Seams Atari has filed for bankruptcy see here it seams to be the US branch of Atari and here using it as a tactic to brake away from the parent french Atari Inc which is in debt.
I hope they recover I don’t like it when a long established company like Atari goes bust.
“faceless company that brought a beloved trademark and sold games under it goes bust” this is a big loss for innovation
anyway i just read they have filed for “bankruptcy protection”, atari itself will never actually “go bust” what will happen is that they may have to go into administration and someone will buy it even if just for the logo, oh and to release a new set of centipede compliations
Atari really isn’t very important anymore. It’s never good to see a company sink, but I wouldn’t really be upset if they did go. That’s just my $.02 (Marigold, put that in the fund)
They haven’t been important since 1982 and became increasingly irrelevant each product release after that only expedited the process. During and after the Jaguar launch, the only money they had came from suing people. The final nail in the coffin was probably being bought out by Mattel but they were long dead by then anyway and that was in 1998.
They only exist now as copyright trolls really, they try and pull lawsuits for clones losing a few of those has probably put them into bankruptcy this time, this is what happens when a game company becomes a legal company - innovate or die.
I don’t get it why people seem attached to names of companies. The brand and legal entity “Atari” didn’t make the games you love… it was the talent working at the company who did.
The thing is, this is just how the companies want it. They don’t want you to love “Jim the game designer that spearheaded the project and pushed it through to be the most loved game ever”… they want you to love the empty brand so they are free to deal with people like replaceable machine parts ~_~
I see so many times people in the industry (movies and games) saying how sad they are to see a company go. It makes no sense because they KNOW how the industry works…they know how in and out and replaceable everyone is (and how likely the people who made what they loved are long gone working in some other company).
Other than a few IP’s that might be bought up… atari vanishing doesn’t mean much. The talent will be absorbed into other companies and keep doing what they do (unless they decide to retire).
It works both ways. First, companies themselves are largely responsible for the quality of their games. Their pipelines, quality control, etc are proven to produce quality games. Its no coincidence that companies like Blizzard had repeatedly produced hit after hit.
Second, a lot of unknown teams get funding because of the names they have on board. You see it all the time (“this new team with impressive members from this old company, who worked on this popular game, etc.”).
Did Mescalin really just call Infograms a “faceless company”?!
-Alone in the Dark 1 and 2
-Prisoner of Ice
-Shadow of the Comet
-Captain Blood
-Driver Series
-Basically every single Loony Toons game
-Ikaruga
-Outcast
-Rollercoaster Tycoon Series
-Civ III
-Stuntman Series
-Test Drive Series
-Unreal Series (publisher)