My Life at Atari w/ Ron Appin

Dean's Executive Speaker Series Event

Before Fortnite, Call of Duty, or Minecraft, there was Atari.

Join SEBA for a firsthand look at one of the defining chapters in video game history. Ron Appin worked in consumer research and marketing at Atari during the company's early years, helping figure out what players actually wanted from a brand-new industry before anyone had a playbook for it. 

He'll share stories from the inside of the console wars, how Atari tested and shaped iconic properties like Pac-Man and Yars' Revenge, and what it took to keep an entrepreneurial outlook in the fast-moving, high-stakes environment of 1980s Silicon Valley.

This is a rare chance to hear directly from someone who helped build the research behind the games that started it all, and to learn what it takes to stay entrepreneurial in a space still being invented.