Atari has revived Infogrames !

[TopDrawer]

9 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

That is my point. People say Nightdive/Digital Eclipse and Atari are a good match because the former are developers without (much) IP, and Atari has IP, but aren´t developers. But neither needs each other, as the former can license IP, and the latter can partner with developers.

It's a way to diversify their streams of revenue, I think. You can only go so far with lincensing your IPs until you hit a ceiling.

[Matt_B]

Yeah, license deals don't always work out for the best. It takes time, is a competitive process where you can be outbid, and there are rules to follow. The process can be a lot more streamlined if your IP is under the same roof.

 

Just look at what happened with Baldur's Gate 3. The game was a massive hit, but won't get any DLC or a sequel because Wizards of the Coast decided to yank back the D&D license, and all the added value to the franchise is now theirs.

[Lord Mushroom]

5 hours ago, Matt_B said:

Yeah, license deals don't always work out for the best. It takes time, is a competitive process where you can be outbid, and there are rules to follow. The process can be a lot more streamlined if your IP is under the same roof.

IP-holders come to Digital Eclipse when they want them to make a game, not the other way around. Atari clearly didn´t need to own Digital Eclipse for them to make their 50 year Anniversary game.

 

Nightdive Studios handpick IP they are interested in, and didn´t have any problem using Atari IP when they made Blood. Again, owning Nightdive was not necessary for getting the game made.

 

I see two possible ways Atari can handle the ownership of these two companies:

1) They leave them alone, and they carry on as they would have without being owned by Atari.

2) Atari forces them to make more games based on Atari-owned IP.

 

Number one is the lesser evil, but makes the purchase pointless from a synergy perspective. Although I do realize that ownership makes using Atari IP more streamlined, if they actually want to use it.

 

6 hours ago, Matt_B said:

Just look at what happened with Baldur's Gate 3. The game was a massive hit, but won't get any DLC or a sequel because Wizards of the Coast decided to yank back the D&D license, and all the added value to the franchise is now theirs.

That is the advantage of the IP-holder. I would imagine that that very fact makes licensing cheaper than it otherwise would have been, thus eliminating that advantage of buying the IP.

 

It is of course better to own a lot of IP and developers, than not to do so. But let us not forget that it comes at a price.

[roots.genoa]

3 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I see two possible ways Atari can handle the ownership of these two companies:

1) They leave them alone, and they carry on as they would have without being owned by Atari.

2) Atari forces them to make more games based on Atari-owned IP.

 

Number one is the lesser evil, but makes the purchase pointless from a synergy perspective. Although I do realize that ownership makes using Atari IP more streamlined, if they actually want to use it.

What Rosen also explained in an interview, is that Atari deals with the licensing, the financing, the logistics, so that Nightdive and Digital Eclipse can focus on development. Of course, in exchange Atari gets a cut. Seems fair to me.

[Lord Mushroom]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

What Rosen also explained in an interview, is that Atari deals with the licensing, the financing, the logistics, so that Nightdive and Digital Eclipse can focus on development. Of course, in exchange Atari gets a cut. Seems fair to me.

It sounds good, but I don´t think it will work out that way. If Atari gets involved with the business side of their operations, I think that will gradually result in Atari exerting influence on decisions. If there is disagreement of whether or not a project should be made, who do you think will win the argument?

 

Increased financing, in itself, is a good thing if those companies have profitable projects waiting that they couldn´t do without extra funding. But they didn´t need Atari for that. They could have offered new shares, and Wade and others would have been interested. No need to get Atari involved.

[zzip]

On 6/13/2024 at 6:30 AM, Lord Mushroom said:

Maybe it is less known than I thought, although I have the impression it is one of those games that has become more known with time.

 

That's probably true.    It might be well regarded by the people who like vector games.

 

On 6/13/2024 at 6:30 AM, Lord Mushroom said:

I can´t name a video game company that became successful through buying IP, they all got successful from creating and/or licensing IP.

Are you talking studio or publisher?   It's hard to think of studios that pulled this off,  but many of the big publishers acquired IP over the years.

[zzip]

5 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I see two possible ways Atari can handle the ownership of these two companies:

1) They leave them alone, and they carry on as they would have without being owned by Atari.

2) Atari forces them to make more games based on Atari-owned IP.

I think there's a third option.   Acquisitions like this help raise the credibility of the Atari name from laughing stock pushing crypto stuff to a more respectable name in the gaming industry again.   That could help attract higher quality developers looking for distribution deals.

 

47 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

It sounds good, but I don´t think it will work out that way. If Atari gets involved with the business side of their operations, I think that will gradually result in Atari exerting influence on decisions. If there is disagreement of whether or not a project should be made, who do you think will win the argument?

Well this tends to happen no matter who is in charge of the business side anyway.

But yeah companies do tend to gradually change over time.  They start out small and friendly and want their developers to have freedom and eventually become  monstrosities that bear little resemblance to the company they were.  Look at EA or Activision.

[zzip]

On 6/12/2024 at 5:57 PM, Giles N said:

Atari should do more with Lego - a better 2600 if that is the big seller - and provide it with more games (even if not strictly limited to 2600-alone), and have the ‘toy world’ for each game much more complete: the protagonist, all enemies, backdrop, buildings, or astronomical objects and all the rest, very neatly lined up as nice toys for kids to ‘play the game-world’ with physical action-figurines and settings to build or rearrange’.

Essentially a Lego Atari 2600+ both as to games’ and toys’ contents.

I think Lego is doing a series of iconic consoles,  I don't see why they'd come back to Atari for another 2600, and I don't think any of their other consoles are iconic enough to a mainstream audience.

[Lord Mushroom]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Are you talking studio or publisher?   It's hard to think of studios that pulled this off,  but many of the big publishers acquired IP over the years.

I am talking about both. They start out without any IP, become very successful, find themselves with a lot of money, many of them then buy IP, and some of them manage that IP well. But it wasn´t purchased IP that made them big.

[Lord Mushroom]

1 hour ago, zzip said:

Acquisitions like this help raise the credibility of the Atari name from laughing stock pushing crypto stuff to a more respectable name in the gaming industry again.   That could help attract higher quality developers looking for distribution deals.

That is a double-edged sword, though. If Nightdive/Digital Eclipse´s good games are good for Atari´s bad name, then Atari´s bad name is bad for Nightdive/Digital Eclipse´s game sales.

[zzip]

17 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

That is a double-edged sword, though. If Nightdive/Digital Eclipse´s good games are good for Atari´s bad name, then Atari´s bad name is bad for Nightdive/Digital Eclipse´s game sales.

Maybe if the name was always bad.  Luckily people still associate the Atari name with past glories and love a comeback story.   I also don't think a lot of people outside forums like this are all that aware of the Chesnais era

 

27 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I am talking about both. They start out without any IP, become very successful, find themselves with a lot of money, many of them then buy IP, and some of them manage that IP well. But it wasn´t purchased IP that made them big.

But in Atari's case it's not all purchased IP either.   Problem is their old portfolio doesn't give a whole lot to work with for modern games.  Too many single-concept games, with generic titles.   They are trying to make some unlikely titles modern with Yars Rising and Lunar Lander Beyond

[Lord Mushroom]

2 hours ago, zzip said:

Maybe if the name was always bad.  Luckily people still associate the Atari name with past glories and love a comeback story.   I also don't think a lot of people outside forums like this are all that aware of the Chesnais era

You can´t have the cake and eat it too. Either Atari has a bad name or not.

 

2 hours ago, zzip said:

But in Atari's case it's not all purchased IP either.   Problem is their old portfolio doesn't give a whole lot to work with for modern games.  Too many single-concept games, with generic titles.   They are trying to make some unlikely titles modern with Yars Rising and Lunar Lander Beyond

I am saying Atari has to come up with something new if they want to be a big company again. Instead of asking developers which IP they would like to use, they should come up with a new idea that is not based on IP, and find a developer to make that. And then maybe tack a familiar name to it for extra publicity, if it feels right.

 

Lunar Lander Beyond was a decent attempt at turning an old IP into a modern game, though.

 

But being a retro company won´t make them big. Think about all the low budget high potential games they could have made for the money they have spent on retro purchases. 

[zzip]

5 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

You can´t have the cake and eat it too. Either Atari has a bad name or not.

A few years ago during the crypto/hotel phase, I argued that what they were doing with the crazy licensing made sense,  the name was worth something, but they had no real games with promise, other than Roller Coaster Tycoon and they weren't even doing a good job on that one.  Atari in that form would never be able to attract Indie talent that could deliver the next big thing.    I even remember saying the only hope Atari would have of being a credible gaming company was if some multimillionaire came along and wanted to revive the Atari name as a pet project.  Because it would take a lot of money to get them there.

 

I never expected such a thing to happen, but then Rosen started doing exactly that.    Atari is a name that people like even if the company has had its bad eras.    You can even see young people walking around with Atari T-shirts.

 

You have to make the company credible again and you will attract better developers.   And that's happening to an extent.  The team behind Yar's Rising is pretty well regarded.

 

 

16 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I am saying Atari has to come up with something new if they want to be a big company again. Instead of asking developers which IP they would like to use, they should come up with a new idea that is not based on IP, and find a developer to make that. And then maybe tack a familiar name to it for extra publicity, if it feels right.

 

Lunar Lander Beyond was a decent attempt at turning an old IP into a modern game, though.

I do think Atari should take the few names it has with franchise potential and use them.    Build out a Star Raiders universe and release space games under that,  fantasy games under "SwordQuest" brand,  make Bentley Bear their "Mario" and so on.     But it's going to take a lot of work to establish them, and really this should have been done decades ago.

 

23 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

But being a retro company won´t make them big. Think about all the low budget high potential games they could have made for the money they have spent on retro purchases.

Some of the companies they acquired are doing modern things, and I think they need a mix of old and new until they find something that works for them.

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, Lord Mushroom said:

You can´t have the cake and eat it too. Either Atari has a bad name or not.

This is black/white thinking.

 

Atari can have a overall positive vibe to their name and logo, for common gamers thinking about everything positive done under the Atari Logo the last 50 years, but also having taken some serious beating on certain decisions, releases and absence from the headlines.

 

A name can be ‘stained’ without being completely undone.

Edited June 14 by Giles N

[Giles N]

1 hour ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Think about all the low budget high potential games they could have made for the money they have spent on retro purchases. 

Can you list all the ‘high potential’ ones?

 

High potential, provided a genius game-dev.-company made something cool, or ‘high potential’ by recognition/fame of the IP/title…?

 

—

 

It’s sort of like now, people will begin to think about Atari in relation to games like Dark Forces and The Thing.

 

Aren’t those more easy to recognize for broader audiences than Major Havoc or Food Fight (I think both are cool personally, - I just never-ever came across them before collecting for the 7800 and getting the Atari 50th).

 

Dark Forces was cool stuff when FPS were in the hot-spot of gaming and Star Wars not ruined (<— my own personal/subjective taste for story-telling).

The Thing is a famous, classic horror movie.

 

Edited June 14 by Giles N

[Lord Mushroom]

14 hours ago, zzip said:

You have to make the company credible again and you will attract better developers. The team behind Yar's Rising is pretty well regarded.

Wade has done that through cutting down on the shady stuff, and making more and better games. Nightdive and Digital Eclipse were barely bought before WayForward decided to use Atari IP, if at all.

 

I can see the marginal benefit to Atari´s brand of publishing Nightdive and Digital Eclipse games. But I can also see that there is a downside to Nightdive and Digital Eclipse for having to use Atari as their publisher. Unless Atari is their first choice of publisher.

 

14 hours ago, zzip said:

I do think Atari should take the few names it has with franchise potential and use them.

I would have said so too, but when they have lost so much money in the period where they did just that, it just seems crazy to continue.

 

14 hours ago, zzip said:

Build out a Star Raiders universe and release space games under that,  fantasy games under "SwordQuest" brand, 

I can see that potentially working, but then they have to change the Recharged approach, as it isn´t working. They have to put more money into it. Go big or go home. I don´t think that will work either, though, as the IP isn´t big enough to draw a big crowd. The games will have to be good to work. Good in the eyes of non-Atari fans.

 

14 hours ago, zzip said:

make Bentley Bear their "Mario" and so on.

I think trying to make Bentley Bear their mascot is like polishing a turd. Very few have heard of him, and people would find him lame. It is better to come up with something new, or make Bubsy work.

[Lord Mushroom]

14 hours ago, Giles N said:

This is black/white thinking.

The brand is obviously a shade of grey, but the grey is either closer to black or white.

[Lord Mushroom]

14 hours ago, Giles N said:

High potential, provided a genius game-dev.-company made something cool, or ‘high potential’ by recognition/fame of the IP/title…?

The former.

 

I see IP-free games like qomp2 and Kombinera as promising. Games with original gameplay (to my knowledge). Those kinds of games are likely to fail too, but they also have a tiny chance of becoming huge. The graphic wasn´t quite good enough, and there are no mascots, but gameplay has/had potential.

 

Another route to success is doing something that has been done with success before, but do it better. Lunar Lander Beyond had a potential to do well on smartphones and tablets. But there is too little happening, the main draw of the game (the physics) disappears when you get wings and I don´t think it is even available on smartphones and tablets.

 

Whatever the approach, the game has to be something you can imagine millions playing on their smartphone, tablet, console or PC.

 

The video game industry is very tough, so it won´t be easy.

[Lord Mushroom]

14 hours ago, Giles N said:

It’s sort of like now, people will begin to think about Atari in relation to games like Dark Forces and The Thing.

 

Aren’t those more easy to recognize for broader audiences than Major Havoc or Food Fight

Yes, but remakes have a limited potential. But for an original game, the sky is the limit.

[roots.genoa]

1 hour ago, Lord Mushroom said:

The brand is obviously a shade of grey, but the grey is either closer to black or white.

No, it's more complex than that. Atari's perception really depends on who you're asking. I think Atari still has a good image, albeit a "retro" one, for the mainstream audience. It's only tarnished for hardcore gamers that followed Chesnais' antics. Most people aren't aware of that. I agree with zzip here.

Edited June 15 by roots.genoa

[Lord Mushroom]

45 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

No, it's more complex than that. Atari's perception really depends on who you're asking. I think Atari still has a good image, albeit a "retro" one, for the mainstream audience. It's only tarnished for hardcore gamers that followed Chesnais' antics. Most people aren't aware of that. I agree with zzip here.

People have different opinions, but I am talking about the overall (average) feeling towards the brand.

[Giles N]

4 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

The brand is obviously a shade of grey, but the grey is either closer to black or white.

So, where on the scale do you believe Atari is now? 
 

4 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

18 hours ago, Giles N said:

High potential, provided a genius game-dev.-company made something cool, or ‘high potential’ by recognition/fame of the IP/title…?

The former.

 

4 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

doing something that has been done with success before, but do it better. Lunar Lander Beyond had a potential

…so what Atari need is to secure a studio or several studious that are really, really good at turning old IPs into truly brilliant stuff…?

 

Any ideas how they’d go about it…?

 

 

Edited June 15 by Giles N

[Giles N]

3 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

Yes, but remakes have a limited potential. But for an original game, the sky is the limit.

For originals it couid also be that the abyss is the ‘limit’ in other direction… and if then go-all-in with your money, you may have a problem…

 

I don’t see how ‘doing quality remakes’  as one major line of what the brand is now doing to be untimely.

Haven’t both System Shock and Dark Forces actually made Atari some money?

 

They may run out of big games to remake, but then Atari could have gotten enough money to use Nightdive to do stuff for their own games/IP.

Edited June 15 by Giles N

[Lord Mushroom]

16 minutes ago, Giles N said:

So, where on the scale do you believe Atari is now?

I would say the good side. It is still very recognizable, and well liked amongst many of the ones who remember the good old days. The people who dislike Atari are too few to undo that.

 

21 minutes ago, Giles N said:

…so what they need is to secure a studio of several studious that are really, really good at turning old IPs into truly brilliant stuff…?

 

Any ideas how they’d go about it…?

They don´t need to buy a studio. If Atari has good ideas, they can contact competent developers to develop them. If they don´t have ideas, they can publicly announce that they are looking for developers to pitch ideas to them.

 

I still don´t think it wil succeed, but if they want to make games outside of Nightdive and Digital Eclipse, I think that is the best approach.

 

I should say that when I say improve on a previous successes, I don´t necessarily mean using the IP. Just make a similar type of game. Lunar Lander Beyond didn´t need the Lunar Lander IP to be made, just to get the name and possibly some minor stuff.

[Lord Mushroom]

28 minutes ago, Giles N said:

For originals it couid also be that the abyss is the ‘limit’ in other direction… 

True, there is more variance with original games. But my point is that remakes are a grind. They are not the path to Atari´s return as a big company. Even if Nightdive and Digital Eclipse are able to increase profits every year, it will be a gradual process. And competitors will arise to make things harder for them before they have made Atari big again.

 

With original games there is a chance of becoming big overnight.

 

36 minutes ago, Giles N said:

I don’t see how ‘doing quality remakes’  as one major line of what the brand is now doing to be intimely.

Given that they now own Nightdive and Digital Eclipse, those companies should continue doing that, as they are presumably profitable. Atari´s own games seem unprofitable (as a whole), and should therefore cease to be made.

 

41 minutes ago, Giles N said:

They may run out of big games to remake, 

I don´t think they will ever do that. There are so many old games out there.