The founder of Atari wants to start making mobile games

Atari rose and fell before many of today’s gamers were even born, but the modern video game industry wouldn’t be what it is now without the company, and as Atari’s founder, Nolan Bushnell is considered one of the industry’s fathers. Taking part in the creation of modern gaming wasn’t enough for Bushnell, however, as he wants to take part in its evolution too. That evolution is the rise of mobile games, and he wants to take part by partnering with a mobile publisher by the name of Spil Games to turn his ideas, which he’s spent the last fifteen years accumulating, into mobile games.

Forty years after Atari founder Nolan Bushnell tapped Steve Jobs to create arcade game “Breakout,” a mobile games publisher is returning the favor. Bushnell is collaborating with Spil Games, a publisher located near Amsterdam, to create five to eight mobile apps. The first one is expected in early 2017, and the rest will likely hit over the course of the next year or so, Bushnell said in an interview with CNBC.com. Since leaving Atari in 1978, Bushnell has helped start or been involved with numerous tech businesses focused on robotics, education and anti-aging games. Bushnell said that over the past 15 years, he’s designed about 30 games, both single player and player to player, but without ever looking to get them on the market. That changed when he noticed recently that Supercell’s “Clash of Clans” generates millions of dollars in revenue a day thanks to its popularity on smartphones. The global digital games market grew 8 percent last year to $61 billion, according to SuperData Research. Bushnell started looking for the right team to help turn his ideas into apps and landed on Spil, which has over 100 million monthly active users and focuses on casual games.