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Infogrames Officially Changes Name To Atari
According to this story from Reuters via Yahoo News, Infogrames is now officially changing its name to Atari worldwide. The French publisher originally picked up the home rights to the Atari name after buying Hasbro Interactive in 2001, and had recently been rebranding much of its line-up (even PC RPGs) with the Atari logo alongside the Infogrames one. Lovable French ruffian and Atari CEO Bruno Bonnell will open the Nasdaq stock exchange on Wednesday morning to herald the new ATAR stock ticker symbol for the company.
- Founded by Nolan Bushnell (1972).
- Sold to Warner Communications (predecessor of AOL-Time-Warner) 1975.
- Warner splits Atari into Home and Arcade divisions. Jack Trammiel, founder (forcibly retired) of Commodore buys Home division, forms Atari Computer Corp. (1984)
- Arcade division gets renamed Atari Games, then Atari/Tengen, then Time Warner Interactive, then gets sold to Williams/WMS, which sells it to Midway, which renames it Midway Games West! (Dates and veracity dubious!)
- Atari Computer Corp merges with disk drive maker JTS (1996)
- JTS/Atari sells its "Atari assets" to Hasbro Interactive (1998).
- Hasbro Interactive absorbed by Infogrammes Entertainment SA as part of malicious French conspiracy. Renamed Infogrammes Interactive. (2001)
- Infogrammes Entertainment renames its North American acquistions "Atari". (2003)
- Chuck E Cheese buys Infogrammes Entertainment SA, renames it "Freedom Software" (2004).
In researching this timeline, I made a truely mind-boggling discovery: Atari was briefly in the engineering/scientific/graphics workstation business!I highly doubt that Infogrames is undergoing the name change in the US to dodge scorn from pissed off customers over MOO3. Don't disagree with MOO3 being crap, but Infogrames has far bigger fish than that.
I suspect it has a lot more to do with appearing to be less French to the American game market. The country-wide unspoken, unorganized boycott of things appearing to be too French is really hurting French businesses. Not fatally, but it's leaving a mark. Just seems strange when they out of the blue take on the name that's as American as apple pie and blue jeans to most gamers in the States.
This supposition probably is not 100% true. Most people in positions of authority seem to be completely, utterly, 100% not at all influenced by events surrounding them, as all huge unexpected changes have always been "planned far in advance." One wonders if they have bathroom trips for the next four years accounted for. And frankly, even before saying someone looked French was turned into a political character assasination tool, the ATARI name is worth a lot of money, and Infogrames certainly has been using it pretty freely recently.
Good timing on their part, though.
I'm happy about the reincarnation of this brand name, now I just hope they dont just run blindly after technologies like ID software, and stick to some old Atari style games. Theres definitely a market and the brand name is well respected. People miss it.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
Apple has the same issues... I worked for a University bookstore where you had to go if you wanted to get a Mac anywhere in about a 60 mile radius. I was also a rather staunch PC owner but enthusiastic Mac supporter. People who bought machines could get the shirts occasionally (read as: if they showed up to pick up their machine and our Mac corporate guy happened to be there, and they happened to beg for a while). But still, I interfaced with the general public for 40 hours a week, you'd think the rep would be giving me Mac shirts by the boatload. Still, I managed to get a very nice purple one that has the Apple logo very discreetly sewn on the sleeve, and I think out of all the gimme shirts I have it's my favorite. The Corporate guy swore up and down that it was hell for even him to score a shirt for himself, but he always had the really cool ones (the sweaters and pullovers instead of the white tees).
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
...Infogrammes went on a massive buying spree and scored an amazing deal when they took Hasbro's properties.
Hasbro figured out it couldn't make video games so they dumped EVERYTHING. For a million cash and a bunch of now worthless stock, Infogrammes tied up the electronic rights to EVERY Hasbro property for nigh on fifteen years (that's Wizards of the Coast (TSR and all), Avalon Hill, Transformers, etc.).
I wouldn't be so irritated if they exploited these brands properly. However, up until this point Infogrammes has treated the treasures at their disposal much like Atari...as nothing more than names.
Oh well, they've been making positive rumblings for the past few months, so here's to Bruno ditching his "If it can't be played on a plane, or doesn't have the same appeal as a TV show then it's out" mentality and getting back to his ultra-nerd roots.
Maybe the switch to Atari is more than a cynical attempt to bundle the same bad decisions with a friendlier wrapper...maybe it marks a real groundshift in how they approach their business...
Here's hoping for the latter, since we have no other choice for more than a decade.
"I ain't got no flyin' shoes."