Former Sega Of America President And SCEA Founder, Bernie Stolar, Dies At 75

gameinformer.com:

Former Sega of America president and Sony Computer Entertainment America founder Bernie Stolar has died at 75.

Below is an obituary written by Steven L. Kent, author and gaming journalist, sent to Game Informer for use, in full: 

Bernard “Bernie” Stolar, a former top executive at Atari, Sony Computer Entertainment America, and Sega of America, passed away at the age of 75.

“Bernie was a low-key guy. He kept his ego in check,” remembers Vince Desi, founder of Running with Scissors. “I’ve known Bernie for a long time, and I’ve never heard him raise his voice. He was a gentleman in an industry where there really aren’t many.” 

Stolar’s introduction to the video game business came with the 1981 release of an arcade game called Shark Attack. Created by Pacific Novelty and manufactured by Game Plan—an Illinois-based pinball manufacturer, Shark Attack was a game in which players controlled a white shark as it ate its way through groups of skindivers. 

Stolar was given the unenviable task of informing Universal Studios CEO Sid Sheinberg about the project. After released the movie Jaws in 1975, Universal claimed a certain ownership on shark-themed entertainment, and Sheinberg was notorious for suing companies he felt had infringed on his studio’s intellectual properties. (In 1982, Sheinberg would unsuccessfully take Nintendo to court claiming Donkey Kong infringed on his studio’s version of the movie King Kong.)  

After negotiating for permission to manufacture 1,000 Shark Attack machines without paying royalties, Stolar built 990 machines and pulled the plug on the project. 

Over the next decade, Stolar never strayed far from games. He opened a successful San Francisco arcade called the State Street Arcade then took a job with