Nolan Bushnell loved weed, hot tubs and games... especially games. He took computer games out of the laboratory and put them in bars. His arcade game Pong was a monster hit, so he set up Atari to build a home games console which became the must-have Christmas present of 1975. 

Atari was the name on every kid's lips... but then investors came onboard to help the company expand. Bushnell and his engineers were sidelined, and Atari embarked on a crazy plan to rush out a game based on Spielberg's movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It was so bad... it sank Atari.

Write to us at businesshistory@pushkin.fm