{"id":106616,"date":"2026-04-10T14:23:49","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=106616"},"modified":"2026-04-13T14:38:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T19:38:04","slug":"atari-legend-eugene-jarvis-celebrates-25-years-running-arcade-machine-company-raw-thrills-in-chicago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/atari-legend-eugene-jarvis-celebrates-25-years-running-arcade-machine-company-raw-thrills-in-chicago\/","title":{"rendered":"Atari legend Eugene Jarvis celebrates 25 years running arcade machine company Raw Thrills in Chicago"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Conner\u00a0Dejecacion<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/i><\/p>\n

Eugene Jarvis, 71, has\u00a0worked\u00a0on\u00a0video games\u00a0since\u00a0their\u00a0inception. He grew up in Menlo Park,\u00a0Calif.,\u00a0the\u00a0heart of Silicon Valley. As\u00a0a \u201cyoung, rebellious\u201d person living in the shadow of the Vietnam War, he played chess, invented war games out of bottle caps and explored the Bay Area on his bike. When he played<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Spacewar!,<\/span>\u00a0an early video game released in 1962, in a Stanford lab, he described it like \u201cbeing on the set of<\/span>\u00a0\u2018<\/span><\/i>Star Trek<\/span>.\u2019\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1976 with a degree in computer science (and \u201cminors in pinball and pool,\u201d he joked), he cut his teeth developing pinball games for Atari, and later, Williams Electronics, where in 1980 and 1981, he and fellow designer Larry DeMar co-developed the arcade game\u00a0<\/span>Defender<\/span>.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were the blind leading the blind,\u201d DeMar said. \u201cOur group had no idea at the start what we were doing or how to make a video game.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pushing through the challenges of rudimentary hardware, programming\u00a0languages\u00a0and an unconventional design,\u00a0which\u00a0featured\u00a0complex controls and faster-paced gameplay than what arcade-goers were used to at the time, Jarvis and his collaborators managed to cobble together a classic\u00a0game.\u00a0When it came time to test the game in November\u00a01980,\u00a0DeMar said\u00a0Jarvis\u00a0skipped the showcase\u00a0because\u00a0he\u00a0worried\u00a0<\/span>Defender\u00a0<\/span>would\u00a0flop. His fears were unfounded \u2014 players lined up in droves to play the game.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was chewing up people left and right,\u201d DeMar said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Defender\u00a0<\/span>turned out to be a smash hit, grossing\u00a0more than\u00a0$1\u00a0billion. Williams sold tens of thousands of arcade units\u00a0during\u00a0the\u00a0past 40 years. In 2000,\u00a0the U.S. Postal Service even selected it as the first video game to be featured on a postage stamp.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jarvis followed up\u00a0<\/span>Defender\u00a0<\/span>with\u00a0<\/span>Robotron<\/span>: 2084<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>(also co-developed with DeMar)\u00a0and\u00a0<\/span>Smash TV<\/span>,\u00a0a 1990 game\u00a0in the same vein\u00a0co-programmed\u00a0with\u00a0Mark Turmell, another developer who\u00a0went\u00a0on to create the successful\u00a0<\/span>NBA Jam<\/span>. Turmell joined Williams in 1989, and when\u00a0CEO Lou Nicastro\u00a0announced a $40,000 bonus to whoever finished their game project first, Turmell teamed up with Jarvis, who gave\u00a0him\u00a0some wisdom\u00a0that\u00a0stuck with him ever since:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe said,\u00a0\u2018You\u2019ve\u00a0got one cool thing here. A video game has 1,000 cool things in it.\u00a0\u2026\u00a0And double the blood.\u201d\u00a0(Jarvis was an early pioneer in pixelated gore.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jarvis created his greatest hits\u00a0far from Silicon Valley.\u00a0The video game creator now lives\u00a0in Chicago, where he\u00a0runs his own 75-employee arcade game company, Raw Thrills,\u00a0in Skokie.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Godzilla
Raw Thrills\u2019 Skokie offices are attached to a warehouse testing floor filled with games. (Conner Dejecacion\/MEDILL<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI was a bit of a fish out of water,\u201d he\u00a0said\u00a0of his arrival in the Midwest.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jarvis, who punctuates his stories with curses and wheezy laughs, remembered braving his first Chicago winter in 1979 and watching as feet of snow thawed to reveal \u201cpiles of\u00a0dog[bleep].\u201d Yet he praised what he saw as a Midwestern ethos unburdened by pretension\u00a0and competition.\u00a0In those days, he said, \u201cYou were just a guy doing\u00a0s***.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Raw Thrills is known for its licensed racing and action titles\u00a0based on entertainment properties like\u00a0\u201c<\/span>The Fast and the Furious,\u201d<\/span>\u00a0Halo,\u00a0<\/span>\u201c<\/span>Jurassic\u00a0<\/span>Park<\/span>\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201c<\/span>Godzilla<\/span>.\u201d\u00a0Even with blue-chip intellectual property behind him,\u00a0Jarvis is no stranger to courting controversy. Giggling like a boy 60 years younger, Jarvis remembered struggling to find business insurance for Raw Thrills because of its name.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably a little too pornographic,\u201d he said, explaining the name was originally meant to be a play on\u00a0competitor\u00a0video game company\u00a0Rare, known for the\u00a0<\/span>Banjo-Kazooie<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/i>games.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For as much reminiscing as Jarvis does (he\u00a0says he\u00a0is still \u201caddicted\u201d\u00a0to\u00a0<\/span>Rob<\/span>otron<\/span>: 2084<\/span>), he also looks to the future of the industry<\/span>\u00a0and his place within it.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jarvis donated an undisclosed amount of money\u00a0in 2022\u00a0to DePaul University, which renamed its college of computing to honor\u00a0him. His wife, Sasha Gerritson, is a DePaul\u00a0alumna, and Jarvis served as the university\u2019s first Game Designer in Residence. Jarvis marked the\u00a0gift, which was the largest\u00a0such donation\u00a0in the school\u2019s history, surpassing the\u00a0previous\u00a0record\u00a0of\u00a0$30 million,\u00a0as a shift in developing his legacy. In his early work, he said, \u201cIt was all about having the cool thing, creating the new thing.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0With this gift, he said he hoped to\u00a0pay\u00a0some of his success\u00a0forward\u00a0by\u00a0helping the people who are behind the product and\u00a0cultivating\u00a0the next generation of programmers and developers.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Aaron Zartman, a senior at DePaul studying game design, credits Jarvis\u2019 gift with uplifting the program through\u00a0the\u00a0financial turbulence\u00a0impacting\u00a0other majors. He also points to\u00a0new resources\u00a0like the Jarvis Center, a collaborative development space opened in January 2023, as a major boon. \u201cIt kind of feels like I\u2019m in this special major that gets all the special treatment,\u201d he said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jarvis
Jarvis plays Godzilla: Kaiju Wars, one of Raw Thrills\u2019 newest games, on VR. (Conner Dejecacion\/MEDILL<\/em>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The\u00a0Raw Thrills\u00a0office,\u00a0set\u00a0on a quiet street in Skokie, is\u00a0nearly\u00a0an\u00a0arcade\u00a0itself.\u00a0The studio\u2019s latest prototypes\u00a0strobe and flash\u00a0enticingly\u00a0next to\u00a0the\u00a0workstations where\u00a0developers focus on bringing their\u00a0games to life. Jarvis walks through the warehouse filled with his creations like Willy Wonka in his chocolate factory. Posters for\u00a0<\/span>Defender<\/span>,\u00a0<\/span>Target: Terror<\/span>\u00a0and his other success stories\u00a0line\u00a0the walls of his office.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI like video game history,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve lived all that\u00a0[bleep].\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And he still is.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Conner\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Dejecacion<\/span> is a magazine specialization graduate student at Medill. <\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Conner\u00a0Dejecacion Medill Reports Eugene Jarvis, 71, has\u00a0worked\u00a0on\u00a0video games\u00a0since\u00a0their\u00a0inception. He grew up in Menlo Park,\u00a0Calif.,\u00a0the\u00a0heart of Silicon Valley. As\u00a0a \u201cyoung, rebellious\u201d person living in the shadow of the Vietnam War, he played chess, invented war games out of bottle caps and explored the Bay Area on his bike. When he played\u00a0Spacewar!,\u00a0an early video game released […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1039,"featured_media":106617,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,5251,5543,5555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-106616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-chicago","category-msj26","category-spring-2026"],"yoast_head":"\nAtari legend Eugene Jarvis celebrates 25 years running arcade machine company Raw Thrills in Chicago - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/atari-legend-eugene-jarvis-celebrates-25-years-running-arcade-machine-company-raw-thrills-in-chicago\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Atari legend Eugene Jarvis celebrates 25 years running arcade machine company Raw Thrills in Chicago - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Conner\u00a0Dejecacion Medill Reports Eugene Jarvis, 71, has\u00a0worked\u00a0on\u00a0video games\u00a0since\u00a0their\u00a0inception. He grew up in Menlo Park,\u00a0Calif.,\u00a0the\u00a0heart of Silicon Valley. As\u00a0a \u201cyoung, rebellious\u201d person living in the shadow of the Vietnam War, he played chess, invented war games out of bottle caps and explored the Bay Area on his bike. 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