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Atari Facing $291 Million Debt Claim From... Atari
An anonymous reader writes "Atari declared bankruptcy earlier this year, and part of that process involves selling off its property in order to pay as many entities holding its debt as possible. The latest round includes a $30 million claim from Atari's parent company in France, and a $261 million claim from another subsidiary of that parent company. The $30 million debt is secured (in other words, they get priority on whatever's left in the U.S. Atari's coffers), but the $261 million debt is not, so they'll have to wait in line with everybody else."
The article also lists some interesting sell-offs. The old Accolade brand got sold for $50,000, the Battlezone Franchise was sold to Rebellion Interactive for $566,500, and Wargaming World Limited purchased the Total Annihilation and Masters of Orion franchises. Stardock Systems, creators of Sins of a Solar Empire, picked up the rights to the Star Control franchise, which they intend to reboot. (Those who played it will recall that StarCon2 was the Best Game Ever. And it's been remade after the creators released the source code.)
new star control game?!
ANYONE?!
World of Tanks is pretty fun. Master of Orion is a completely different kind of game. Hope they can manage it okay. I'd love a decent sequel.
And who owns the old atari rights now days?
I think it's been a lot of spinoffs / buyouts over the years.
Atari owned the rights to make D&D based computer rpg's does that right get sold or returned to hasbro or is it under another branch of atari? If it is under this branch of atari what happens to the lawsuit against beam dog over the baldurs gate enhanced edition that is holding up the android and linux ports from being released.
---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
Did you read the content? 30+261=291
Atari subsidiary company: $261 million
$30 million plus $261 million equals $291 million worth of debt owed to Atari entities
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
261 + 30 = 291
*happy camper*
TA was one of my favorite RTS games. Really innovative, loads of fun. The expansion was awesome too.
It's title and IP has been bought and re-sold by failing companies for years now, unfortunatly.
The game has even been re-made by it's original creatores twice in a game called Supreme Commander. Though, that franchise has been suffering similar problems. (SC1 is good.. SC2, not so much. Seems to be made by different people? Can anyone confirm what's up with SC?)
Any luck we'll see a new, legit TA game?
A fun fact is that neither of the two Ataris suing each other here are in any reasonable sense the original Atari. First of all, the original company split in 1984 due to financial difficulties, into two companies: 1) Atari Games, which owned the rights to the classic game IP; and 2) Atari Computer, which took over making actual hardware.
Atari Games existed for a few year in the mid-'80s, but in the late '80s went defunct, getting bought up by Time Warner, which later became AOL, which later sold them to Midway Games, which was later acquired by Warner Bros. So it's basically a copyright holding company owned by some group of investors that is several degrees of separation removed from anyone who actually worked on an Atari game.
Atari Computer initially did some interesting stuff, mostly notably putting out the Atari ST, and later the Atari 7800. They sort of tanked in the late-'80s/early-'90s though, when the Atari Lynx and the Atari Jaguar both fell hugely short of expectations. This half of the company then met the same fate as Atari Games: it de-facto ceased to exist, except as IP that got sold around between various companies that never had anything to do with its products, in this case Hasbro and Infogrames. And now two parts of this half are suing each other.
The short version of the story is: Atari got split up in 1984, was defunct by 1993, and now two, of at least three, companies that own some kind of claim to the name "Atari" are suing each other, but none of them have anything to do with Atari, except insofar as they are leeches who've somehow ended up with the rights to exploit the trademark.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Bring on a Total Annihilation MMO, kthxbye
can you buy a company, merge it into your company, but then somehow have your company not be responsible for any of the debt when it crashes.
So if it succeeds, its "yay, look at all my company's new money"
and if it fails its "wow, somebody really borked that, i'm sure glad -my- company isnt involved"
How much for the 3D Tic Tac Toe franchise?
Stardock published SoaSE, it was developed by Ironclad Games.
That game kicked the pants off every RTS from that era and all the RTS games that followed for a decade. I don't know who the hell Wargaming is, but if the comments about their existing products is anything to go on it's not good news for the TA franchise (hello micro-transactions... TA was always known for a gigantic arsenal of units, so I'm sure that'll be easy to profit off of).
If any of you guys are still interested in a TA inspired game, I'd highly recommend Planetary Annihilation (http://www.uberent.com/pa/). It's being built by two of the leads from the TA project and looks more TA inspired then Supreme Commander ever was. Also, I have to give them mad props for building their own game engine from scratch and doing things *right*. It's looking like a great game and I seriously hope it becomes the game TA never was.
So Stardock got the rights for Star Control but _not_ Master of Orion? I wonder if they were outbid, or decided to pass on it since they have Galactic Civilizations, their own decently reviewed and decently selling turn based 4x space game. They can always make GalCiv 3 not that they've passed on the opportunity to make MoO 3 (it's too bad no one ever made a third MoO game before) but even after all this time i think perhaps the MoO name might have given them some cachet (and thus sales) that GalCiv wouldn't get.
:)
As for Star Control, despite the issues with the original release of Elemental i have a moderate amount of faith in Stardock's ability to handle the game well, but they've demonstrated themselves to be both credible as a developer (Galactic Civilizations, Political/Corporate Machine) and as a publisher (Sins of a Solar Empire with Ironcald Games.) So i wonder if they're going to develop this game themselves, or farm it out to someone else. Someone like, i dunno, Toys for Bob?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
So if I want to rip off and steal investors and bank money all I have to do is create 3 shell companies move the debt around and pretend they are 3 entities then declare bankruptcies on all 3 where I get first dibs on my own debt. Then keep all the money again to myself since I get first dibs. Meanwhile pensioner and investor funds get screwed.
Is there any ethics left or did I misinterpret this story? This should be illegal as none of us us individuals can do this with credit card debt as that of course would be irresponsible. But not here if it is for corps
http://saveie6.com/
Sins of a Solar Empire was not created by Stardock. It was developed by Ironclad games and published by Stardock.
In complete agreement -- Star Control II was the best game ever. I normally don't fan-spam on /. but dagnabbit I just had to chime in.
Of course, someone should take odds on whether or not a reboot can come close to doing as well as the orignal (the original #2 that is.. StarCon was a fine but simplistic game and StarCon 3 did not exist. IT DID NOT EXIST I TELL YOU). Still, I'll play a sequel just on the chance it comes close.
Total Annihilation was one of my faves as well... along with absolutely everything Atari did in the 80s. How the mighty have fallen.
I hate it when companies use these kind of tricks to pay less tax, especially if they use venerable names like Atari. It works like this: company A buys company B cheaply, grants them a huge "loan" then lets company B default on that loan. Company B files for bankruptcy and company A has a large tax write-off. All nice and legal but very unethical.
I mean I know they look like anagrams, but still :)
Does anyone know who bought the franchise for Desert Bus?
http://games.yahoo.com/blogs/plugged-in/desert-bus-worst-videogame-time-160542705.html
That was a classic.
Looks like SOMEBODY isn't eating their iodized salt...
> "Stardock Systems, creators of Sins of a Solar Empire, picked up the rights to the Star Control franchise, which they intend to reboot."
Sins of a Solar Empire was created by Ironclad Games and published by Stardock. Stardock has developed their own games in the past, but let's give credit where credit is due: it belongs to Ironclad Games. It's sad that publishers get more credit and name recognition than developers these days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Solar_Empire
to the Baldur's Gate franchise. Beamdog is basically in a holding pattern because Atari told them to cease and desist for now, which is holding up the Enhanced Edition of Baldur's Gate 2.
Also note that Ironclad isn't working with Stardock on the follow up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sins_of_a_Dark_Age
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Best 16 bit pc ever. I shed a tiny tear whenever I think about that machine and the Laser C compiler I got for it.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
It doesn't matter. Jack Tramiel's Mastercard limit is $230M.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
http://www.incgamers.com/2013/07/open-source-star-control-2-team-express-doubts-over-atari-ip-sale
Apparently they only got the trademark to the name "Star Control" and the copyright to Star Control 3. Unless the license the Star Control 2 content as well, we might get something very different with the Star Control name slapped on.
Zombie Atari is suing Vampire Atari? There's a movie in here somewhere.(Nolan Bushnell - Undead Hunter! Watch as Nolan and his band of Chuck Cheese robots hunt Undead remnants of his former companies!)
I don't have much to add other than I'm hugely excited for both Star Control and Battlezone. SC1 and SC2 were bedrock mainstays of my college days, and the hover-tank Battlezone released in 1998 was phenomenal.
I've since moved on to play and enjoy The Ur-Quan Masters, but even shortly after SC2's heyday and before UQM was available, I remember paying for a legit download of the PC version of the game (late '98, early '99?). If we could get network mode Melee, I'd be tickled pink. If there were a persistent universe game (ala EVE) formed out of the Star Control franchise I'd lock myself away in a room and never see the light of day again.
However I've never found a comparable game to the '98 Battlezone. The gameplay was terrifically fun, fairly easy to get started, the copy protection was a reasonable compromise (need one disc present among all the computers playing on the LAN), and I cannot remember a single stability, usability, or gameplay bug. I could very much see wasting away many hours if that were updated and brought to market again.
Cyrano de Maniac
Stardock did not make Sins of a Solar Empire. They published it. SoaSE was made by Ironclad Games.
When I think Atari, I think Atari 2600. Face it, that was the last truly innovative and really good thing they made.
>It doesn't matter. Jack Tramiel's Mastercard limit is $230M.
The late Jack Tramiel.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
That is probably what it is to pay off, his credit card debts.
No Blood, though...
Did they sell off Infocom? What did they get for that?
Get MOO2 at Good Old Games. I did, and promptly lost a summer. :)
As a matter of fact, there's still an active community that plays multiplayer Master of Orion 2 games over the Internet (via dosbox). Anyone interested, check out #moo2 on QuakeNet IRC.
#include <sig.h>
Someone already rebooted Star Control II. It was called Mass Effect. :)
I'm kidding, but seriously, go play Mass Effect 1 and compare it to SC2. There are a LOT of similarities there.
For starters, check this out:
http://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Ur-Quan_Kzer-Za
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Thorian
Heck, the thorian's mind controlled minions are even referred to as "thralls"
With them selling off everything related to the Company, its prized franchises. Their devaluing the IP to the point there won't be anything left.
Company is done, with the trademark names of the game scattered out there, it will be legal hell trying put them under one programming house.
Damn shame.
According to the TFA at atariuser.com, only the accolade.com domain name got sold for $50k, not the brand name itself.