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Who's Atari in 2022? Stories like this one seem to suggest that it's somehow the same entity that once was. However there's nothing left besides the name, is it

Who's Atari in 2022? Stories like this one seem to suggest that it's somehow the same entity that once was. However there's nothing left besides the name, is it? Solution: Atari SA is the company formerly known as Infogrames. "As of 2022, the current Atari is pursuing several lines of business outside of video gaming, including cryptocurrency and video-game themed hotels." (WP)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kristopolous 4y ago
Nolan Bushnell is on the board so I'm saying it's not completely just a shell
- ekianjo 4y ago
  Nolan Bushness is probably on the board just for show. He's almost 80.
  - cbartlett 4y ago
    Warren Buffet is 92, plenty of 80 year old are still productive workers
    - ekianjo 4y ago
      > Warren Buffet is 92, plenty of 80 year old are still productive workers when they are healthy. Let's not exaggerate by talking about outliers. Most men die before they even reach 80.
      - ofrzeta 4y ago
        I was informed by Wikipedia that Bushnell is also on the board of Anti-AgingGames.com :-)
      - Grazester 4y ago
        It this right? My at is 80+ and still does intensive gardening (forking land to grow crops) and mows his own lawn with a push mower. He really should not be doing these things though because now he is suffering from carpal tunnel.
        uxp100 4y ago
        It’s right that most men die before 80, but I agree that if you get there, a high quality of life is still possible. My grandpa in his mid 80s gardens a large area and keeps bees, lives alone, and most impressively to me, fell on ice, got up, and shook it off like he was merely old, and not elderly (walked with a cane for a week after). For some, a fall like that is the beginning of the end. Otoh, his blood pressure is not really controlled, meds + diet usually but not always keep it down, so it could be over for him any unlucky day I guess. Still, hard to ask for better.
        oneoff786 4y ago
        I would bet on his health rapidly declining if he stopped.
      - nuclearnice1 4y ago
        Here’s a video interview with Nolan from June this year https://youtu.be/2A__XuCDgss https://youtu.be/2A__XuCDgss
      - dahart 4y ago
        > Most men die before they even reach 80. Surprisingly, this isn’t true. It is true in the US that male life expectancy at birth is less than 80 years, but that doesn’t actually mean that more than 50% of men die before 80. The reason is because the death age is being averaged, it’s a mean not a median, and it falls off faster above 80 than below, so when you average them it’s below 80. Think about it this way: for the average age of death to be 80, you could have as many people dying at 1 year old as dying at 159 years old (80*2-1). Then the average is 80. But since nobody makes it to 159, the actual average is 1. Repeat for every pair of ages that sum to 160; only ages ~50-80 even have a counterpart between 80 and ~110, so all death under age ~50 skews the average down (and babies skew the average much faster than middle-age people). If 45% of people died at age 20 and 55% of people died at age 90, then life expectancy for someone at birth is 58.5 years, even though most people make it to age 90. For proof of this, see the Social Security actuarial table: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html Look at the “Number of lives” column, and scroll to the 80 year olds. Notice that more than half are still alive. On top of all this, remember that life expectancy changes as you get older. Note how the men who make it to age 50 are expected to live to age 80. Men who make it to 80 are expected to live to 88 1/2.
        kristopolous 4y ago
        that drop between 85 and 95 is brutal. This is probably going to move forward soon. The boomers are really the first generation that never smoked and exercised as a lifestyle from adulthood. The town my parents live in is full of old people (houses built/bought in the 1980s) and every time I go there the park is full of them jogging with their dogs, doing stretches, powerwalking... it looks like an antihistamine pharmaceutical commercial.
- ofrzeta 4y ago
  I don't know anything about public companies and the related info but according to this he is not: https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/ATARI-S-A-2168735/company/ https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/ATARI-S-A-2168735... (Although Wikipedia says he will be but that info is from 2010)
- kennend3 4y ago
  I think one takeaway from Theranos should be this: People are willing to rent their names for large sums of money to be listed as board members. What exactly did the Theranos board accomplish? How much did they make? Much as "Long Term Capital Management" used the fame/prestige of its members as a marketing tool, Theranos did the same with her board of directors.
  - cedilla 4y ago
    The difference is that no one is willing to pour billions into Atari. Atari, SA really struggled to find investors. Also, the problem with Theranos was exactly that the board members were not from industry, but retired politicians or diplomats.
    - kennend3 4y ago
      I think you entirly missed the point. As others in this thread have posted, sometimes board members are just "window dressing". Sometimes big names put there to attract investors/show stability of the company, etc. Perhaps Nolan contributes, perhaps not - i dont follow the issue that closely to speak on that. My point is just to do your due diligence and not depend on "so and so is on the board".
  - dec0dedab0de 4y ago
    Nolan Bushnell was the founder of Atari. You're right that board members don't necessarily do anything, but the argument here is whether or not the current Atari has a connection to the old Atari. I would say Bushnell's presence on the board means that it does, even if he doesn't do anything.
    - mrandish 4y ago
      IIRC, Nolan wasn't involved with the many various holders of the Atari brand name rights for decades between now and when he originally left. I don't know if that matters to others but for me it does somewhat weaken the meaning of him being on the board again now vs if he'd been a presence on the board continuously from back in the day to now (which would have been lovely but unfortunately not the way the world worked this time). That said, hopefully the current incarnation of Atari can create products which further the retro renaissance. The Atari 50 retrospective was a nice start in that direction (though it was made by a retro-focused specialty publisher who licensed the rights from Atari, both Nolan and the current CEO did appear in an interview in the package).
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  Wayne Gretzky shills online gambling for MGM, so beware of any hero association hinting towards anything more than burlap sacks with dollar signs on them.
  - kristopolous 4y ago
    I'm under the probably false assumption that Nolan Bushnell has enough money that bribing him to do something he doesn't believe in would be quite unreasonable. But really I've got no idea. He doesn't have a history of lending his name to things so he is probably not easily bought. Then again he exited Atari way early and got caught up in the NFT hype so who knows
  - mynameishere 4y ago
    If Wayne Gretzky was known as one of the greatest gambling moguls of all time I don't think that would be a problem.
morelisp 4y ago
Unlike e.g. Nintendo with its (until recently) clear "succession" line and internal promotion, Atari's always been a Ship of Theseus company. Rapid executive transition from Bushnell to Warner to Kassar to Tramiel, the star developers leaving to form Activision, the separate VCS vs. PC vs. arcade divisions (imo sad how little attention was paid to the post-VCS arcade side in Atari 50!) It's been pieced out and put back together half a dozen times; it's surely dead by 2008 but did it die in spirit in 2001, 1999, 1996, 1993, 1984, or arguably even as early as 1979? And despite the cryptocurrency and pop culture mess, if it's a Jeff Minter reworking of Mike Hally and Dave Ralston game how could it not be Atari?
- Wowfunhappy 4y ago
  What changed at Nintendo recently?
  - morelisp 4y ago
    Satoru Iwata, the president, died relatively suddenly and (at least publicly) very unexpectedly of cancer. This led to a rapid reshuffle of the leadership board and two new presidents in a short period, both of which which did not come from the development side. Kimishima in particular seems to have not done very well.
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
If the current Atari owns the intellectual property of the original Atari, is that all that different than the current EA being able to trace itself to the original Electronic Arts that made Archon, M.U.L.E., and Pinball Construction Kit? How many of those responsible for creating those early games are still with EA?
- danuker 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Cpoll 4y ago
    I was thinking that too, but there's possibly a distinction between repairing a ship and buying a new ship and naming it after the old one.
- ofrzeta 4y ago
  I don't know. I just wanted to raise that point because it bothered me. What could be a required property for a successor company to be "legitimate"? Some kind of merit that's in the spirit and the culture of the original company? Maybe the revival of unreleased arcade games could be it. Then again there should be more than this single event. Or maybe the even need some hardware of their own.
- ido 4y ago
  A nitpick, but I feel it's worth noting EA didn't "make" any of these, but published them. These were all developed by 3rd party developers
simonebrunozzi 4y ago
I remember digging its most recent history after a brief encounter with their latest CEO, a few years back. I vaguely recall that it was essentially a big mess of changes of control, copyrights, name rights, etc.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kristopolous 4y ago

Nolan Bushnell is on the board so I'm saying it's not completely just a shell

ekianjo 4y ago
Nolan Bushness is probably on the board just for show. He's almost 80.
- cbartlett 4y ago
  Warren Buffet is 92, plenty of 80 year old are still productive workers
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > Warren Buffet is 92, plenty of 80 year old are still productive workers when they are healthy. Let's not exaggerate by talking about outliers. Most men die before they even reach 80.
    - ofrzeta 4y ago
      I was informed by Wikipedia that Bushnell is also on the board of Anti-AgingGames.com :-)
    - Grazester 4y ago
      It this right? My at is 80+ and still does intensive gardening (forking land to grow crops) and mows his own lawn with a push mower. He really should not be doing these things though because now he is suffering from carpal tunnel.
      - uxp100 4y ago
        It’s right that most men die before 80, but I agree that if you get there, a high quality of life is still possible. My grandpa in his mid 80s gardens a large area and keeps bees, lives alone, and most impressively to me, fell on ice, got up, and shook it off like he was merely old, and not elderly (walked with a cane for a week after). For some, a fall like that is the beginning of the end. Otoh, his blood pressure is not really controlled, meds + diet usually but not always keep it down, so it could be over for him any unlucky day I guess. Still, hard to ask for better.
      - oneoff786 4y ago
        I would bet on his health rapidly declining if he stopped.
    - nuclearnice1 4y ago
      Here’s a video interview with Nolan from June this year https://youtu.be/2A__XuCDgss https://youtu.be/2A__XuCDgss
    - dahart 4y ago
      > Most men die before they even reach 80. Surprisingly, this isn’t true. It is true in the US that male life expectancy at birth is less than 80 years, but that doesn’t actually mean that more than 50% of men die before 80. The reason is because the death age is being averaged, it’s a mean not a median, and it falls off faster above 80 than below, so when you average them it’s below 80. Think about it this way: for the average age of death to be 80, you could have as many people dying at 1 year old as dying at 159 years old (80*2-1). Then the average is 80. But since nobody makes it to 159, the actual average is 1. Repeat for every pair of ages that sum to 160; only ages ~50-80 even have a counterpart between 80 and ~110, so all death under age ~50 skews the average down (and babies skew the average much faster than middle-age people). If 45% of people died at age 20 and 55% of people died at age 90, then life expectancy for someone at birth is 58.5 years, even though most people make it to age 90. For proof of this, see the Social Security actuarial table: https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html Look at the “Number of lives” column, and scroll to the 80 year olds. Notice that more than half are still alive. On top of all this, remember that life expectancy changes as you get older. Note how the men who make it to age 50 are expected to live to age 80. Men who make it to 80 are expected to live to 88 1/2.
      - kristopolous 4y ago
        that drop between 85 and 95 is brutal. This is probably going to move forward soon. The boomers are really the first generation that never smoked and exercised as a lifestyle from adulthood. The town my parents live in is full of old people (houses built/bought in the 1980s) and every time I go there the park is full of them jogging with their dogs, doing stretches, powerwalking... it looks like an antihistamine pharmaceutical commercial.
ofrzeta 4y ago
I don't know anything about public companies and the related info but according to this he is not: https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/ATARI-S-A-2168735/company/ https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/ATARI-S-A-2168735... (Although Wikipedia says he will be but that info is from 2010)
kennend3 4y ago
I think one takeaway from Theranos should be this: People are willing to rent their names for large sums of money to be listed as board members. What exactly did the Theranos board accomplish? How much did they make? Much as "Long Term Capital Management" used the fame/prestige of its members as a marketing tool, Theranos did the same with her board of directors.
- cedilla 4y ago
  The difference is that no one is willing to pour billions into Atari. Atari, SA really struggled to find investors. Also, the problem with Theranos was exactly that the board members were not from industry, but retired politicians or diplomats.
  - kennend3 4y ago
    I think you entirly missed the point. As others in this thread have posted, sometimes board members are just "window dressing". Sometimes big names put there to attract investors/show stability of the company, etc. Perhaps Nolan contributes, perhaps not - i dont follow the issue that closely to speak on that. My point is just to do your due diligence and not depend on "so and so is on the board".
- dec0dedab0de 4y ago
  Nolan Bushnell was the founder of Atari. You're right that board members don't necessarily do anything, but the argument here is whether or not the current Atari has a connection to the old Atari. I would say Bushnell's presence on the board means that it does, even if he doesn't do anything.
  - mrandish 4y ago
    IIRC, Nolan wasn't involved with the many various holders of the Atari brand name rights for decades between now and when he originally left. I don't know if that matters to others but for me it does somewhat weaken the meaning of him being on the board again now vs if he'd been a presence on the board continuously from back in the day to now (which would have been lovely but unfortunately not the way the world worked this time). That said, hopefully the current incarnation of Atari can create products which further the retro renaissance. The Atari 50 retrospective was a nice start in that direction (though it was made by a retro-focused specialty publisher who licensed the rights from Atari, both Nolan and the current CEO did appear in an interview in the package).
skeeter2020 4y ago
Wayne Gretzky shills online gambling for MGM, so beware of any hero association hinting towards anything more than burlap sacks with dollar signs on them.
- kristopolous 4y ago
  I'm under the probably false assumption that Nolan Bushnell has enough money that bribing him to do something he doesn't believe in would be quite unreasonable. But really I've got no idea. He doesn't have a history of lending his name to things so he is probably not easily bought. Then again he exited Atari way early and got caught up in the NFT hype so who knows
- mynameishere 4y ago
  If Wayne Gretzky was known as one of the greatest gambling moguls of all time I don't think that would be a problem.

morelisp 4y ago

Unlike e.g. Nintendo with its (until recently) clear "succession" line and internal promotion, Atari's always been a Ship of Theseus company. Rapid executive transition from Bushnell to Warner to Kassar to Tramiel, the star developers leaving to form Activision, the separate VCS vs. PC vs. arcade divisions (imo sad how little attention was paid to the post-VCS arcade side in Atari 50!) It's been pieced out and put back together half a dozen times; it's surely dead by 2008 but did it die in spirit in 2001, 1999, 1996, 1993, 1984, or arguably even as early as 1979? And despite the cryptocurrency and pop culture mess, if it's a Jeff Minter reworking of Mike Hally and Dave Ralston game how could it not be Atari?

Wowfunhappy 4y ago
What changed at Nintendo recently?
- morelisp 4y ago
  Satoru Iwata, the president, died relatively suddenly and (at least publicly) very unexpectedly of cancer. This led to a rapid reshuffle of the leadership board and two new presidents in a short period, both of which which did not come from the development side. Kimishima in particular seems to have not done very well.

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

If the current Atari owns the intellectual property of the original Atari, is that all that different than the current EA being able to trace itself to the original Electronic Arts that made Archon, M.U.L.E., and Pinball Construction Kit? How many of those responsible for creating those early games are still with EA?

danuker 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Cpoll 4y ago
  I was thinking that too, but there's possibly a distinction between repairing a ship and buying a new ship and naming it after the old one.
ofrzeta 4y ago
I don't know. I just wanted to raise that point because it bothered me. What could be a required property for a successor company to be "legitimate"? Some kind of merit that's in the spirit and the culture of the original company? Maybe the revival of unreleased arcade games could be it. Then again there should be more than this single event. Or maybe the even need some hardware of their own.
ido 4y ago
A nitpick, but I feel it's worth noting EA didn't "make" any of these, but published them. These were all developed by 3rd party developers

simonebrunozzi 4y ago

I remember digging its most recent history after a brief encounter with their latest CEO, a few years back. I vaguely recall that it was essentially a big mess of changes of control, copyrights, name rights, etc.