Which Atari? The company got cracked in half after Warner bought them.
One half went to Jack Tramiel, then the grave, then a hard drive manufacturer, then Hasbro, then the grave again, then Infogrames, then the grave for a third time, then some kind of middle-eastern finance-bro vaporware hell that eventually spat out a funky PC nobody bought. Apparently they’re re-releasing the 7800 inside a 2600 case. Straight-up forty-year-old technology that still uses 4 KB cartridges. Honestly it sounds great. Not like they own most of the classic franchises, after Infogrames started hocking them in desperation.
The other half went to Midway and made most of the Atari arcade games you’ve heard of. Okay: Midway was bought by Bally, Bally Midway was bought by Williams, Warner ejected their games division as an independent company, Williams bought that, Williams ejected their games division as an independent company, and the part that was still OG “Atari Games” ceased operations around the turn of the millennium. Midway proper closed a decade later and was shortly purchased by Warner… again. But unlike the dead-skin-mask situation with the other half of Atari, Warner just took all their shit and left. That’s why they publish Mortal Kombat now.
EA meanwhile acquired Origin and squeezed them to death, acquired Bullfrog and squeezed them to death, acquired Maxis and squeezed them to death, acquired Westwood and squeezed them to death, acquired Dreamworks Interactive and sent them to the Medal Of Honor mines, accidentally acquired the leftovers of Psygnosis and left it to wither, acquired Criterion and stole RenderWare out from under an entire console generation, acquired DICE and sent them to the Battlefield mines, acquired PopCap and squeezed them to death, acquired their Tiger Woods contractee after a decade of great work and squeezed them to death for absolute shovelware, and… actually did an okay job with Respawn after Titanfall 2 didn’t sell well. And they’ve been kinda decent with Bioware. But other than that they’re the goddamn devil.
Which Atari? The company got cracked in half after Warner bought them.
One half went to Jack Tramiel, then the grave, then a hard drive manufacturer, then Hasbro, then the grave again, then Infogrames, then the grave for a third time, then some kind of middle-eastern finance-bro vaporware hell that eventually spat out a funky PC nobody bought. Apparently they’re re-releasing the 7800 inside a 2600 case. Straight-up forty-year-old technology that still uses 4 KB cartridges. Honestly it sounds great. Not like they own most of the classic franchises, after Infogrames started hocking them in desperation.
The other half went to Midway and made most of the Atari arcade games you’ve heard of. Okay: Midway was bought by Bally, Bally Midway was bought by Williams, Warner ejected their games division as an independent company, Williams bought that, Williams ejected their games division as an independent company, and the part that was still OG “Atari Games” ceased operations around the turn of the millennium. Midway proper closed a decade later and was shortly purchased by Warner… again. But unlike the dead-skin-mask situation with the other half of Atari, Warner just took all their shit and left. That’s why they publish Mortal Kombat now.
EA meanwhile acquired Origin and squeezed them to death, acquired Bullfrog and squeezed them to death, acquired Maxis and squeezed them to death, acquired Westwood and squeezed them to death, acquired Dreamworks Interactive and sent them to the Medal Of Honor mines, accidentally acquired the leftovers of Psygnosis and left it to wither, acquired Criterion and stole RenderWare out from under an entire console generation, acquired DICE and sent them to the Battlefield mines, acquired PopCap and squeezed them to death, acquired their Tiger Woods contractee after a decade of great work and squeezed them to death for absolute shovelware, and… actually did an okay job with Respawn after Titanfall 2 didn’t sell well. And they’ve been kinda decent with Bioware. But other than that they’re the goddamn devil.