Ralph Baer, The Father Of Videogames Visits Retromags

[triverse]

  First of all, for those that don't know who Ralph Baer is, he is The Father of Video Games.  Check out his website and see what he has done in his life.  Mr. Baer is an accomplished inventor, author and even a diplomat of sorts (had he not pioneered gaming like he did do you really think that Alexey Pajitnov would have created Tetris?).  It truly is an honor to have been given an audience with a man of Mr. Baer's respected position in history. He was born in 1922 in south-western Germany, came to the US in 1938 with his parents and sister through Holland and in 1940 graduated from National Radio Institute (NRI) with a diploma for radio service technician.  Just to warm you up for some of the stuff he has done, he created Simon (remember that?  It is still selling going on 30 years after it was first released), created the precursor to the Philips CD-I technology, way back in 1978 (a good 10 years before Philips ran with it and fell in the marketplace with it) and in 2005, he donated all of his original videogame systems and some 500+ a few pages to the Smithsonian Institution. On February 13th, 2006 George W. Bush presented Mr. Baer with the National Medal of Technology at the White House (it was for groundbreaking and pioneering creation, development and commercialization of video games).

On with the interview:

Retromags: How do you find inspiration for some of your ideas? Simon, I couldn't even begin to brainstorm something like that yet you do it with quite regularity.

Mr Baer: Creativity is handed down to us genetically from some progenitor (thank you very much, whoever you are). Add education and experience and you can a lot of creative stuff. If you don't have the gene set that makes you a natural for playing the violin, try something that suits your natural capabilities. I am an engineer by degree and experience so it is only natural that I have been able to come up with a large number of novel and neat things 

Retromags: You have had quite an extensive and amazing career in all facets of entertainment, even creating the foundation for video games as we know it today. What is your favorite invention so far?

Mr. Baer: Obviously, that has to be videogames and related technology.

Retromags: You have created so much and even rebuilt many pieces of it and then donated that to the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, NY, then the amazing donation to the Smithsonian Institution, what motivated such an unselfish act as that?

Mr. Baer: The original game hardware and the documentation that covers the invention and development has historical significance and belongs into a museum and that's all there is to it. Besides, doing that is not altogether "unselfish" because it certainly goes to my legacy.

Retromags: How did it feel to receive the National Medal of Technology from then President Bush in 2006?

Mr. Baer: It doesn't get much better than that in the U.S. since it's the closest thing to a Nobel prize in technology that we have in this country.

Retromags: Are you still inventing things?

Mr. Baer: Yes, I still sit at the bench in the lab and do hardware and some software toy and game design...keeps the old noggin in good shape.

Retromags: If you could offer some advice to young inventors what would it be?

Mr. Baer: Try to figure out early in life what you might be really good at and then study hard and work in that field, whatever it is.

Retromags: Having been there for the beginning of video games to today, did you ever think video games would develop like they have?  

Mr. Baer: Nobody can read the crystal ball. The improvements in videogame hardware and software run parallel to (and are entirely dependent upon) the advances in semiconductor technology. Those have been utterly fantastic over the past thirty years. 

Retromags: What ways do you see them evolving in the future?

Mr. Baer: Another level or two of realism in the graphics to where the images are practically photo-realistic, greater use of 3-D and continued development of many different genres of games

Retromags: What if any are your personal favorite games magazines

Mr. Baer: I rarely read game magazines, just as I don't play games unless my grandkids bring one along and insist that I play with them. I am just too busy. At age 87 I have other priorities.

Retromags: Who has been the most influential on your life?

Mr. Baer: I have been fortunate to have worked for and with a lot of really bright and talented people without whom I would not have been able to do nearly as many things as I have done. Everybody stands on the shoulders of others.

Retromags: Do you still play classic games? If so, what are your favorites?

Mr. Baer: I still occasionally play Scrabble, Tetris, card games but mostly when I have visitors who are game people and insist that we play something. I much prefer working on a new electronic toy or game than playing it once it's done.

Retromags: What is your opinion about the younger generations perhaps not being able to see how truly magnificent 8-bit games for instance can be, or even about kids today discovering games from 20-30 years ago and falling in love with them like we did when they first came out.

Mr. Baer: I think some of the low-priced plug-and-play products that are out there for less then twenty dollars do a great job of replicating many of the old Atari VCS games and others; they really make games of that era affordable to all. They also sell well so I don't see where there is a problem with denying youngsters the pleasure of playing classics. Most of these plug-and-play games have hand controllers that are close to the original so that they are even superior to computer simulations in that respect.

Retromags: What do you think of companies like Nintendo digging into their past and putting such a high emphasis on their Virtual Console service? Do you see this as a good thing or a bad thing for video games in general?

Mr. Baer: Frankly, I don't know a thing about that subject. What I do know is that all of the physical interaction games (like tennis, bowling, etc.) offered by Nintendo's Wii is great ( I showed most of this to outfits like Konami in 1989 and 1990 but nobody was ready to do it then).

Retromags: What is your personal opinion of Retromags.com (http://www.retromags.com)?  

Mr. Baer: Clearly, I applaud every effort to collect archival material related to the gaming industry, just as I placed all of my game development documents with the Smithsonian and the Strong Museum. If guys like us don't do that, the real story of what happened will be irretrievably lost.

Keep up the good work.

On behalf of the Retromags Project, I would like to present you a special member button. I have included a link it for you.  

.....You are welcome, call again (but please, not too soon).

Cheers!

Ralph

===================End of Interview===================

  For a fairly complete history of what Mr. Baer has been up to, and has done in his career, you can check out his

website.  Available on Rolentapress.com is Mr. Baer's book Videogames: In the Beginning, there are several pages available for those that would like to check it out before buying.  You won't be disappointed as it is definitely a book that could only be told by one man.

  

Some informational portions of the content provided here was taken from Ralph Baer.com and Rolenta Press.com.

Edited July 15, 2009 by triverse
ellipses removed and sister spelling corrected

[Mister Zero]

Phenominal work! I can't imagine what it would feel like to talk with such an influencial person over the phone or even getting him on the phone! Thanks for all the hard work, triverse!!

[E-Day]

I didn't know sister was spelled with a Y .

Cool stuff. I wonder if Joystiq or those animals at Kotaku will pick this up.

[Tony_32]

Great interview. That would be tough to interview such a high caliber person in the videogame industry, at least for me. I remember the first time I heard of him in an interview in, I think, Videogames & Computer Entertainment. It had a big article in it and I was fascinated by him ever since. Does anyone know of the article and which mag it was in exactly?

Edit: Nevermind, I found it in an old V&CE mag I have that doesn't have a cover. Since I went through that trouble I just scanned it anyway and uploaded the 3 page interview here. No one has a cover for a June 1991 issue, I'd assume, right?

[Mister Zero]

Thanks for sharing that, Tony. Checking it out now.

[E-Day]

This came in handy tonight as there was a question abot Ralphy baby on 1 vs 100 tonight on Xbox Live. It was a video game trivia show. I was surprised at how many questions pertained to Nintendo, even in the general trivia games. Tonight, only 1 question asked about a PS3 exclusive game (inFamous).

[loupgarou1317]

Thank you for this! This was something I have known for a while but am glad you put this here just to at least teach the "young-uns" were we started from. This is yet another reason I keep coming around.......