8-Bit Apocalypse by Alex Rubens

Author:Alex Rubens [RUBENS, ALEX]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SOC022000, SOC052000, COM080000, GAM013000
ISBN: 9781468316452
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2018-11-19T16:00:00+00:00

The well-used control panel of the Missile Command cabinet on display at the Game Masters exhibit in Halmstad, Sweden.

(Credit: Retro-Video-Gaming.com)

An excavated copy of Atari’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial that was the subject of a massive urban legend, finally confirmed in the 2014 excavation of the suspected desert dump site.

(Credit: Ed Martinez)

Ted Dabney, Nolan Bushnell, and Al Alcorn with the original Pong cabinet.

(Credit: Nolan Bushnell)

Author Alex Rubens posing with a Missile Command machine at his wedding in June 2018.

(Credit: Ivy Reynolds)

As they progressed further into development, Theurer started to fall deeper and deeper into this goal, subtly pushing the development down that path, all unbeknownst to Adam. While Adam thought they were beginning to make good progress on the game they’d been working on for a few weeks at this point, Theurer was finding himself consumed by the fear-stricken worry he was attempting to induce in the player.

It had only been weeks, but the very thought of what they were trying to get across had already taken its hold on Theurer. Adam? Not so much. Sure, people are different and react to things in different ways. But how could one member of the team be drawn to such a powerful narrative while the other was left completely unaffected?

Oddly enough, this was the end goal with Missile Command all along. Theurer knew that they would never get their message across to everyone who played the game, and that 99 percent of players would never think more deeply about what they were playing, but it was a mission for him nonetheless.

If you ask Adam why Theurer was so driven to get this message across, it has to do with his heroic qualities that, more than thirty years after they worked together, still stand out to Adam as unique. Adam saw him as an “incredibly ethical and honest person” who just gave off this superhero “good guy” vibe that was undeniable. In the same way that Superman feels compelled to save those in distress, Theurer carried with him an air that he could always be of help—that there was always something for him to be doing to make his world a better place. And that was true for all facets of his life, not just his work on Missile Command. It wasn’t just evident to Adam that these qualities existed within Theurer; it was clear in the way Theurer went about his life.

In 1983, three years after the release of Missile Command, Theurer was driving his Porsche 928 to watch a fireworks celebration at Moffett Field, a local joint civil-military airport located between Mountain View and Sunnyvale in Santa Clara County, California, when the unthinkable happened. Right in front of his eyes, he watched as a car plowed into a teenage pedestrian and took off. He stopped to help the injured pedestrian and, once he had ensured that other passersby could assist, got back into his car to chase down the hit-and-run driver. He turned onto I-280, putting the 234 horsepower, 4.7 liter V8 to use, racing down the freeway after the fleeing driver.

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