Atari cofounder’s son takes video games beyond the couch

Console and PC games have become overly complicated with 16-button controllers and boring because they encourage sedentary activities. That’s the view of Brent Bushnell, the cofounder of Two Bit Circus and the opening speaker at the Gamelab game developer event in Barcelona, Spain.

At Two Bit Circus, Bushnell and cofounder Eric Gradman have created a way to engineer fun using a combination of interactivity, electronics, and physical real world experiences. Among the events they created was the Steam Carnival, which was held last year in San Francisco and Los Angeles as a collection of interactive experiences, such as a real live version of Asteroids where players zap rocks projected on the floor. It’s all part of a movement to make games more social, immersive, and experimental.