Newsflash: Atari acquires the rights to more than 100 PC and console
titles from the 80s and 90s.* And I can't help but cringe.

Not because I want those titles to be lost and forgotten, but because
their acquisition by Atari doesn't inspire me with confidence. The
modern-day company bearing that name is a far cry from the company
founded by Jack Tamriel way back in 1972, and the current company
isn't one that brings to mind quality products (or even sound business
practices). Rather, they make me envision over-priced re-releases of
old-school games (who wouldn't want to pay $29.99 for a re-release of
"Bubsy 3D"?) or shoddily made remasters and reboots. Probably with
baked in crypto-currency and NFT schemes. So I'm hard pressed to
imagine a poorer curator for these old titles than Atari

(seriously; I think I'd even rather EA have control over them... and
EA is where franchises go to die)

*
https://www.pcmag.com/news/atari-acquires-rights-to-100-plus-classic-pc-console-games

>Not because I want those titles to be lost and forgotten, but because
>their acquisition by Atari doesn't inspire me with confidence.

Is Atari just a holding company now? Yeah that doesn't seem good.

rms

On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 08:50:34 -0600, "rms"
<rsquiresMOO@MOOflashMOO.net> wrote:

>>Not because I want those titles to be lost and forgotten, but because
>>their acquisition by Atari doesn't inspire me with confidence.

> Is Atari just a holding company now? Yeah that doesn't seem good.

It seems so. The company never really seemed to recover after it filed
bankruptcy in 2012 (a result of too many and too-fast acquisitions).
According to Mobygames, they haven't really released any new games in
a long time, instead either pushing out re-releases of older titles
("Atari Flashback Classics!" or "Blood: Fresh Supply"), or licensing
their IP to third-parties to make shovelware games ("Rollercoaster
Tycoon: Joyride"). Their website is mostly a storefront selling
Atari-branded T-shirts and the nostalgia-fueled VCS microconsole.
Wikipedia says they're also pursuing "several line of business outside
of video gaming, including cryptocurrency and video-game themed
hotels". They're not quite as bad as Interplay but Atari is coasting
on name recognition rather than product.

So while many websites are crowing about how "Atari" now owns the IP
to games like "Bubsy, 1942: Pacific Air War, Hardball, F-117A,
Demolition Racer, and F-14", it's not as if we're going to see
anything new done with them (in fact, many of the titles were already
available from GOG). Despite promises of how these acquisitions will
help with "leveraging the company's large catalog of IP to release
classic games and bring new, high-quality games to market" I don't
expect to see much change. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if we see
prices of those games be increased, or even taken off the market
altogether.

On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 10:46:29 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

>Newsflash: Atari acquires the rights to more than 100 PC and console
>titles from the 80s and 90s.* And I can't help but cringe.
>
>Not because I want those titles to be lost and forgotten, but because
>their acquisition by Atari doesn't inspire me with confidence. The
>modern-day company bearing that name is a far cry from the company
>founded by Jack Tamriel way back in 1972,

You mean Nolan Bushnell. Jack Tramiel founded Commodore Business
Machines.

On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 13:55:40 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:

>On Thu, 20 Apr 2023 10:46:29 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Newsflash: Atari acquires the rights to more than 100 PC and console
>>titles from the 80s and 90s.* And I can't help but cringe.
>>
>>Not because I want those titles to be lost and forgotten, but because
>>their acquisition by Atari doesn't inspire me with confidence. The
>>modern-day company bearing that name is a far cry from the company
>>founded by Jack Tamriel way back in 1972,

>You mean Nolan Bushnell. Jack Tramiel founded Commodore Business
>Machines.

You are correct; I apologize for the error. Atari was /sold/ to
Tramriel in the 80s but was /founded/ by Bushnell and Ted Dabney.

For some reason, my brain got hung up on Tamriel. Perhaps that was
because it was under his ownership that Atari developed the Atari ST
and later the Jaguar.

The ownership of Atari is convoluted. Atari was originally founded by
Bushnell/Dabney in the early 70s, then sold to Warner Communications
in '76. In 1984, the hardware side of Atari was sold to Tramriel's
company (Tramel Technology), which then renamed itself Atari Corp,
although it shared rights to the IP and logo with the game's division,
Atari Games. Atari Corp (the hardware side)then merged with JTS in
1996. It was which then sold the Atari assets to Hasbro two years
later. Then in 2001, Infogrammes bought Hasbro Interactive and
acquired the Atari assets. Eventually Infogrammes renamed itself Atari
Inc.

Meanwhile, Atari Games (the software half of Atari of old) remained a
subsidiary of Warner Communications. Later, the whole of Atari Games
was sold to WMS Industries, which then spun-off to become Midway
Games. But after Midway went bankrupt, Warner Bros. reclaimed the
Atari Games assets, and that company has largely sat on them since.

TL;DR; "Atari" as we knew it doesn't exist anymore. Outside of
business contracts, there's no design or publishing legacy connecting
the famous company of the past to what is called Atari today. It's
just a legal fiction using a notable name to make people think there's
some of the magic of those wonder years still attached to the company
in order to entice customers (and shareholders) to buy into their
products.

Were you to rename that trash company that buried all those ET
cartridges in that landfill "Atari", you would have as much connection
to the original company as the modern incarnation.