Megalextoria
Retro computing and gaming, sci-fi books, tv and movies and other geeky stuff.

Home » Digital Archaeology » Computer Arcana » Atari » Atari ST » ATARI's Rebirth
Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator
E-mail to friend 
Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
ATARI's Rebirth [message #255139] Thu, 12 June 2014 15:30
Francois LE COAT is currently offline  Francois LE COAT
Messages: 225
Registered: August 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Hi,

Here is what I just read about rebirth of ATARI, beginning ...
____________________________________

*How Atari Plans to Bring Itself Back From the Dead*
<http://www.wired.com/> by Issie Lapowsky 06/11/2014

For techies of a certain age, few brands inspire as much nostalgia
as Atari. They remember the heyday in the 1970s and 80s, when its
two-dimensional arcade game Pong was the epitome of fun and the Atari
2600 videogame console was the epitome of cool. But for many young
gamers today, their closest brush with Atari is in the retro T-shirt
section of their local Urban Outfitters.

Fred Chesnais wants to change that. As Atari’s new CEO and majority
shareholder, Chesnais is leading what he hopes will be a turnaround
of the 42-year-old brand, which emerged from bankruptcy proceedings
last year. For Chesnais, who also served as Atari’s CEO between 2004
and 2007, it’s a second chance to make Atari relevant to a new
generation.

His first step: let other people be Atari. Rather than immediately
trying to reclaim Atari’s place as a top gaming company–a goal that
has eluded many other CEOs with many different comeback strategies
over the years–he’s planning on licensing that almighty brand to other
studios who are already adept at building games for today’s audience.
“Corporations die,” he says. “Brands like Atari don’t.”

It’s a plan that Chesnais says will allow his lean team of 10 employees
to take on less risk and experiment with new products and mediums until
they find a hit. If successful–and Chesnais knows as well as anyone
that he may not be–he hopes that the dark days of Atari will have been
nothing more than “a bad scene in what is a very good movie overall.”
Here’s how he hopes to do it.

*Games Are Dead. Long Live Games.*

Games, of course, will still be part of Atari’s future. But this time,
Atari is targeting the mobile and online gaming markets, not consoles.
In other words, says Chesnais, “no boxes.”

The Atari team will create both new versions of older titles, as well
as completely new games based on trends that have emerged in the gaming
industry. For instance, after witnessing the rise of the survival video
game genre, Atari is developing a new version of one of its classic
titles, Asteroids, an arcade shooting game that was first released in
1979. In the new mobile game, players have to figure out how to survive
on an asteroid after their spaceship crashes into it. “It’s social, so
the more friends you have the better, and you can play anywhere because
it’s on mobile,” says Chesnais, who revived another failed gaming brand
called MicroProse in 2007. “It’s just much more relevant.”

Since Chesnais returned to Atari, the company has released four new
games, including Haunted House and Roller Coaster Tycoon, and it has
a slew of additional games set to be released this fall.

*Social Gambling*

Online gambling for real money may be illegal in the United States
today, but in Europe and elsewhere, the market is growing
exponentially. One research firm, Juniper Research, recently estimated
that by 2018, 164 million people will be playing mobile gambling games,
from slot machine games to poker. “We want to be there,” Chesnais says.

To do that, Atari is partnering with two gaming startups already
working in the gambling game space. FlowPlay, the company behind the
game Vegas World, will work with the company to build Atari Casino,
a social casino game in which players can play for virtual money, while
another startup called Pariplay will build a game of the same name
where players bet with real money.

Entering the mobile gambling market, Chesnais says, will let Atari
reach audiences who might never otherwise have played one of its games.

*Lights, Camera, Action*

Perhaps the biggest departure for Atari is the launch of Atari TV,
which will create original video content for YouTube and elsewhere.
According to Chesnais: “We’re not just competing against gaming
companies anymore. At the end of the day, it’s a competition for
the user’s time.” For younger audiences, YouTube dominates that time.

The first big project for Atari TV is a daily video blog called
TheRealPele.com that trails Pele, the soccer phenom, throughout the
upcoming World Cup in Brazil. But this, Chesnais says, is just the
entry point into what he sees as a booming online video market.
“We have to be there,” he says. “We cannot ignore another revolution.”
____________________________________
  Switch to threaded view of this topic Create a new topic Submit Reply
Previous Topic: Adventure game mystery!
Next Topic: SAVE 20% ON ATARI GAMES/SOFTWARE & BOOKS!
Goto Forum:
  

-=] Back to Top [=-
[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ] [ PDF ]

Current Time: Thu Mar 28 05:46:50 EDT 2024

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.01278 seconds