1941-

Video-game pioneer who invented the first video arcade game and founded the Atari company. Bushnell was inspired by one of the earliest video games, Spacewar, while studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He developed his first game, Computer Space, in 1971. The game was too sophisticated for a general audience, so he went back to the drawing board and came up with Pong, a simple game based on table tennis. In 1972 Bushnell founded the Atari Corporation, which went on to lead the electronic gaming revolution. He sold Atari to Time Warner in 1977 and initiated several other ventures, including Chuck E. Cheese, the arcade-like restaurant franchise.