Atari Acquires Accolade Brand and IP to Over 100 Games

[82-T/A]

31 minutes ago, Warboss Gegguz said:

It genuinely feels like their choice of IPs to liquidate during their bankruptcy filings were possibly some of the worst IPs to sell. Especially since they didn't put Alone in the Dark up for grabs until 2018 when that's probably the most valuable IP they had at the time outside of maybe Rollercoaster Tycoon and their retro library. Like, I get that's how bankruptcy works, but they basically sold SUPER valuable Ips for dirt purely because THEY hadn't done anything with them in a while, rather than selling them based on their actual brand value.

"Well, TD:U 2 didn't do amazing, may as well sell the ENTIRE IP for a few mill." "Well, Battlezone on XBLA wasn't a perfect game, so let's just ditch one of the most famous Arcade IPs ever for less than a million dollars."

 

I mean, clearly they also think that if they've done everything they can to buy them back from the people they sold them to.

 

My guess is that they had to sell the things that would actually net them some money, and I'm guessing people didn't really care about Battlezone at the time. But yeah, as you say... that's the nature of a bankruptcy. You have to pay your debtors, and sometimes that's getting rid of a few really important things, rather than a lot of less important things. Especially if you're in no shape to be doing anything with those few important things.

[Lord Mushroom]

I think it wasn´t the whole company that went bankrupt, just the historical Atari part and some more, so Test Drive and Alone in the Dark couldn´t have been for sale in the bankruptcy if they belonged to a different part of the company.

 

Also, I don´t know if they ever owned Rollercoaster Tyccoon. They currently license the rights to it from the developer of the original game.

[Warboss Gegguz]

11 minutes ago, 82-T/A said:

My guess is that they had to sell the things that would actually net them some money, and I'm guessing people didn't really care about Battlezone at the time.

The thing is though, as me and another dude talked about, their bankruptcy listing grouped ALL of their retro IPs together... except Battlezone. And you might assume that that in turn means Battlezone was valued significantly higher than the others, but no. It's value tracks with the their other arcade IPs that were bundled together in their legacy collection, they just sold it isolated rather than requiring it to be grouped together. And even going with the idea that $250,000 was only the starting bid and it could increase over time, that's still like SHOCKINGLY low for such a large name.

 

And even if you say "well it's an old and kinda niche IP," The starting bid for the entire Test Drive IP was only 1.5 Mil. So while I'm certain it was out of desperation, it still feels like they grossly undervalued a lot of what they sold off. I would assume that was done as a sort of means too spike interest in their auction, but that came at the cost of losing huge names for an extremely low payout. It's a case of desperation in the short term leading to some REALLY bad long-term decisions. Which, I mean, is unavoidable and understandable tbh. I just wish they weren't the IPs I liked, let alone that they went for so cheap, lol.

 

Like, no shade towards them, but the idea that Rebellion paid less than a million dollars for the entire Battlezone series (the arcade game, 2000, the RTS series, and the various reboots/rereleases) and managed to get 2 extremely successful rereleases and a sold high-selling PSVR launch title (which in turn would come with a check from Sony for timed exclusivity) out of it is clearly a pretty big fuck-up in retrospect... but in the short term they were just focused on paying off creditors. Not to mention this was the prelude to their whole "diversification" shitshow throughout the rest of the 2010s.

 

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the success of BattleZone Gold played a part in the creation of the Recharged series, since it's essentially the same concept but on a WAY bigger scale. I just wish Classic Mode was an actual decomp/port of the OG instead of a weird pseudo-remake of it.

 

I know people are probably sick of me talking about battlezone, but it and Tempest are may favorite Atari games so it will always kind of sting unless they re-acquire it somehow. Or at least work something out with Rebellion. Hell, I'd pay for DLC to Atari 50 if that's what it takes, idc.

The shortcut to my copy of BZ-G is still in an "Atari" folder on my computer because I still can't accept it, lol.

[Warboss Gegguz]

Just now, Lord Mushroom said:

I think it wasn´t the whole company that went bankrupt, just the historical Atari part and some more, so Test Drive and Alone in the Dark couldn´t have been for sale in the bankruptcy if they belonged to a different part of the company.

Nah, TD was listed, it just didn't get finalized until 2016. It was one of the highest listings for an individual series behind Rollercoaster Tycoon. Alone in the Dark however (which is in retrospect probably the absolute biggest and most well known contribution Infogrames made to gaming as a whole) wasn't even in the initial auction. And IIRC the deal to sell it to Embracer/THQ Nordic was inked after they had already exited or were in the process of exiting bankruptcy.

 

With that in mind, maybe they just didn't want to sell it for dirt, so put off selling it until they had some actual bargaining power? IDK, I can't find how much they actually sold it for. I just know Nordic got it in 2018 and we're getting a new entry in 2024.

I hope they got a lot for it between its legacy and the fact the genre of survival horror has been hot as fuck since the mid 2010s and ESPECIALLY now, but looking at the original auction I doubt it.

It's like if Konami sold Silent Hill for 2 mil or something, lol.

[Lord Mushroom]

12 minutes ago, Warboss Gegguz said:

I can't find how much they actually sold it for. I just know Nordic got it in 2018 and we're getting a new entry in 2024.

I hope they got a lot for it between its legacy and the fact the genre of survival horror has been hot as fuck since the mid 2010s and ESPECIALLY now, but looking at the original auction I doubt it.

It's like if Konami sold Silent Hill for 2 mil or something, lol.

 

Alone in the Dark and Act of War were sold for €735k, according to their financial statement.

Edited December 23, 2023 by Lord Mushroom

[Warboss Gegguz]

4 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

 

Alone in the Dark and Act of War were sold for €735k, according to their financial statement.

Wow... less than $1,000,000 even when the euro was stronger... for BOTH of them.

God, this company was such a shitshow in the 2010s.

[+Stephen]

2 hours ago, Warboss Gegguz said:

Wow... less than $1,000,000 even when the euro was stronger... for BOTH of them.

God, this company was such a shitshow in the 2010s.

Just maintaining the tradition of when good ol' Jack reverse merged with JTS (hard drive manufacturer).  Burying the company and walking away with many millions in he process.

[zzip]

On 12/22/2023 at 9:40 PM, Warboss Gegguz said:

I know they split off of Activision and they had bubsy. And yeah, I don't play sports game so idk.

Also, I thought infogrames owned the Test Drive series. Or was that a different Test Drive series?

Accolade started the Test Drive series,  Infrogrames acquired both Atari and Accolade.   Atari lost it in the bankruptcy sales.   The Test Drive franchise got sold off at some point

[Warboss Gegguz]

17 hours ago, Stephen said:

Just maintaining the tradition of when good ol' Jack reverse merged with JTS (hard drive manufacturer).  Burying the company and walking away with many millions in he process.

I mean at least the Tramiels gave Atari 3 consoles, an at the time bleeding-edge line of PCs, and a handheld that wasn't surpassed in horsepower until the GBA and Wonderswan. And he was wise enough to cut Atari Games loose which let them work under Namco and the like to far greater success than the actual Atari Corporation. Ya know, not ruining a video game company by making them work on things other than Video Games.

This? I can't even see someone making a decent amounts of money from this kind of management even if it were meant to be totally self-serving. That's what's so insane about it to me.

 

Like, Konami are greedy assholes, but I can at least rationalize what they do by them being SMART greedy assholes. 2010s Atari SA is just people who seem to actively have no clue about the industry their entire company is based in... which I guess is why they tried to minimize their video game involvement until the VCS and the like rolled around. That's the only explanation I can have for the prices they listed their IPs for. Hell, I would say Rollercoaster Tycoon was overvalued if anything. And the fact it's been completely demolished in sales next to shit like Project Coaster shows that. There's so little to be done with it, and what you could've done has already been done by competitors better than Atari ever could.

They have/had no fucking idea what they were selling realistically. Like, I thought Battlezone for $250,000 was infuriating, but at least I can kind of justify that as an arcade IP. Alone in the Dark is literally the first modern Survival Horror series and known the world over. The brand recognition itself is massive even if the reception to the 08 game was negative.

And it was sold for less than a dated Amusement Park Sim series while they shifted focus to a DOA streaming box and crypto-bro bullshit. And I don't care if anyone here turns into a little pissbaby over me being honest and realistic about the VCS, fuckin COPE!

 

The only positive thing is that AitD is hopefully in hands that actually care and know what they're doing with it.

[+Sauron]

58 minutes ago, Warboss Gegguz said:

And it was sold for less than a dated Amusement Park Sim series while they shifted focus to a DOA streaming box and crypto-bro bullshit. And I don't care if anyone here turns into a little pissbaby over me being honest and realistic about the VCS, fuckin COPE!

Is that attitude really necessary? Are you really that devoid of attention that you need to go out of your way to angle for a fight with people who disagree with you?

 

[Bill Loguidice]

11 minutes ago, Sauron said:

Is that attitude really necessary? Are you really that devoid of attention that you need to go out of your way to angle for a fight with people who disagree with you?

 

It's not simply because this is a different regime. The previous regime was responsible for the ridiculous VCS, speaker hat, game show, hotel, cryptbro, etc., stuff. That's like blaming the current Atari for the failure of the Jaguar. 

 

Atari will never be the same level it was, and it hasn't been since Warners sold it off, but I can certainly respect the more practical and reasoned approach the current regime is taking with various decisions. Even supporting the VCS way beyond what it deserves (based on sales volume that we all knew were going to be what they were) is commendable. Others would have cut bait long ago.

[Warboss Gegguz]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Is that attitude really necessary?

 

After I had an entire thread get mad at me for even suggesting that maybe supporting the VCS isn't the most amazing decision going forward if Atari wants to make money, yes. 

I'm not looking to fight, I'm looking to say I don't give a shit if you disagree with reality. You want a well thought out case, go read P-dubs other thread.

[+Sauron]

14 minutes ago, Warboss Gegguz said:

After I had an entire thread get mad at me for even suggesting that maybe supporting the VCS isn't the most amazing decision going forward if Atari wants to make money, yes. 

I'm not looking to fight, I'm looking to say I don't give a shit if you disagree with reality. You want a well thought out case, go read P-dubs other thread.

Right. The whole thread. Sometimes I wonder if zoomers just don't have the mental capacity to deal with disagreements on forums, and I'd have to point to this as a prime example. If you want to head off further arguments, simply ignore them and move on. What you wrote is begging those you disagreed with to continue the argument.

 

[Warboss Gegguz]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Right. The whole thread. Sometimes I wonder if zoomers just don't have the mental capacity to deal with disagreements on forums, and I'd have to point to this as a prime example. If you want to head off further arguments, simply ignore them and move on. What you wrote is begging those you disagreed with to continue the argument.

 

feel free to read, since you clearly havent.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

[+Sauron]

2 hours ago, Warboss Gegguz said:

feel free to read, since you clearly havent.

You completely missed the point, my friend. Tone down the hostile 'tude and you'll probably have some more fulfilling convos around these parts.

 

[+jeremiahjt]

On 4/20/2023 at 10:59 AM, jgkspsx said:

These were the games Tommo bought out of the Atari bankruptcy:

 

I was just looking at this, and I noticed something I do not think I ever noticed or knew before.  The Lynx game Robo-Squash was sold off when Warbirds was.  I see Tank in there also, was this the original Tank arcade game?  We know Warbirds came back with this acquisition, did Robo-Squash and Tank also come back?

 

This was pointed out to me by somebody else, but all the games on the list on the right were also at least also partially owned by Firaxis, which is now owned by Take-Two Interactive.

 

I also see that Iron Soldier was marked through.

[+jgkspsx]

5 minutes ago, jeremiahjt said:

I see Tank in there also, was this the original Tank arcade game?  We know Warbirds came back with this acquisition, did Robo-Squash and Tank also come back?

I think it is the arcade game. My understanding was that Atari had bought back everything Tommo had owned but I might have misunderstood that. 

[+jeremiahjt]

1 minute ago, jgkspsx said:

I think it is the arcade game. My understanding was that Atari had bought back everything Tommo had owned but I might have misunderstood that. 

I recall that being hinted at, but I do not remember it ever being explicitly stated.  I guess we can try to ask @TrogdarRobusto, but I doubt we get a straight answer.

 

I do wonder why Robo-Squash, Warbirds, and Tank were lumped in with those other ips.

[+jeremiahjt]

Atari had applied for trademarks for both Warbirds and Tank, so I think it is safe to assume Tank was bought back by Atari.

 

No confirmation for Robo-Squash, but I would guess it too was part of the acquisition and Atari did not feel a need to apply for a trademark for it.