So he sneaked this “egg” into the experience, which Atari only found out about after Robinett had left the company, and units of the game had already shipped. It reads: “Created by Warren Robinett.” The easter egg was inserted by the game’s designer because he had spent over a year programming the game and was frustrated (among other things) by the Atari policy of not crediting their programmers in the game. And in truth it’s really a credit Robinett wrote for himself. However, hidden within the bowels of one of the game’s caverns, and completely divorced from the more linear path that the aforementioned avatar must trod to pick up a key and wander through a wall off-screen, is the first easter egg. The first time “easter egg” was used in reference to something other than actual holiday-themed scavenger hunts occurred in 1980 when Steve Wright, the director of software development at Atari Consumer Division, came up with the succinct phrase to describe the little wink to game fans that had been hidden in the company’s video game Adventure.ĭeveloped by programmer Warren Robinett, Adventure was an Atari 2600 game released in 1980 in which gamers played as a high-fantasy hero (but really a pixelated square) who wandered through an open world of dungeons and dragons, all in order to retrieve a magical chalice that needed to be returned to the Golden Castle. While most folks tend to associate “easter eggs” nowadays with superhero movies, Star Wars in-jokes, and the like, the phrase actually originates from video game history. When did Easter Eggs stop being colorful decorations to put out for a pagan bunny during a Christian holiday, and instead become a daily descriptor for fan service? Well… The Origins of Pop Culture Easter Eggs Yet with the term’s emerging popularity, it becomes a curiosity, then, where the turn of phrase came from. This is done, in part, on the assumption that media outlets will write ad nauseam about them. Heck, Marvel Studios has based a sizable portion of its winning formula on the prospect of teasing their next 15 projects through a sprinkling of “easter eggs” in each new movie. Once a jargon-y phrase used almost exclusively in online circles and by the nerdier writers within the greater media industry, the term “easter egg” has become ubiquitous when talking about modern pop culture. “Did you catch that easter egg?” “No, but I read about all these in an easter egg guide.” “Have you heard? Morbius has the greatest easter egg of all-time!” These are (mostly) things you’ll hear in everyday life when folks discuss their favorite movies, TV shows, or video games.
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