The DeanBeat: Atari’s groundbreaking women speak across the decades

International Women’s Day was one of the most celebrated women’s events in history. It was observed with a sense of urgency, as it came in the wake of the #MeToo and Time’s Up movements. It made me think again about the video game business and its own struggle to recognize its pioneering leader Nolan Bushnell, cofounder of Atari.

I’ve had a few weeks to think about this now, and it reminded me that with time comes perspective. For the women’s day event, we saw companies such as Google, Zynga, Facebook, and others come out to express their support for women in games, where only one in five employees is female despite the fact that nearly half of all gamers are women. This is our context for viewing Bushnell today.

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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.