Atari Co-Founder Ted Dabney Has Passed Away at the Age of 81

According to a close friend of Ted Dabney, the Atari co-founder and video game industry pioneer has passed away at the age of 81. 

Leonard Herman, the historian who told Ted Dabney's story in an Edge Magazine article published back in 2009, announced the sad news of Ted Dabney's death on a Facebook post earlier today. 

"I just learned that my good friend, Ted Dabney, the co-founder of Atari, passed away at the age of 81. RIP good friend," wrote Herman. "Your legacy will live on a long time!"

The Atari co-founder was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in late 2017, but decided against treatment for the disease after being told that he had eight months to live, according to a report by Eurogamer. 

Known for his contribution in the building of the famed video game company Atari, Ted Dabney co-founded the company in 1972 with Nolan Bushnell after creating Atari's predecessor, Syzygy, in 1971. While under the Syzygy name, Dabney and Bushnell developed the world's first commercially available arcade video game game in Computer Space. The two Atari co-founders later used Computer Space as the building block for Atari's smash hit Pong that made the company an industry legend.  Ted Dabney later went on to leave Atari after experiencing a falling out with Nolan Bushnell. 

The passing of Dabney is unfortunately one of the latest to hit the video game community, as popular game critic and personality John "Totalbiscuit" Bain passed away earlier this week after his own battle with cancer. While the gaming community mourns the passing of two of the industry's leaders, we all will remember and carry on the major positive impacts that Ted Dabney and John "Totalbiscuit" Bain had in helping the world of video games grow into what it is now. 

(Editor's Note: A tweet that had been in a previous version of the article has been replaced with a Facebook post.)