then suddenly, he flipped. Now. You had some conversations with Jerome prior to his death that he wanted to be cremated, and he wanted you to have some of his ashes? No, not really. Oh, not really, we didn't discuss this that was for serve. Well, was my design, essentially, the way it went? Was that Jerome was not a guy who made a lot of preparations. Jerome was the guy and this was sort of like Atari two, which makes a lot of sense. Like, you asked me what, what did we see looking forward? When we were at Atari? You know, what did we think the game world was going to look like? We we didn't really spend a lot of time thinking about that. We were worried about the next generation. We wanted to see a better machine. But the thing about being at Atari was we were super focused on where we were and what was happening right that we are our eyes were full of like launching this new medium and creating this new entertainment media. And so we weren't really thinking down the road. As much as we were thinking of what can I do today to make this better to really make this happen. And Jerome was very much a present thinker like that, okay? Very much. And so he never really made preparations for what's going to happen later. And in fact, his whole estate, everything he had sort of went into probate, you know, his sisters, you know, chopped it up, and they got it all, but when they, but they all live way out of town, live in other states. And so when it came time, so he was just, you know, his body was picked up by the county. And they basically cremated him you know, as an experiences. And then somebody had to go pick up the ashes. So they called me because they knew I was a very close friend. So sisters called me up and said, Hey, you know, they're done with the ashes now, to go pick them up. So I went pick them up, I was happy to do it. And then I just nobody ever asked me for him again. Wow, you talk about knowing like having that particular friend that you know, will pick you up at the airport. This is like natural, right? Yeah, the next level this friend that will come pick me up after I've been cremated. This is like difficulty B versus a on the PCs. I think the airport analogy is very apt, except the way I would put it is this is where you find them at the terminal. Alright, but so now you you. And I don't mean to, I'm just fascinated by it. Have you don't have to apologize. I'm a therapist. Every Okay, so do you think that you are closer friends with Jerome in some respects after his death? Because you are giving thought to the places you are choosing to spread his ashes? Like, is it a Is it a is it acknowledgement of the value of his relationship to you with the sensitivity to which you're making determinations about where he should be? There is evaluation. And there is sentimentality. And there is meaning to this process that I'm bringing for sure. But I wouldn't say that our friendship has improved. I would say no friendship. I think what it is, is that we're as good friends as we ever were. But the conversation has definitely suck, sir. Yeah. Oh, he's just more your side. Yeah, he's a better listener. Yeah. More of a listener now. Yeah, exactly. I do a lot more rhetorical stuff than I used to, in our conversation. You know, I used to think that I needed to do a lot of work to like, get my bucket list done. But I'll just say here, and now I'm just not even going to worry about that. I'm going to create the bucket list. And Adam and Jamie, I expect you to execute, execute. Once I'm done. I'm going good luck with the bucket. Do you feel like you're Do you have a thought that at some point you'd like to be? You'd like to disperse all of the ashes? Or do you feel like you would get through with all of them, and you'd like to retain at least some last little portion? I gotta tell you, it's a lot of action. Okay. I don't know how much it is. So I'm a little bit more at each place. Oh, definitely have some left. I'm not going to a place and dumping a bunch. I'm putting a little here and a little bear. I mean, Jerome now exists. I could probably say this without fear of prosecution. I think he definitely one of his favorite places was Disneyland. So let's just say he's a regular patron there. Okay. Did you go and shank on a roll in the pocket? And you kind of shake him out a little bit as you walk along? Like he framed? Exactly. No, it's sort of a style on 17 routine. Yeah. But I definitely discreetly dispersed him at a few places in Downtown Disney. And because he's a big fan of that and shopping and he loves to see what the new trends are in the shops. And so now he can observe that firsthand. There's a lot of beachside locations that have been graced with his presence. I forgot to bring him to Hawaii. The last time I went to Hawaii meaning to Yeah, he's never been to Hawaii. Well, again, you'll have to go back. Maybe he doesn't miss it, though. That Disney I think you should have left a little bit of him at Haunted Mansion. He never went into why that wasn't really his thing. I like to why so I just thought he might like it. So I want to share it with them. Yeah. You know, but I know. I know a lot of places that he used to like to go on a regular basis. Every once awhile I swing by some of those places and treat them to a bit of There you go. Alright, so the questions that we typically ask our guests, one of them relates to the meat in three restaurant. Are you familiar with a meat and three My style restaurant. Me and three are meat and three. Yeah, Meat. Meat. Sounds like something I'd like. Yeah, that's for sure. But I'm not familiar. Alright. So conceptually, it's you choose an entree, a meat a rent and then you get to select three, three sides. three sides. Yeah. So to meet my getting serious barbecue place, or like other cafeteria or something. So in our Yeah, I didn't know there was a name for that. But I eat at places like that quite a bit. Yeah, I'm good with that. So the way we ask it on the podcast is for you in your life. What is the meat? What's the organizing principle around which everything else revolves? Wow. Practically wrote a book about it. I'm still not sure I can answer. So the organized so I'm going to need a couple of whacks. Okay, because I don't think I can do that in one on dress. So I mean, either side on dresses, they say, but I mean, one organizing principle for me one fundamental thing, and this is something I learned in college at a symposium of the speaker symposium, did Kabat who was a tremendous American wit. And TV host. I don't know if people are still familiar with them. But he was amazing. I always. Yeah, I really enjoyed him. And when I saw he was moderating a discussion on anthropology at a speaker symposium, I had a go and I thought, like, I need anthropology, but this was cool. And they had Margaret Mead, and they have this stuffed shirt and, and cabbage moderating. And the stuffed shirt at one point, says something and Cavite makes up like, a little drollery, you know, makes a little jive at his expense. And the guy gets really pissed off. And the stuffed shirt looks at cap and he goes, Well, it goes, if you're not going to take this seriously, I don't even know why you're here. And you just don't do that kind of thing to cap. Every thought. It's not if you're wise. He did that. And Gavin didn't miss a beat. He came back with something that burned his way into my head. And as soon as a fundamental philosophy of life for me, he looked at the guy and he said, Please don't mistake my levity for shallowness any more than I mistake your gravity for death. Oh, I thought. So that's something because I it is a fundamental pillar of my worldview, that, you know, there's humor everywhere. There's everything ever. There's humor, there is drama, there is boredom, there's excitement, there's news, there's entertainment. Everywhere you look everywhere you are you have but to be able to perceive it. And so I frequently am in touch with the humor of any situation, which makes me a lot of fun at weddings and really uncomfortable at funerals. The problem that I have at funerals is when people start to give eulogies. What what happens is I all I think of is I think of like the funny rejoinders you could give in response to the things they're saying. It's like I would echo a funeral. But I just don't think that's a good idea. I've always wanted to write a scene though. I want to write a skit where that's this is the character the characters the funeral heckler, right, the guy who says the things that no one you know, wanting to hear at the moment, but but so what I do when I go to a funeral frequently as I sit lay in the bath, and I sit there with a notepad and I try to write things down, and when I can't hold it in, and I'm giggling, I believe I step out of the room. Yeah, presumably, Howard. The problem with that is that eulogies are done by marketing, when they really need to be done by engineer. That's right. They oversell right. Everybody, everybody the contents of the box that's at the front of the room. The insides do not match the outside. That's right, right. That's right. And let's face it, that product is not going to get revved anymore. No. Alright, so let's use humor as the entree, then the three sides. What are the three attributes that you would like people to most closely associate with you? That's not I mean, I think that goes back to my car. Yeah, yeah, I would say it's insight. It would definitely be insight and inspiration, right? Those would be two of the sides. For sure. I'd like to be known as insightful. And I do want to inspire people and encourage them to make more of themselves to realize more of their present potential. That's what I do as a therapist. I just that's tremendously exciting work that's more fun for me than entertaining people with a video game and entertaining people with a video game. It's pretty damn fun for me. But now you get to decide between the stuffing or the mashed potatoes or the macaroni and cheese. Yeah. And do they have garlic mashed potatoes because I really liked that. I expect I knew when we asked this, you were gonna go off menu. You know, I'm just that guy, you know, I see the potential, I don't just see the menu, I see what the ingredients are and what could be, what could be there. It's, you know, compassion is what I use here. And I want to be known for that with this, but a servic wit used to be my number three, I'd like to be known for the acerbic wit. And instead, I think being compassionate. That's, that's more important if it didn't use when I was at atari and acerbic wit was way more important to me than compassionate. And I'm happy to say that now that has changed and now, compassion is much more important. Alright, so those are great concern. All right. So now we do a little bit of a lightning round. We these are intended to be deep questions with short answers quick, like rapid fire style as well. You're gonna have trouble with the short answer with me, but I will do my best. Alright, so yeah, we'll cut you off. I'll tighten it. Tighten it up. Alright. You have the choice as the guest Do you want to go clockwise or counter clockwise? Maybe the biggest decision of the night? You know, being the contrarian that I am. I'll have to go counterclockwise. Alright, so Jamie starts, which mystery or unsolved case? Would you like to know the truth about this path? I don't know if anything, that's not. Actually, to be perfectly honest. I'd like to know more about some of the recent about the 2016 election. More about that. All right. If you could ride any animal, which would you choose? a llama? What would you love to find at a yard sale? Oh, I'd like to find a mile. Usually they only sell them in yard. Do you get a bow on that? Do you have any superstitions? Yeah, I'm afraid of any kind of belief that constricts me. What do you think animals know that we don't? What humans are like. I mean, what they're really like, excellent. What was the best TV sitcom of all time? All in the Family? What do you want to make sure you do before you die? See more All in the Family? There we go. It makes sense. All right. Now this was a drawn question. Cuz we draw these randomly. It is perfect to end on Howard. Scott warshauer. publisher, author rather have a terrific book. I do hope you our listeners go check it out and learn more about this saga. Final question is do you mean once upon Atari? How many is 30? That is killing an industry? Is that the book? One of your many books? I'm talking about? Gotta go read. I just wanted to be clear. Give me the one you can find on Amazon Barnes and Noble Apple books and many other fine retailers. That same Walmart target okay. Yeah, that's clear. I just want to bring a little clarity to the whole Wait, I'm sorry. Is that the the one where you're working at Atari? Or am I thinking of the other one? That's the one where I was working at Atari but worked my way all the way through to healing the lives of others. Now I actually make their lives better. I've come full circle this person lug get taken person whose voice you've been listening to? Yes. That the belongs to the author of that book. Yes. Final question. You're ready, rapid fire round done. Would you rather? Here we go read the book, or see the movie? Oh, I'd rather read the book while seeing the movie. See, that would be so cool. Now when you say see the movie? Do you mean the movies are going to make up this book? Do you mean the once upon a nury documentary series? No. I mean, I also forget about this book. I'm talking the movie of this book. Right. So he has a DVD series? Yeah. Yeah. So we'll get both to say I think I think I'd want to read the book because I am afraid of what they're gonna do with this movie. Okay. Oh, my God. Didn't have they told you who's gonna play you know, I keep thinking. George Clooney, Ryan Reynolds. George Clooney. Sure. Makes sense. The funny thing is, it's like people tell me all the time they go You look like somebody saying that. And I tell them Oh, yeah, yeah. So, you know, people, people tell me I look like George Clooney. And I go, yeah, you know, I think I do, but I have a hearing problem. And they go Yeah, I go. Yeah, I hear what I want to hear. Now people actually tell me I look like Rob Ryan a lot. I mean, I actually get that a lot because I think it's true. I do look like Rob Reiner. I prefer to look like you know someone more handsome than Rob Reiner. But Rob Reiner is pretty good looking guy. I mean, he looks like me. So how bad that is. That's a win. Hey, and if anybody wanted to, you know, anecdotally test the value of humor and longevity. Take a look at how long the reiners the Norman leaders the George Burns Milton berle's they live to be 1000 years old. That's right. happy lives. Yep. Clooney. Yeah. In fact, the 2000 year old man thing, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, way to talk about classic comedy that and it is interesting to all of the family I do think is one of the all time greatest, you know, sitcoms, but the office is really That's a hard one to beat also, that's that's the American office. They did an amazing job with that show. But the thing about All in the Family because I just love TV history is that what Norman Lear did on that show? was at a time when censorship was so intense and so constricting. He was able to deal with real hot button issues in a sitcom format and deliver laughs but also deliver real drama. It was a full spectrum show and I just say I don't know of many people who were able to deliver that broad and entertainment experience still have relevant still have meaning and still do it with sensitivity and some humor. It's just a brilliant production. In our thank you very much for spending time with us you Mountain View it's been a Toby's a pleasure. I really liked talking with you guys. Tell us again where everybody can find your book where they can find you online. Oh, he got that pretty good. No, I think we should say one more time. Just one more time. You know, you can always go to once upon Indiana once upon Atari calm and find all things once upon Atari for sure. And you can find the book in ebook or paperback form on Amazon Barnes and Noble Apple books. Like I said, there's a whole bunch of outlets where you can get the book and I am working on and you know, by summer should have a an audio version of the book. I'm looking forward to that. So please go buy the book support your local former game developer, current psycho therapist, because I can support you too. Thank you, Howard. I appreciate it. Alright, thanks for joining us. much, guys. I really appreciate it. All right, that was Howard Warshaw. I think his evil twin Howard wore shower. Oh, did I say warshauer? Yeah, that's okay. That's fine. I mean, yeah, I thought you were maybe just like giving him like that extra. Like, it was like an exclamation point at the end. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like after some of the sorry, you need to have a war shower. Yeah. Right. I mean, it was some nuts stuff going on there. Anyhow, it was I mean, Warshaw. It's an interesting guy who was at the beginning or shower. He's an interesting guy who was at the beginning of an industry that is no, he's saying it wasn't more shower. I'm saying, we're sure Warshaw. I keep thinking oh yeah, Scott not Ah, Scott. Be quiet for just a second Howard Howard Scott worship there Yeah, not more shower after that and appreciate him joining it's great to have a guy who is at the kind of the gaming has now become such a huge thing. It's a huge driver. And in some it's financially huge. It's, it's, it's a whole culture behind it. And it's one of those guys that was literally at the very beginning of the home gaming system. I mean, this is the beginning of sports, like, you know, it's like talking to the guys that were at the beginning of NBA the guys that were bringing in the NFL, like, the things that are big in our culture, like he is now he was one of those people that was part of something that got huge, but he's also accused of being not only maybe part of the beginning, but also really more so the end really, I don't think you could accuse him of being too punny now because I think he really got some zingers in there. He did. Yeah. Honestly, she like I saw a couple she actually roll over on a couple of those puns. But that's this is now our third episode in a row with that. That little horn sound it's what made its way. Maybe you think Minnie Mouse will do it? Might as well I wonder if you can call him the sheep would that sound? No, they just like talking to Taka, Taka, Taka, Taka, Taka, Taka, Taka, Taka. Yeah, I think at some point we need to get into the taka taka more and explain that. Now. I think everybody understands exactly what it is. It's a great mystery continues for if you don't if you don't know now, you know. Alright, so there will be no additional cheat codes in this episode. Nope. It is time to reboot it so somebody is probably calling you for dinner. Maybe it's time to go to bed, whatever it is going on in your life. Shut it down, shut it down. Shut it down. Alright, so for Jamie Bendel Jamie Hernan Adam