An interview with Nolan Bushnell on USA Today talks with the founder of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese about Battleswarm: Field of Honor, an upcoming subscription-free online game that combines FPS/RTS gameplay (thanks Develop). The conversation describes Bushnell as the game's designer, though we don't recall game design being his forte, but a little scratching around also shows him as one of the principals in Reality Gap, who will provide the virtual currency for the game as well as for the recently launched MMOG Monato Esprit. The benefits of virtual currency are one of the topics of the interview, as he says: "Actually, when we converted Chuck E. Cheese into a token-based gaming system (Bushnell founded Chuck E. Cheese in 1976), we saw massive revenues because all of a sudden we could do things with our own currency opposed to quarters." Here's a bit on Battleswarm: Field of Honor:

Bushnell:Battleswarm is really about me being able to play against my sons [laughs]. I've got five sons, age 16 through 30. They're all avid gamers and like first-person shooters. The problem is, as you get older, you lose some reaction time, and as a result, I'm getting slaughtered by them. A real-time strategy [RTS] game, however, is more my [preference], a good resource game is what I love. Battleswarm is both an RTS and a shooter, a mash-up between StarCraft and Starship Troopers, if you will. You can switch sides, too, if you feel like an RTS instead of a shooter, or vice-versa.