Jake Galler, cofounder of Polycade and Tyler Bushnell, CEO and cofounder.
Jake Galler, cofounder of Polycade and Tyler Bushnell, CEO and cofounder.
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Atari cofounder’s son Tyler Bushnell brings back retro arcades with Polycade

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

As destinies go, Tyler Bushnell has a good one. The son of Atari cofounder Nolan Bushnell wants to bring back retro arcades, and he has cofounded a company to do that, Polycade.

The elder Bushnell created the video game business 46 years ago with the launch of games, such as Pong and Breakout, which are now familiar brands. But Tyler Bushnell has created a platform for indie games, the unknown titles that he believes deserve to be played in the social style of arcades, with sweaty-palm controls and face-to-face competition.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.