Why the hate for the Tramiels?

[ninjarabbit]

I can understand why some people didn't agree with their style of management and some of their business decisions but what they did do is keep Atari alive for another 10 years or so. If Atari had stayed with Warner Bros chances are it would have died in 84 or 85 and there would be no Jaguar, Lynx, 7800, or computers so at the very least we should be grateful for that.

[Needles Kane]

That's true, but if Atari had been sold to a smarter buyer (being smarter than the Tramiels doesn't take much) then it would have been around for much longer.

[Mindfield]

For starters, the Tramiels idea of advertising was to do as little as possible as cheaply as possible. Let's face it: How many Atari commercials do you remember seeing with any significant frequency after Jack took over? I saw about two ... one Power Without The Price ad for the ST, and I saw the Jaguar AvP ad a couple of times. Oh, and I may have seen one of the Lynx ads once. So, three.

 

Then there was the fact that the Tramiels had a very bad habit of burning bridges with dealer networks, thus crippling the distribution of product. And don't get me started on some of the dumb decisions that were made, especially after Jack retired and handed the load down to his sons, who were even more adept at buffoonery than he himself was.

 

I may not have liked Ray Kassar's helmsmanship at Atari, but I'd still take autocrasy over stupidity if it came down to it.

[Ferris]

I beg to differ. The Tramiels did not "keep Atari alive for another ten years" they helped facilitate its slow and painful death through some very dimwitted decisions. That's all there is to it.

 

To Jack Tramiel's credit...

 

- He put out a wonderful line of computers with the ST.

- He brought the Handy over from EPYX and gave us the Lynx.

- He gave us a 64-Bit game system years ahead of anyone else.

 

However that's just Jack. His three sons were asses. They did nothing to advance Atar. At all. They lived in their own little world, pretending they were senior executive level types when infact they had simply been brought in by their dad to help him with his new project like kids helping their dad paint the garage. I have no problem with a business owner bringing his family into the company. Sounds nice on paper. But once in, you should help PROMOTE your company, not work against it by pissing in the eye of Atari Coin-Op and allowing Nintendo to use la costa nostra tactics to gain an 80% market share foothold.

 

Gary was the biggest ass in the building. He spent two hours a day at Atari and the rest of the day being manicured at the spa. (seriously.) Leonard would make the case to developers that they should get out of the business because video games were evil. Meanwhile they are touting Primal Rage. The sons were always infighting, Jack never had things organized well and morale was low among many employees at this time due to Atari's dismal position compared to their industry leadership of five and ten years prior, as well as Jack's unwillingness to invest hardly anything in marketing to push for a comeback. Atari was nothing but relic of its once glorious self, meanwhile Jack, Leonard, Gary and Sam are all screaming at each other in the hall while Larry Segal tries his damndest to keep things moving forward.

 

Everybody I know that knew Jack on both a personal and professional level all use similar language to describe him. "Oh now HE was one arrogant motherf****r!" .... "Boy was this guy arrogant, WOW!" .... "He thought he was GOD! Unbelievable!" Meanwhile they still admired his cunning business tactics that were used during Commodore's heyday.

 

Jack brought over a sleazy mentality from his days at Commodore. Before he was at Atari, Jack had a "work out room" at Commodore where his staff could excercise, except for the two hours a day where Jack would be in there with alone with any given female employee. You wanna cheat on your wife? Fine. Meanwhile your company is going down the toilet while your sons sit at their desk dicking around snorting coke. Nice. That's how you fail.

 

Yep! So thanks Jack for twelve glorious years before you fold the once great Atari into a reverse merger with a tiny hard-drive manufacturer and piss away a great empire! Thanks for engineering some of the worlds fines computers and game hardware, and doing EVERYTHING you could to promote it both in America and abroad. Your leadership was like a beacon sending out a shining light of hope to all those who believed in Atari. You are the MilliVanilli of the business world, you ass.

 

BTW, if anyone wishes to contact the Tramiels, they are publicly listed. You can find them very easily on switchboard.com just by typing in Tramiel and searching CA. Nothing secretive about that.

 

 

Switchboard

[Bruce Tomlin]

Yeah, where's all the hate for Ray Kassar?

 

Oh wait. If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have had Activision.

[Gregory DG]

I don't think Jack was running the show when the Lynx was purcahsed and definitely wasn't in charge when the Jaguar was being researched and developed. Sam takes a lot of credit for those two systems.

 

I remember reading about how Jack threw a fit in the boardroom once when someone suggested releasing (the 7800 I think). He pushed everything off the table and screamed, "We're a COMPUTER company now!!!"

 

(In other words, Jack didn't like video games.)

[Atarifever]

I wish they would have given the company to me after Warner. Oh, we would still have went under, in fact, we'd have went under in only 2 years, but what a last two years. I'd have ran so many ads and had so many products on the store shelves you'd have been tripping over 7800s only to land on a pile of 7800s. There'd have been so many ads that if someone were to suddenly be zapped into our time from the past they would think that "1984" had come true and the Fuji was the face of big brother. Yep, for two years you wouldn't be able to move without being bombarded by Atari stuff. Then after I drove the company bankrupt I'd blame it all on some people who worked below me. It would still be bad, but at least I'd never have to hear my friends argue that the 7800 is in fact an older console than the 2600, because they think thier atari Jrs are the only thing ever to be called a 2600 and they remember getting that and never having heard of the 7800. Also, somehow they think that Atari went backwards so that when they made their first system they decided to cut the number of each newer model by 2600 so that the 7800 was first, the 5200 second, and the 2600 last. Anyway, now I'm off topic.

[Mindfield]

Activision was an outgrowth of Kassar being a complete asshole -- I've no love for the man except that his totalitarian leadership caused some very talented people to leave, form their own companies and release some very good stuff. In fact, if it weren't for Kassar, Jay Miner would probably still have been working for Atari and the Tramiels would never have inherited a company that would ultimately lose the majority of the computer war to Commodore and the Amiga.

 

But at least Kassar wasn't beating the company into the ground with a giant sledgehammer while he told developers and distributors to fuck off between blows. He was a ruthless businessman who didn't understand what it took to keep employees happy, but at least he had business sense. The Tramiels were just sleazy and retarded, and frankly the good hardware that came out of Atari post-crash happened in spite of them -- and let's face it, the most innovative of it wasn't even Atari's design to begin with. (Lynx: Epyx. Portfolio: DIP. Jaguar: Flare II)

Edited August 14, 2005 by Mindfield

[Ferris]

Yeah I probably should add that Ray Kassar was a self-centered well manicured bag of hot air, and that even Nolan was a shyster who would have run Atari into the ground had he not had wonderful management working at that time. At least Nolan was a creative risk taker with an imagination. Kassar, the Tramiels, JTS, Hasbro, and Infogrammes were anything but. James Morgan did some good for Atari in the short while he was in play but that was to little to late. (1983ish) From wild-eyed Nolan to the frenchies at Infogrammes, Atari has spent most of its life under horrific management and stands where it is today as a result.

 

Still, that doesn't stop Jack from being a huge douche, nor does it change the fact that he left Atari to hemorrhage for a decade while Nintendo, Sega and NEC redefined the home consumer video game market. Jack always kept changing game plans half way through the game. The plan from Summer 1984 on was to re-launch Atari as a home computer company a la Commodore, and all efforts were thrown behind the ST. Jack knocked the 7800 to the floor and called it garbage when he took over, and wanted nothing to do with video games. Two years later the ST is getting NO promotion what so ever, and Jack is trying to capitalize again on the home game market by re-issuing the 7800 and 2600 two or three years to late. That would be like Sega popping back up saying “oh yeah hey, Dreamcast is back!” It doesn’t work like that.

 

Then they had to re-design the Lynx. Then it was the Panther. Then it was the Jag. Then it was JagVR which he was unwilling to take a risk on. (could have saved the Jag) Then they were going to do Jag Duo and Jag 2. Then instead of supporting these systems they refocused back to home computers again. Then they sold out. That’s just schizophrenic as hell.

 

This whole thing just pisses me off. What a waste of time these people have been. I will never forgive them.

[Atarifever]

That would be like Sega popping back up saying “oh yeah hey, Dreamcast is back!”  It doesn’t work like that. 

911282[/snapback]

Am I the only one who thinks that that would actually be really cool? I think I'd faint.

[danwinslow]

The Tramiels were idiots.

 

The whole story of Atari is about brilliant engineers and stupid management. The management 'won'.

[Lord Thag]

Yep, the Trameils were twits. Still, we have a ton of classic systems/computers to fund our habits, so I guess we can't complain.

 

What I really wish is that Infogrames/Atari would get the picture. Tons of people are buying the flashback 1/2, Atari Aniversary Collection, Activision Anthology etc. I posted elsewhere that when I bought my FB 2 the other day, the people behind me in line went bonkers, and the entire line ran back and cleaned out the store!

 

If they were to take the FB 3 and make little carts for it, and market them in gamestores instead of the toy department, they would have a tidy little moneymaking business there.

 

Imagine little atari carts in gameboy/DS sized boxes selling for $10-$15 bucks, free (NEW) atari games as an incentive to reserve a new next gen Atari game. Imagine being able to see Thrust+, Starfire and the like sitting next to the next xbox game...

 

One can only hope...

[Mindfield]

Yep, the Trameils were twits. Still, we have a ton of classic systems/computers to fund our habits, so I guess we can't complain.

 

Sure we can. If it weren't for them we'd probably still have some form of current systems we'd be calling "classics" in ten or fifteen years time -- console and/or handheld. And like I said, the cool stuff that came out of Atari did so inspite of the Tramiels and were the results of talented engineers in R&D. The Tramiels just signed documents and yea'ed or nay'ed projects, then utterly failed to market them properly once the ones they yea'ed were ready for market. Sure, the Lynx lost out because the Game Boy was ultimately better on batteries and built like a tank, both points that appealed to parents in spite of any marketing Atari did or could have done. The Jaguar, that's a different story. They had ample opportunity to bring it -- their only immediate and significant competition was 3DO (32X doesn't count; it was late and hastily cobbled together and released with exactly zero games ready) and they had a machine that could have potentially stomped all over it and anything that could have come out after it. But they had crappy dev tools resulting in a steep learning curve that put developers off, they had little developer support (thanks once again to the Tramiels), they had a weak distribution network (yep, the Tramiels again), they released only just in time for the Christmas rush, but only in limited quantities and only in San Francisco and New York, and their advertising was few and far between, on few networks, and outside of prime time. They fell flat on every concievable level. If it weren't for Jeff Minter, Rebellion, and a handful of others the Jag would have died at the gate. As it was, it merely hobbled before stepping in a rut and breaking its leg.

 

And that's all at the Tramiels' sweaty feet. So yeah, I can complain.

 

What I really wish is that Infogrames/Atari would get the picture. Tons of people are buying the flashback 1/2, Atari Aniversary Collection, Activision Anthology etc. I posted elsewhere that when I bought my FB 2 the other day, the people behind me in line went bonkers, and the entire line ran back and cleaned out the store!

 

If they were to take the FB 3 and make little carts for it, and market them in gamestores instead of the toy department, they would have a tidy little moneymaking business there.

 

Imagine little atari carts in gameboy/DS sized boxes selling for $10-$15 bucks, free (NEW) atari games as an incentive to reserve a new next gen Atari game. Imagine being able to see Thrust+, Starfire and the like sitting next to the next xbox game...

 

One can only hope...

911431[/snapback]

 

As cool as that would be Infogrames see things pretty much as they are: Retrogaming is still a pretty small market best served by quick-fix plug-and-play solutions. Most consumers do not consider them in any way a serious investment of any sort; that's what Xbox, PS2 and GC are for. They can successfully market inexpensive, all-in-one products that cater to the nostalgic and curious alike, because the public are willing to spend a little to satisfy their yearning -- but they wouldn't be as accomodating to a more expensive concept that took cartridges just like the old days, if in a smaller package. The R&D and manufacturing costs wouldn't make it worthwhile when the market these are all aimed at probably wouldn't make them a significant profit.

[Lord Thag]

As cool as that would be Infogrames see things pretty much as they are: Retrogaming is still a pretty small market best served by quick-fix plug-and-play solutions. Most consumers do not consider them in any way a serious investment of any sort; that's what Xbox, PS2 and GC are for. They can successfully market inexpensive, all-in-one products that cater to the nostalgic and curious alike, because the public are willing to spend a little to satisfy their yearning -- but they wouldn't be as accomodating to a more expensive concept that took cartridges just like the old days, if in a smaller package. The R&D and manufacturing costs wouldn't make it worthwhile when the market these are all aimed at probably wouldn't make them a significant profit.

 

 

 

I disagree. They already have a unit that's set up for carts, the FB2. All they have to do is add the physical cart slot (probably a smaller one to avoid customer service problems with original carts). Sell it for the same price, and have 5 game multi carts for sale as well 'space pak 1' 'adventure pak II' etc. That way, they don't have to release a new FB every year, which wouls save money, and they could just re-release old games and new homebrew/hacks on cart. I think they would make money doing so. Hopefully, that's just what they'll do for the FB3

[carmel_andrews]

As i once saw printed somewhere, a few years after tramiel got his dirty mits on Atari... he wasn't interested in Atari period (to use an americanism, as a brit) Atari was simply a 'convenient ' tools tramiel used to wipe or rub CBM's and gould's nose in it, the wrong way.

 

Fact... warner didn't receive a 'penny' from tramiel, it was more a case of transferrance of Assets and shares

 

Fact... Over 3/4's of all Atari's R&D efforts were closed down of sold off under tramiel... I don't even want to think about the AMIGA

 

Fact...Continuing from the above entry, also that tramiel wasn't interested in the consoles, and the fact that most of Atari's development was in R&D which most of it was either closed down or sold off, which resulted in little or no product development, meant Atari went from an extremely product rich company to a 'product-less 'company

 

Fact... Warners had better offers for Atari, from Phillips and dare i say it CBM themselves

 

Ironic then that Philips (who also own magnavox, the original licensees of Ralph Baers 'Video Tennis' oddysey tv game system) is also a major investor/shareholder of Infogrammes (before they became/bought Atari) i think it was arround about the time that infogrammmes bought out Ocean software of Manchester (UK)... the founder of which now runs Atari's UK operations (in Hammersmith)

 

Another Ironic turn of Events... Just before Tramiel reverse mergered with JTS, one of the companies in the running for snapping up Atari's Assets were none other then...Activision

 

And just let everyone know, Activision and Imagic, whilst they were the first 'recognised' names to offically market/publish vcs compatible games in the US, they were not the first to get vcs compatible game onto dealers shelf space... i understand that, that credit goes to texas based new software company called 'games by appolo, a subsidiary of NCC/New career consultants

Edited August 15, 2005 by carmel_andrews

[JimmydelaKopin]

I hear most of this talk is faulting the management side or the technical side...but I think the real blame here is the idea of turning Atari into a "family business" when the family itself was dysfunctional, let alone incapable of handling a business.

 

I used to work for a family, the Zuppardos, that own a couple of grocery stores in the area where I live. The founder of the stores, Mr. Tony, still goes to the stores every day and still oversees a number of decisions and even occasionally deals with distributors personally--but he has over 50 years of experience in the grocery business.

The next generation--Roy, Peter,and Joey (who runs the grocery store furthest from my house)--were groomed into the business by Mr. Tony, and they bring their experiences of working at the lesser jobs with them as store managers now. Incidentally, Peter is also a practicing lawyer, and he brings that with him as well to running the Zuppardo's two-store chain.

The third generation, Jennifer, Joseph, and many others, were groomed into their positions running the stores under their parents by being made to work their way up. Joseph still remembers his first job at the store: shopping cart retrieval and grocery bagging as a teen.

 

The point is that each generation brings up the next in the business through observation and through direct experinece of 'coming up through the ranks'.

 

Contrast this with what happened with the Schweggmann family. The Schweggmann patriarch built up a multi-store chain in the GNO area for a number of decades...and then decided to retire and let his son take over.

His son with no practical experience in the grocery business. His son who's more interested in politics. His son who had a pot farm on the family estate.

In no time the stores start raising their prices, buying up new stores and building more stores, and begin oversaturating the area...while not being able to generate enough money to finish paying for all these buyouts. In less than a decade after the younger Schweggmann took over, the chain goes bankrupt and is now a faded memory in these parts.

 

The problem is that Jack Tramiel treated Atari like an heirloom instead of a business. Every time that happens to a business, it fails.

And that's what happened to Atari.

[ZylonBane]

Then it was JagVR which he was unwilling to take a risk on.  (could have saved the Jag)

It would have done no such thing. VR gaming was a fad that died out everywhere it cropped up.

[Famicoman]

That would be like Sega popping back up saying “oh yeah hey, Dreamcast is back!”  It doesn’t work like that. 

911282[/snapback]

Am I the only one who thinks that that would actually be really cool? I think I'd faint.

911322[/snapback]

Me too...Me too.

[emkay]

To Jack Tramiel's credit...

 

-  He put out a wonderful line of computers with the ST.

 

It's exactly the "ST" (Sam Tramiel... ooops. sixteen-thirtytwo ) Series that made me the Tramiels "hating" (not real, but refering to the thread).

 

As you may see in Curt Vendel's list of available Chips and plans for "new" computers before the Tramiel hijacking.... and then seeing the "cheap" C64 derivate dropped by Shiraz Shivji in 16 bit clothes with ATARI branding... loading "PRG"s..... One only could think : WTF has happended with ATARI.

Edited August 15, 2005 by emkay

[Mindfield]

I disagree. They already have a unit that's set up for carts, the FB2.

 

Thanks to Albert -- who is just as into the retro scene as we are. And as much as I hate to say it, he is not the demographic Infogrames are aiming at, nor are any of the rest of us. We're the hardcore retro gamers who love nothing better than to be told that a unit like this has pinouts for a real cart port so those hackers among us can revel in modding it to get it to accept real 2600 carts. But that was just a bone Infogrames agreed to throw in for us hardcore players at little extra development cost. Ultimately the rest of the console was aimed at the casual impulse gamer who sees it and fancies a bit of nostalgic replay. I'll agree that a repackaging and remarketing of custom multicarts and a real (if proprietary) cartridge port would open up very interesting possibilities even for the demographic it's aimed at -- make small, themed, easily marketed mutlicarts and sell them cheap. (The key word being cheap -- no one's going to want to spend half the price of the console on a pack of 5 additional games) It might work for the same reason silly gadgets like Hip Clips worked, but it would still only be a passing fad for that very reason.

 

 

Another Ironic turn of Events... Just before Tramiel reverse mergered with JTS, one of the companies in the running for snapping up Atari's Assets were none other then...Activision

 

Makes you wonder why Activision couldn't or wouldn't pony up the $7.5m to buy them. It's not like they couldn't have afford it, and frankly I think Activision probably could have done better with it. (Well, anyone could have done better than Hasbro did, but that's pretty much a given)

[snorlaxnut]

If this is true about what Jack Tramiel thought about the Sega Genesis, then I don't like him for another reason, besides screwing up Atari.

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28095

[shadow460]

If someone swept my hard work off their desk onto the floor, especially considering how physically fragile the 7800 is, we'd have some severe problems.

 

I'd probably have taken screenshots of 7800 games in development plus schematics for the 7800 and wallpapered Jack's office with them.

[Lauren Tyler]

The fact he got rid of 90% of the workforce, took what would bring Atari back up and threw it out, calling it garbage, and then eventually leading Atari to their demise is more than enough for me. Honestly, though, after grounding Commodore into the ground, one would think better than to sell it to a moron like him, but he promised them big bucks. Then he turned around and screwed them royally. Atari could've had a chance, but he ruined it because he was a greedy bastard.

 

And his bad temper and unprofessional management practices were even worse. Why the hell did they sell Atari to him?!

 

JACK TRAMIEL SUCKS!

Edited August 18, 2005 by LarcenTyler

[DracIsBack]

The Tramiels are hated because it's human nature to be an armchair CEO, even if one isn't living in the situation or have all the facts.

[ZylonBane]

If that were true, ALL CEOs of failed companies would be hated. Since they are not, your theory fails.