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The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

Hope Fading at Atari 79

Posted by Zonk from the cue-taps dept.
hisham writes "On the heels of the bad news on SGI's financial health, another former giant of the tech world announces concerns of bankruptcy: 'Bad times got worse at Atari as the company posted a loss and a 35% decline in sales in the important holiday quarter.' The CFO has resigned, and the company released a statement saying 'the uncertainties caused by these conditions raise substantial doubt about [Atari's] ability to continue as a going concern.' An icon of videogame history; if things turn sour, it will be sad to see Atari go (again)."
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Hope Fading at Atari More

Hope Fading at Atari

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  • And? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Psykechan ( 255694 ) on Saturday February 11, 2006 @03:15PM (#14695624)
    OK, if this Atari goes under, won't some other company just buy them out and call themselves Atari? Should we really mourn the loss of a company that's already gone?

    • Re:And? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Saturday February 11, 2006 @03:24PM (#14695672)
      Long Gone at that.

      Atari really died when they were bought by Warner Communications and Nolan Bushnell was given the heave ho.
      • Was that when Jack Tramiel took over shortly? My Atari timeline is a little sketchy. However, I've seen Atari restructure in worse scenarios than this, having to completely drop product lines. Those numbers in the article didn't seem that alarming either. Just the loss of their primary creditor. Others will pick up the slack.
      • Warner bought Atari in 1976. Almost everything people remember about the classic Atari era was from Warner.

    • Re:And? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by frdbrkl ( 932561 )
      Agreed. Nor do I find any sorrow for a company that didn't see fit to let the average parent even know they existed. In our market driven economy, advertising is key! There was little if any marketing done by Atari to let the American market know they were in existence. As a parent, I purchase games and such for my kids, and this past Christmas brought their name brand into my purchasing gun sites exactly ZERO times. I was still assuming they were long gone. We tend to not buy stuff we're unaware of...
      • I agree with your point, but I'm not sure advertising would have helped much. I can just imagine my reaction to an Atari ad. Probably something like "yeah, I remember those guys from way back when. Haven't heard much about them lately. I'm really surprised that they're still in business." And then I'd have moved on to something else.

        • Re:And? (Score:2)

          by CMiYC ( 6473 )
          Well they don't need to advertise their name, just their products. I doubt anyone buys a game today simply because it was produced by Atari.

          I think the original poster meant that none of the purchases he considered were from Atari, due to lack of advertising...

    • Re:And? (Score:2)

      by fm6 ( 162816 )
      You're right about not mourning, since the current Atari has no connection at all with the original company. But I doubt if anybody will buy a brand that's crashed and burned twice.
      • But I doubt if anybody will buy a brand that's crashed and burned twice.

        I have this eerie feeling of having seen all this [amiga.com] before...

  • An icon of videogame history? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WankersRevenge ( 452399 ) on Saturday February 11, 2006 @03:24PM (#14695673)
    I've never considered Infogrames to be an icon of anything. Let's face it ... the real Atari died a loooong time ago. From Wikipedia's Atari article [wikipedia.org]:

    In March 1998, JTS sold the Atari name and assets to Hasbro Interactive for $5 million--less than a fifth of what Warner Communications had paid 22 years earlier. This transaction primarily involved the brand and intellectual property, which now fell under the Atari Interactive division of Hasbro Interactive. The brand name changed hands again in December 2000, when French software publisher Infogrames took over Hasbro Interactive.
    • Agreed. I've never thought of "the new Atari" as anything but what they really are: Infogrames, a medium-sized French video games publisher. They didn't whore out the name too badly, though, but I'll only be sad to see them go under if they pass on the name to someone who does sully it.
    • Actually, Infogrames has been around for many years. They published Alone on the Dark for example. They passed their peak a while ago, but I, for one, actually will be sad to see them go.

    • The original Atari team (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... com minus distro> on Saturday February 11, 2006 @06:57PM (#14696753) Homepage Journal
      They quit Atari and founded Activision. Why? Because the new owners were morons, and stiffled their creativity with stupid things like dress code, to say the least.

      More info on Activision [wikipedia.org]
      • I think there was even more resentment that games weren't credited to the authors, just to the company (hence stuff like the Adventure "signature")

        Activision and EA both helped their early success by putting the software authors front and center. EA explicitly went to treat them like rock stars and used them in their ad campaigns.

        I think the tactic is less important now that games are made with large teams, but still...those are two companies that have been around over 20 years so they must be doing somethi

  • After the way they treated Troika (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tdelaney ( 458893 ) on Saturday February 11, 2006 @03:25PM (#14695675)
    ... on The Temple of Elemental Evil, good riddance.
    • ... on The Temple of Elemental Evil, good riddance.


      I'll play devil's advocate here...

      What common properties do the following games developed by Troika have?
      - Arcanum
      - Vampire: The masquerade
      - Temple of Elemental Evil

      One hint: The publishers of the games tended to treat Troika in the same way because of these similarities (although the first one could easily be dismissed as standard mismanagement).

      • They're all lots of fun to play?

        They all have fun and different ways of solving quests (yes - even ToEE)?

        They all have extensive and loyal fan communities, both before release and after?

        They all have very good gameplay (with occasional flaws)?

        Ah - I've worked it out. They all had to be developed using the *publisher's* money and to the *publisher's* timeframe, because Troika didn't have enough money to independently develop these large and ambitious games themselves.
        • (with occasional flaws)?

          *cough*

          Yes, Vampire: Bloodlines is a brilliant game, but the fact that it's currently up to unofficial patch 2.1 shows how riddled with flaws it is, while still having a devoted following (on one patch alone, I spent many days spellchecking the dialogues, for example). The real tragedy is towards the end when it loses all subtlety and turns into a beat-'em-up; the developers either ran out of time or inspiration.

          P.

          • I admit I'm biased - I have a gravestone in Arcanum ;) And the "occasional" remark was somewhat tongue-in-cheek ...

            All three games are brilliant, with a few flaws that really hurt them. For ToEE, it's the severe lagging in the elemental nodes, and the fact that it's a hack-and-slash module. The overall gameplay is the best of any CRPG I've ever played (even better than Fallout 2) - in particular, the combat in ToEE is amazing, and the implementation of the radial menu is inspired. Arcanum is unbalanced (whi
  • This is a rebought Atari. The orginial Atari already had gone under and been rebought by Infogrames. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATARI [wikipedia.org])

  • uhuh.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by scenestar ( 828656 ) on Saturday February 11, 2006 @03:34PM (#14695717) Homepage Journal
    with the current monoculture in video game design, it's not very surprising that people no longer buy games. They're over priced, uninteresting and some games are about as interactive as a dvd menu.

    • Thats only retail games. There are some smaller gems out there check out:
      www.gametunnel.com
      www.democracygame.com
    • Except that the video game industry is bigger than the movie industry.

      People are still buying games.

      It's a generation shift year. These companies know it and didn't plan very well.

      Badly managed companies fail in every industry.
    • scene interesting and fun these days.

      http://www.atariage.com/ [atariage.com] has an active home brew community that is working on some very interesting stuff. The tech is old, but that does not seem to matter very much where creativity is concerned. I've seen a steady progress of 2600 improvements over the years that's just great to watch and participate in.

      It's a lot like the 80's when we were all writing games for one another, playing them and having fun.
  • What have they done lately that's all that exciting?

    Rerelease their decomposing classics (again) or some Dragonball game?

    Sorry, but dinosaurs have to go extinct. I never admired how the company was run and after Bushnell, the management always seemed like a bunch of know-nothing (or at least second-rate) PHBs when it wasn't a roach (lawyer) motel raking in the cash from IP lawsuits.

    Good riddance. I hope this time they stay dead.
    • Indigo Prophecy [metacritic.com] was published by Atari last year, and it's a very unique take on the console adventure game. Think Shadow Of Destiny with tighter pacing, more playable characters, a more interesting interface, and no time travel schtick. And GameStop just dropped it to $20 new. Good stuff.
      • Does Atari give out a 3D graphics library or something to it's developors? Because all of the games they publish have horrible graphics and horrible textures.

        I don't think graphics are the best thing for a game, but it really detracts from games that are supposed to be realistic (ie Matrix games, Indigo Prophecy) when people's eyes are small dots on a bland face and all the blacks look like they are lossy images saved over about a thousands times.

        But on Indigo Prophecy, other than the graphics and th

  • Atari RIP (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mano_k ( 588614 )

    Even though this company has nothing to do with the real Atari from my home computer days, the news still makes me feel sad.

    I start remembering the god old days when I got my first computer, the Atari 1040STFM! I think I'll take it down from the wardrobe and cuddle it a litte...

    • Little did Atari realise that in later life STFM would me Shut the F**k up Mom...I guess this is what we were actually saying at the time though:

      Mom: Tidy yer room
      Me: STFM

      Karem

  • How the hell... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bin_jammin ( 684517 ) <Binjammin@gmail.com> on Saturday February 11, 2006 @04:01PM (#14695848)
    do you go out of business when all you do is license your old games, sell your old console, and license your logo to t-shirt makers? They have got to have like $113 in R&D spent per month, where the hell did the money go?
    • Aren't these guys the people publishing 'Tycoon City - New York', thats being released this month and is made by UK company deep red?
      Previous deep red games have been great, and I was suprised that the current one had a rushed-out demo, and very little interest on ataris forums. Another case of a poor publisher dragging down the best efforts of a capable developer I guess.
    • To pay off magazines reviewing Driv3r, I take it.
    • I don't know what Atari you're thinking about but we're talking about the Infogrames Atari. They are (or were) still an active publisher. You know the people who brought you Driv3r, Dragon Ball Z videogames and Enter The Matrix. Oh and silly niche titles like Act Of War, D&D Online or Fahrenheit.
  • You'd think they'd have plenty of money from liscensing the logo alone, with all the Atari shirts i've seen the hip kids wearing the past few months.
  • Does this mean that Infogrames, which sells products under the Atari name in some parts of the world, is going down the tubes, or just that the division of Infogrames selling under the name Atari is doing poorly?

    • Re:Explain please (Score:3, Informative)

      by Perseid ( 660451 )
      Infogrames officially changed their name to Atari a while back, so, by saying Atari is in trouble, they mean the whole company.

      • Re:Explain please (Score:2, Interesting)

        by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
        They're still called Infogrames in Europe (though they publish under the Atari logo and name) and according to their website [infogrames.com] their income in Europe went up by 6% even though their US income went down by 40%.

  • Decline in Quality, Now Decline in Profits (Score:4, Interesting)

    by queenb**ch ( 446380 ) on Saturday February 11, 2006 @05:26PM (#14696270) Homepage Journal
    I would suspect that the millions in licenseing fees have been paid out to some fatcat PHB execs in the form of bonuses. Mostly, it just annoys me to see companies do this. it happens all over, not just the gaming industry. You name it - laundry detergent, cars, restraunts. I've seen it time and again.

    First, "in order to maximize profit" the quality of the product begins to creep downward while the price either maintains or goes up. Then, because the product is absolute crap, the bean counters who dictated this are amazed when people get fed up and start buying something else.

    As an avid gamer, I've played several of Atari's recent releases. They pretty much sucked. The graphics were poorly rendered. The games were buggy. It was quite evident that they didn't receive the polish that they should have. And the price? Well, they weren't any cheaper than anything that is well polished, like offerings from Microsoft, Bioware or EA.

    Capitalism runs under darwinistic rules - survival of the fittest. Atari certianly isn't the "fittest" and while I will be sad to see them die since I loved Pole Position, I'll only be truly unhappy until someone better comes along with slick new games for me to play.

    2 cents,

    Queen B
    • Imagine my surprise when I came out of my childhood years only to find my idol Atari didn't even make half the games I loved. I had to shift my adoration to Namco.

      The Atari name surely is cursed. It causes management to get stupid(er), I really can't say I'm surprised at this news.

      They did, at least, release Unreal Tournament 2003 + 2004, which are all-time faves of mine. Before and since? Nothing even got on my radar.

  • As a former QA tester for them who was laid off without warning 6 days before Xmas, 2003, I can't help but feel distinct schadenfreude whenever I read bad news about them.
  • Sure, Atari was a household name from the Atari 2600 from the late 70s to early 80s, but after that, things went downhill. The 5200, the 7800, the not licensing the NES(I bet they kicked themslves in the head after that, or they would have botched it), and the godawful Jaguar.

    Atari was that rock star who had a big hit or 2 in the early 80s, but then had no career after that. They walk into the Viper Room, say who they are, and still don't get free drinks.

    Again, maybe the name is just cursed.
    • Atari was that rock star who had a big hit or 2 in the early 80s, but then had no career after that.

      Atari is like Guns n' Roses dude. They were IT back in the late 70s/early 80s. It wasn't a fad, it was the beginning of EVERYTHING we know of as home video games today. I agree with the second part though... they had no career after the 5200...

    • The Jaguar probably would've been fine if they didn't try to retrofit their Panther games for the system and if they bothered to market the system in a sane manner and/or price it competitively. I for one thoroughly enjoyed Cybermorph, Alien vs. Predator, Tempest 2000, and a most excellent port of Raiden but I didn't buy the system until they were clearing them out for $40 apiece.

      Rest assured that they would've found a way to botch the NES launch. Nintendo had to send their own reps into the toy stores to
  • Maybe this is why they have been so quiet on whether they are working on a new expansion pack for RCT3 or not...
  • An icon of videogame history; if things turn sour, it will be sad to see Atari go (again).

    "Again" being the operative word... Which incarnation of the Atari is that? Third[1]? So what? It will go under, and another company will buy the name in some time... Nothing to see here, move along.

    Robert

    [1] There was the Atari that started the "computer games" business, and then there was the Atari under the leadership of Jack Tramiel (800XL, Atari ST etc), and now is this Atari, about to go belly up.
    • Well, They could sell books [commodore.ca] about their fall. There has to be cash in that. Commodore was bought/sold a zillion times.

      But we all know Jack Tramiel [commodore.ca] bought into Atari after Commodore ousted him.

      We all know how that turned out.

      Anyway, his philosophy in business [commodore.ca] was interesting.

      He mused that after the experience of the concentration camps, coping with the problems of business or life was a piece of cake by comparison. His own hoary version of "if it doesn't kill you, it will make you."

      qz

  • Infogrammes taking the Atari name was just a marketing stunt. The place has lost it's soul, since all the brightest and best left in droves a long time ago. I work with those people now, and I'll tell you, they ain't exactly pouring forth praises of Atari.

    Most specifically they speak of poor management decisions, lack of direction and lack of respect for their developers. Most of all, they speak of a Chief Creative Officer (Bruno Bonnell) of being out of touch and steering the ship towards a massive iceb

  • Cut this "icon" crap! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MilenCent ( 219397 ) <johnwh AT gmail DOT com> on Saturday February 11, 2006 @11:37PM (#14698121) Homepage
    I saw this posted, with the same damn wistful tone, over on Metafilter too! There I was more understanding, but the fact that the same story is popping up everywhere, with the same tone, makes me a little suspecious.

    This is NOT the classic Atari! The second-most classic Atari was the one that released the home computers and game consoles, which was fine for a while, but ultimately it died all on its own.

    The MOST classic Atari, without question, is the one that got renamed Midway Games West before dumping everyone and dying themselves. The that used to be known as Atari Games. The arcade company. The only game company I can think of who made better games than Nintendo.

    They made everything in the Infogrammes-Atari's "classics" catalogue (and most of them are still deserving of that name), and most of the good stuff in the three Midway Arcade Treasures compilations to boot. THEY should be mourned. Not, by ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION, THIS Atari.

  • my thoughts from what I posted on Digg (Score:5, Informative)

    by The Lynxpro ( 657990 ) <lynxpro@@@gmail...com> on Sunday February 12, 2006 @03:53AM (#14698874)
    Atari is like the Doctor (Doctor Who), this incarnation might die but it will be back after it regenerates. And thanks to all the confusion and due to my namesake and former shareholder in the older Atari, I will clear up the misconceptions.

    The original Atari was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. After the lack of success with Bushnell's adaptation of the MIT "Spacewar" game as an arcade title called "Computer Space" manufactured by Nutting Associates, Bushnell wanted to make an easier electronic arcade game. Atari's "Pong" came next, programmed by the great Al Alcorn. True, it was an updated version of a game that Ralph Baer created (but his version sucked) and it became an overnight sensation.

    Prior to 1976, Steve Jobs worked for Atari and Jobs would sneak in Steve Wozniak to help him do designs in return for Wozniak getting to play as much "Night Driver" as possible. Depending upon the account told, Wozniak was or was not an actual employee of Atari. The pair took parts from Atari and used it to work on what later became the Apple I.

    By 1976, Atari was an established arcade player but it needed funding to finish designing what became the Atari 2600 VCS, the world's most successful home videogame system. Bushnell sold the company to Warner Communications, thanks to its charismatic chairman, Steve Ross. Money had been so tight that Bushnell had to pass on Steve Jobs' offer to fund and own what became Apple Computer, Inc., but Bushnell hooked Jobs up with the venture capitalist that had helped him, and the rest is Apple history. Bushnell stayed on with Atari until 1979 when he left because he did not see eye-to-eye with the Warner brass. Both were equally at fault in the equation; Bushnell for insisting that the 2600 VCS didn't have a much longer shelf life, and Warners for not backing Bushnell's suggestion to quickly fund the development of its replacement. Add to the fact that Bushnell had never backed the creation of the Atari Pinball division which Warner wanted, which later closed, and you have more of the picture of what happened. When Bushnell left, he bought back a new Atari division that he personally created, known as (Chuck E. Cheese's) Pizza Time Theatre.

    In 1980, Atari's brass wanted to consolidate all their U.S. operations into a single Silicon Valley campus...which would have cost $500 million. Warner buckled. So instead, Atari went on to sprawl throughout the Valley into 72 different buildings, which was a cost waste. 1979/1980 also saw Atari's debut with the Jay Miner engineered Atari 8-bit computer line, the 400 and 800 computers which ran rings around the Apples, the Commodores, and all other home computers of that time in the graphics and sound departments. Miner later left when the Atari brass refused to fund the project he was pushing for which was creating a home computer based up Motorola's new microprocessor, the Motorola 68000. Miner went on to create what became the Amiga, which like the Apple Macintosh and the later Atari ST, was powered by that very same Motorola 68000.

    79/80 also saw Atari programmers split over a disagreement with Atari boss Ray Kasser. They went on to found Activision, the world's first third party videogame developer. However, since most of their first games were coded during their time when they were paid Atari employees, Atari sued and the settlement dictated that Atari got a portion of the profits off each of their games sold. There was no model for third party licensing/restrictions at this time - with the exception of VHS and Beta in the home video industry - and Atari had between 80% and 90% of the home video game market AND the arcade (AND a sizeable portion of the home computer market) and thus had Atari attempted anything as such the government would have stepped in and broken up the company just as they were about to do to AT&T. Now compare the Atari monopoly to the later Nintendo monopoly. Atari's monopoly was a "natural monopoly". Atari had no control on any third party manufacturers. The only claim that
    • One minor comment. I think you misuse the phrase "natural monopoly." I understand it to mean companies/industries where competition doesn't make sense such as in the providing of electricity, water, etc. where the capital investment of providing an addition distribution infrastruture makes it a non starter. These are sometimes overcome by regulating the incumbent to offer access to competitors or splitting the provider of the pipes from the supplier of electricity/water.

      I think you mean that Atari won in
    • And it did NOT run rings around the Apple II. It had a membrane keyboard! Do you actually THINK before writing crap?

  • The current Atari is not a friend to real fans of Atari. They have bullied and killed many 2600 projects, ending distribution of enhanced Atari 2600 binaries and threatening any homebrew ptojects with names similar to old Atari properties, even to the point of forcing "Joust Pong" to become "Flap Ping". As someone who purchased over 100 Atari 2600 cartridges just today, I hope we see a new owner, or better yet no owner, in the near future.
  • Oh Oh! Nortel/Enron alert: "...The CFO has resigned,..." I predict a major accounting fiasco, provided they stay above water and they actually had finances to squander.
  • With DDO going live on Feb. 28th of this year, Atari should be getting some of the revenue for that. How much is the question.

    Considering that DDO is one of the more anticipated MMO releases for 2006, their profits should get a kick in the pants.

  • [nothing else]

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