WHEN I THINK ABOUT WHAT DAVE THEURER ATTEMPTED TO ACCOMPLISH with the design of Missile Command, I think of art in its highest form. Art is about giving viewers something to attach to, something to connect with if they so choose. But they don’t have to connect with it if they don’t want to; they can just enjoy the game for what it is—a game. Just like a Rembrandt painting, you can dive deeper into the meaning of what he was feeling at the time he painted it, or you can simply think it’s a nice painting. It’s up to you. That subjective nature is what sets something aside from being an objective creation into a cultural touchstone that can be interpreted however you choose.
The creation of Missile Command was filled with risks—everything from the trackball to the defensive nature of the game. It was all stuff that hadn’t been done before and, potentially, could have never been done again. It was inspiring in a way that games hadn’t really been up to that point. It tasked players with some really heavy themes, knowing perfectly well they could do nothing to keep the inevitable from occurring. It knew the type of message it was trying to send, even if each and every player didn’t. And that was okay; Theurer wasn’t trying to connect with every player, just the few who needed it most.
At the time that Missile Command was released, people weren’t able to break the mold and do something out of the ordinary, mainly because no mold or sense of ordinary had been established. It was still the Wild West in terms of what was acceptable in gaming—but, perhaps even more than game developers are today, they were beholden to the whims of the almighty quarter. As a programmer in such a new and underdeveloped industry, you lived and died by how your game sold; you didn’t get many chances to establish a track record. At the scale that Atari was producing these games, you couldn’t afford any flops—a single Missile Command cabinet cost $871 alone for Atari to make (not including labor), which, at the end of its lifespan, amounted to nearly $14.2 million in production costs alone. But they were willing to take those risks anyway. Dave Theurer and Rich Adam believed in the gameplay and the message; ensuring that players were able to experience both of those was worth potentially blowing their shot at a megahit.
In doing so, they were able to break through what players had come to expect from early arcade games and to give them something special. Though players had come to simply burn a quarter on some simple gameplay or pretty graphics, they were instead treated to something they hadn’t seen before, and this opened them up to the possibilities that came with an entirely new experience. When most games had black-and-white graphics, Missile Command had vibrant, beautiful colors. When most games used simple joysticks, Missile Command used a trackball to allow for greater control fidelity, making the game faster and more challenging. When most games started off easy and became more challenging after a while so that you felt your quarter was well spent, Missile Command was brutally difficult. It never felt unfair, and gave you a few rounds to warm up, but if you didn’t have an expert level of precision over that trackball, it wasn’t going to be something you could plan on playing for a while. You were toast.
Missile Command showed what was possible from a game, exploring uncharted and innovative territory that many thought to be impractical. It showed others at Atari that you could take risks and still find success, even if that meant that not everyone was perfect from the get-go, and you needed to make some changes along the way. It showed players that stepping outside their comfort zone to play something different might offer a long-term reward unlike anything they’d previously gotten from an arcade game.
Missile Command’s famous game ending, which showed a massive explosion filling the entire screen with the overwhelming blast of a nuclear bomb, became one of its most defining features. It was a small touch, but helped to drive home the severity of what had just occurred. Nuclear war wasn’t the walk in the park the game made it seem to be. It was disastrous, and ended with the same results regardless of how well you played. This was the result of a simple office exchange that occurred between Theurer and his boss, Steve Calfee.
Theurer had figured out how to make the large explosion appear following a loss. He thought it was a nice touch, but Calfee found the secret sauce. Walking by, he said, “You should have it say THE END instead of GAME OVER. It’s much better.” And with that simple exchange, Theurer’s ultimate vision was complete.
All of this has allowed Missile Command to create a lasting legacy and hold a spot in the list of most well-known and memorable video game titles, almost forty years after its release. It was initially a game created for a specific time and place, but based on the world we live in today, it’s turned out to have a timeless message for a struggling generation. The current generation wasn’t around for the Cold War. They didn’t live through the struggle and see its resolution. They know the uncertainty and fear that comes with such a scenario, but only because they’re living through that same scenario with a different opponent right now. Missile Command has remained relevant because of nostalgia for its impressive and captivating graphics and its demanding and riveting gameplay, but now the game is more relevant than ever because its message has resurfaced just when it’s needed most. This is the beauty of Missile Command: though the message was meant for 1980, it’s relevant for 2018 and beyond. As long as we perpetuate arms races and allow ourselves to compete in a never-ending battle for supremacy, we end up doing nothing but holding ourselves hostage and succumbing to fear-inciting terrorists who want nothing more than for us to act, knowing we may well destroy ourselves in the process.
Theurer’s original belief was that for us to break the nuclear cycle, we must first acknowledge the situation in which we find ourselves, to realize we’re engaged in a losing battle and do everything we can to escape it. This isn’t as easy as it sounds, but Theurer wasn’t expecting everyone in the world to drop their arms and come together to sing John Lennon’s “Imagine” simply because they had played a game of Missile Command. He wanted to inspire, but only if it was productive for furthering the goal of moving us away from the dangerous real-life nuclear game. Despite the strong heroic and nationalistic tones of Missile Command, he didn’t want anything to do with inspiring anyone to continue farther down the same path, even if they believed it was for the betterment and defense of their country.
He wanted nothing more than for people to be affected by the game’s message. Too many times he’d seen the nuclear powers come close to reaching an agreement, only to let politics and egos get in the way. He wanted forward progress, and was willing to sacrifice everything he had, including his sanity, to make it a reality. If even one person was affected enough to enact a 1 percent change toward stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons, that would be a success for him.
The screen message of THE END, rather than GAME OVER, was perfectly clear: you didn’t just lose, you and everything you loved was annihilated. There were no extra lives; there were no do-overs. Once we go down this path, there’s no coming back, and nothing will ever be the same no matter which side of the engagement you’re on. This lack of a way out was the entire crux of Theurer’s argument: in nuclear war, there are no winners.