Oh shit! I was calling them ‘Infogames’ right up to your post! In fact I was reading it in my head as ‘info’. whew Thanks Andew, if I had to introduce infogRames to anyone, like at a party of something, that could have been embarrassing.[/quote]
Well then don’t forget that it’s pronounced Inforgrams, rather than Infogrames.
That’s because it was Infogrammes, which translates to Infograms. D’uh!
Or not.
What the fuck are you two knuckleheads talking about???
Short history of Atari.
Created in the early 70s by Nolan Bushnell. He and the Atari staff spend the next four years making arcade and game systems and doing lots and lots of drugs.
In 1976 Nolan sold atari to Warner communication
1978, Nolan gets fired from Atari (because he thought home computers was a crazy idea that would never work) and for the next for years, Atari makes money hand over fisit
1983, Atari caught blind sided by the videogame crash and losses more money than they ever made…
1984, Atari video and computer sections were sold to Jack Tramiel (Atari inc)
1986-1995, Atari inc releases a new line of computers, and does fairly well. For awhile. Once hitting the 90s, Jack turns over the running of the company to his kids and the company goes into a slow death spiral.
1996 Atari Inc merges with JTS, a really shitty hard drive maker. And Time Warner wells Atari Games to Midway.
1998 JTS sells verying Atari Inc to Hasbro. JTS then promptly folded. One story passed around is that Nolan was actively trying to buy back Atari from JTS as well but he just wanted the name, not the rights and offered a significantly lower price than Hasbro did.
2000 Hasbro sold its interactive parts (which included Atari Inc) to Infogrames. As soon as the ink was dry, it was know that Infogrames was going to use the Atari name.
2003, Midway closes Atari games. A few years before the name was changed to Midway West when midway went mostly home console and they aren’t about to use Atari on home products.
The end???
Personally, I think Infogrames has the right to use the name and is more of an honest videogame company than most of its owners.
Having owned an Atari 800 as my first computer I remember that companies sad history too well…
One of the low points had to be the Jaguar “toilet” cd drive add on.
I think that InfogRames had to wait for the stink of it all to wash off before they could rename their company.
BTW, when Tramiel sold the company he got $5Million and had to sign a contract agreeing not to make video games for 5 years. It was in that period that Chuck E. Cheese was born.
When Bushnell sold the company.
The reason they did that was because the whole Atari booth was invite-only and it became a time-wasting ordeal to have to scan the badges of Atari employees and employees of Atari development groups (hi!) every time we wanted in and out. It was easier to slap a sticker on 'em and just have them wave their cards as they went in.
Personally, I think Infogrames bought the Atari name for a few reasons.
My E3 photos: Josie Nutter