In an interview with Wired, Pong designer Nolan Bushnell talks about his new restaurant venture, his next-gen Chuck E. Cheese, uWink, and a new game — he's calling it Ping. Bushnell wants to bring games back "to their role as a social facilitator, the way party games help people to interact." He maintains that Pong is "responsible for hundreds, maybe thousands of marriages." Bushnell's desire for games to become social facilitators seems noble, but he ignores the fact that other game types can be facilitators instead, suggesting that consumers need to be in a place like uWink or an arcade for said social interactions. Kind of flies in the face of digital communities like Xbox Live and most MMOs, doesn't it?

The Player [Wired]

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