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They're still called Infogrames in Europe (though they publish under the Atari logo and name) and according to their website their income in Europe went up by 6% even though their US income went down by 40%.

After their big purchase, they took the Cray name for continuity with Cray's old customers and products, along with the fact that it's a much more viable "commercial" supercomputing name.

Despite SGI's neglect, the Cray name did and does have a lot of name recognition. So when Tera bought SGI's Cray division, they did so not just for the right to restore the Cray name on Cray products, but for the right to put the Cray name on Tera products. It's an exercise in branding. Indeed I suspect that Tera was more interested in buying the Cray brand than the Cray product line — which has never been profitable.

A more extreme case of branding is Atari, which is now the name of a French game software company that has no real connection with Nolan Bushnell's original company.

You make console homebrew in your spare time. You ported Lumines to the GBA. You've written up 400 things at everything.com. People glow about you on wikipedia. You've contributed to open source projects.

Send your portfolio to one of the dozens of companies that do Game Boy development. Most companies don't publicise their openings, so send it anyway.
http://thq.kenexa.com/thq/cc/Home.ss
http://corporate.infogrames.com/hr.html?action=job s_all
Nintendo
Activision
EA
etc...
While you're at it, try Red Hat. They like to hire people who have contributed to open source projects, and have cool / geeky hobbies.

While you're doing that, learn to drive a car. After years of playing arcade racers, you should feel right at home. Then get your ass out to California, New York, Boston, or possibly Austin, where actual software development takes place. My girlfriend's recruiter keeps calling and calling... It's really quite different than the way things were 3 years ago. Hell, I'm turning down work, and I haven't looked for a job in two years.

If you distill everything you've done down, your resume must look impressive. Just get out to where jobs actually are and get your life going... Though definitely apply everywhere you might want to live, whether or not you are currently there. Lots of places do some degree of covering moving costs or offering signing bonuses. And scraping together enough money for a plane ticked from friends is a lot easier when you have a good-paying job waiting on the other end.

BTW, when applying for minimum-wage jobs, lie about your education. Always pretend to have the appropriate education for the job you're targeting. Usually that means "some college," or even "College degree," but never "BS in computer science from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology." People don't like to hire people for minimum wage jobs who aren't going to be trapped there. Be slightly more impressive than the average min wage worker, but not much beyond that.

For those of you that followed Atari back in the day; you may be surprised to see the name rise from the grave. The name was bought by Infogrames:

On May 7, 2003, Infogrames officially announces its name change to Atari. The Company's U.S. operations became Atari, Inc. (formerly Infogrames, Inc.) and changed its trading symbol on the NASDAQ National Market to "ATAR." Although the holding company parent in France, Infogrames Entertainment SA, retained its current name and maintained its symbol on the Euronext under the code: 5257, all of the Company's worldwide operations were renamed Atari. The Company gained all rights to the Atari license when it acquired Hasbro Interactive, Inc. in December 2000.

I guess this is a re-re-re-release (I probably don't have enough res) of the old titles; it make me wonder how long will these games will be around?

The game "Driver" might be a good choice. It's got realistic traffic, a damage model that's at least more realistic than most games out there, and a freeform mode that you could put to use for some dry runs before you actually take him out to play in real traffic. You can find it for the PC on most $9.99 racks, it will run on an older machine, and it's been ported to a number of video game platforms as well (YMMV). All this, and it's a fun game, too.

Also, if you don't like the getaway driver/true crime themes of the previous, you might also look for Midtown Madness, which is a racing-themed game with realistic traffic, a freeform mode, and a fairly detailed simulation of downtown Chicago. It might be a bit harder to find, though. Again, a fun game.

..should rush out and buy this game and then send a mail to one of these people, letting them know that the fact that the game ran on Linux was one of the factors that made you deside to buy the game.

Bacially, thank them for their support of your favorite platform. And let them know you are always looking for quality game titles running linux to buy.

That won't hurt the chances of future ATARI distributed games being ported to Linux.

hey also created many PS2/gamecube/xbox titles

Err.. you sure you're not thinking of the Atari brand name being used by Infogrames?

I'll indulge your offtopic request.

Atari is owned by Infogrames of France.

I'm not positive, but I think that is effectively a completely different company, all of the management has been changed.

Below is a summary of some information from the Infogrames corporate site, listed above.

Infogrames Entertainment Acquisition History
Year: Company Acquired, Region (Activity)
* 1996: Ocean Software, United Kingdom (Publishing)
* 1997: Philips Media, Netherlands (Distribution)
* 1998: ABS Multimedia, Portugal (Distribution)
* 1998: Arcadia, Spain (Distribution)
* 1998: Gremlin, United Kingdom (Development and Publishing)
* 1998: Game City, Switzerland (Distribution)
* 1998: Psygnosis, France (Development)
* 1999: Accolade, United States (Development and Publishing)
* 1999: Beam Software, Autsralia (Development)
* 1999: Ozisoft, Australia (Distribution)
* 1999: GT Interactive, United States (Development/Publishing/Distribution)
* 1999: Den-O-Tech, Canada (Development)
* 2000: Hasbro Interactive, United States (Publishing)
* 2000: Paradigm Entertainment, United States (Development)
* 2002: Shiny Entertainment, United States (Development)
* 2002: Eden Studios, France (Development)

Q: Through its acquisition of Hasbro Interactive in 2001, Infogrames Entertainment became the owner of the Atari brand. What plans do you have for the Atari brand?


A: Atari is perhaps the most illustrious name in the interactive game industry and we are thrilled to have it as part of the Infogrames family. We want to be true to the innovation that marked Atari's launch 20 years ago. With that in mind, we are re-inventing Atari for a new generation. Our inaugural titles, Splashdown, MXRider and Transworld Surf, all of which will launch in November 2001, capture the qualities we believe will define the re-invented Atari. They are innovative, unique, exhilarating, breakthrough, and genre defining games. You can expect to see a great deal more from us regarding Atari in the months ahead.

The saddest example of late is Infogrames trying to ride the name recognition of Atari of all things! WTF? LOL

doublem wrote:

And the Smart Rats are fleeing the ship. I wonder what he knows that we don't know.

Microsoft's biggest foe is coming to Redmond town. All three of him. And he's bringing a *lot* of very large friends.

The X-box doesn't stand a chance!

The god that saved Nintendo from Microsoft's jaws in December 1999 is coming to defend his old friend.

Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee

October 29, 2002
GameCube and GameBoy Advance

I'm going to play Godzilla and beat the stuffings out of Orga/Millenium/Microsoft! ;)

If you can't wait that long, the Godzilla Ultimate Collection (Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Mothra (1964), Godzilla's Revenge, Terror of MechaGodzilla, and Rodan) was released on DVD today by Sony Tristar.

His power is unequalled.
His battles are legendary.
His return is near...
Godzilla 2000
If you can't take the heat, RUN!

From the "Godzilla 2000" trailer Tristar tried so hard to hide.

But yes, it is surprising that they haven't complained. Or have they?

Damn. Damn. Damn.

Click here to suggest products....

Moto Racer 3.

Actually Risk and Axis & Allies have already been made into computer games that are relatively good adaptations of the board game versions.

I am appalled. Is nothing sacred ?!

If Bioware can't hash things out with Interplay, I'm sure they can get a deal with Infogrames.

The press release is here.

The press release is here.

Personally, I believe Infogrames is one of the lamest names ever. They make nice games and all, but that name just irritates me.

I thought it was hilarious when The Mushroom ran their "Infogrames Finally Drops 'R' From Name" article.