We’ve all been told to stop playing games and get on with something proper, and it turns out the man who created the multi-billion dollar industry is no different. Ralph H. Baer created the Brown Box, then the Magnavox Odyssey, the world’s first video game console, which went on sale in 1972. Since then he’s been given every award going, for starting an industry that’s now more profitable than Hollywood. Tell that to the next person who says you’re wasting your time.
Baer spoke exclusively to Electricpig from his Florida home about his boss’ initial reluctance about gaming, what made him change his mind, meeting George Bush, and the iPhone apps he’s currently working on.
- “My boss said ‘Are you still screwing around with that stuff?’”
- “When the first cheque for $100,000 came in, they started paying attention.”
- “I haven’t played games for 20 years, they’re too damn fast!”
- “…but I’m working on a new game right now – it’s top secret.”
What was the reaction to your first console?
The Brown Box was finished in 1968, and it took us three years to make the Magnavox. Of course we believed in what we were doing. The rest of the company, my boss, who was executive VP, he said things like, “Are you still screwing around with stuff?” That was generally the opinion. And that didn’t change until quite a few years later, when the money started coming in. When the first $100,000 cheque came in, which in today’s money would be more like about 300,000 bucks, then they began to pay attention. I no longer got the snide remarks. It was a few years later when we began to litigate, and started collecting licensees, you can be sure the tone of the conversation changed radically. In about five years my name was up in neon, because the bottom line was I was making the company more money. It became the biggest division in the company, there were about 6-7,000 of us.
Of all your video games inventions, which was the most lucrative?
Magnavox was where the success really started, but of course the lawyers got a big chunk of the money. But being a division manager I got substantial wages, and I got the occasional few hundred options, which turned out to be worth quite a bit of money. So I can’t complain. In the modest sense of the word, no way. But we’re talking about 40-50 years ago, when the participation of individual inventors in a large company was circumscribed by very restrictive laws. The company owned everything you did. Today things are quite a bit different. You go to big companies like Hewlett Packard or Microsoft, there are much more benign regulations which affect the extent to which you can participate individually, or the extent to which they allow you to go off and start a business based on the work you did while you were still working there, which had nothing to do with company’s business. So it’s changed, I think for the better. That’s not to say entrepreneurs don’t make a lot of money these days. That hasn’t changed. You got to get out from under the corporate management. If you want to go with your invention, you’ve got to take all the chances that go along with striking out on your own, and of course the possible disasters.
You met George Bush – is he a gamer?
No I don’t think so. I have about 50 patents worldwide for an awful lot of stuff, and they decided I’d created some of the better handheld games, some of them are still around 30 years later. So the National Medal of Technology was handed to me by virtue of the fact that a bunch of other people voted for me and put me in that position. And the president was in the position of handing it out, and if you listen to what was read out before he hung it around my neck, that was about the extent to which we got to know each other. But a medal is pretty prestigious, it doesn’t get much better over here.
I was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame last April as well, that was kind of nice too. As far as being recognised it’s all very fine, but I take much more pleasure in creating new stuff, getting out there and seeing it on the shelves. I’m sitting at the workbench right now that I have in Florida, and I’m working on a new game. But I can’t really tell you anything about it, but that’s because I don’t really know what it’s going to be. I have elements of a game in my mind. And then I’m going to consult with one or two of my ex-partners who are much better at coming up with gameplay than I am. But I do most of the software, the hardware, I do everything.
What have you been playing recently?
I don’t play games any more. I haven’t for 20 years. I’m pushing 90. I had my 89th birthday in March. I can’t play these damn games, they’re too fast for me. I’m not really that interested. I sort of left off with the Atari, but litigation made it necessary for me to reverse engineer stuff like the Nintendo NES. Everything has its time. I’m sure there are some games I can play, but I’d rather generate stuff than play stuff. I’m not really a game player, I’m a game creator. The two aren’t necessarily synonymous.
What’s your involvement with the Computerspielemuseum?
I helped them put together a timeline of the history of video games- you can see it on their website, it’s interactive, it’s very nice. And I’ve been there quite a few times and helped open up a few fairs there. So they put me on a pedestal. As long as I can help them out, it’s fine.
What kind of games have you been working on recently?
I’ve been doing lots of stuff. I own the territory of bicycle accessories that speak, they tell you things like speed and the distance. I’m into that. I have a couple of licensees working on apps for iPhone, in that area, so I’m all over the place. But whatever I do it has to be fun. Games that aren’t fun aren’t games. They’re exercises.
