Slashdot Mirror
3D Realms' Scott Miller Warns Warner
firstadopter.com writes "Scott Miller of 3D Realms, maker of Duke Nukem and non-maker of Duke Nukem Forever, is panning Warner Brothers' recent re-entry into the videogame industry. He cites the lack of focus of conglomerates and aversion to risk-taking on original brands as the heels of Warner's future downfall, suggesting of their new gaming division: 'Focused [game-only] publishers will always lead us in making the best games... It's just not as important for a [diversified into films/TV] company like Warner to really try hard in a area that, in the end, doesn't mean life or death to their company.'"
The Atari we know of today is Atari only in name. The current company is actually a re-branded Infogrames, which bought Atari's name & such when it bought the Hasbro Interactive unit from Hasbro (Microprose was also acquired by Infrogrames at this point). If I remember correctly, the Atari properties stopped at Midway between Warner Brothers and Hasbro. In fact, I want to say Slashdot just recently covered Midway's sale of the old Atari office (not 100% sure... might have been something else along those lines).
But, no, the Atari that killed Microprose is actually Infogrames in disguise.
Your history is a little confused. There were dozens of companies that flooded the market with Atari 2600 games, not just Atari. Atari tried everything to stop it including suing former employees, but it didn't work.
In addition, there was the Intellivision and Coleco game systems (among others) that died during the same period.
It's funny that you cast Nintendo as some kind of hero. It would be as if you had to get permission from MS to write SW for Windows.