The most important thing in any company is the people. With the right people you can get everything else. So with this in mind it is interesting to see what is happening at Atari. Like many I thought that their incredibly poor performance and small size meant that they were doomed. However the people that they now have now make a recovery look eminently possible:
- David Gardner. Former EA VP and COO of worldwide studios.
- Phil Harrison. Former president of Sony worldwide studios.
Even better their public announcements seem to indicate a move away from the dangerous territory of AAA boxed games, which they are too small to compete at effectively, to online where there is more growth, more opportunity and no handicap for being small.
It is little wonder that Infogrames now want to buy the remaining stock in the company that they do not already own.
3 comments ↓
As a wee nipper, the first word relevant to gaming I ever heard was “Atari”. Hope all goes well *thumbsup*
Interesting situation. I don’t see obvious news on the hiring of Gardner and Harrison but they sound like guys who are not likely to board a sinking ship. Atari as a standalone looks pretty shaky.
Since Infogames owns 51% it would seem that both companies are already tied pretty closely together. Given the depressed price and a cheap dollar I don’t see why the price might not be revised up a little bit to get the deal done.
Other than that it looks like a company that would need some financial backing as well as management upgrades and execution.
Silly me I have got this confused and mixed up (and I am not the only one). Here is an email I received:
David Gardner and Phil Harrison are at Infogrames, not Atari Inc. (ATAR).
They are the ones initiating the buyout of Atari Inc.
A lot of confusion has come from Infogrames owning the Atari brand name
(Atari Inc. just leases it from them), and the European press continuing
to refer to “Atari” when they mean Atari Europe, a direct division of
Infogrames. Likewise, when Harrison has been discussing the
re-establishment of “Atari” in interviews, he’s refering to the brand name
they own, which up until recently followed the lead of Atari Inc.
I was recently tapped to write an article for gamesindustry.biz to clear
up some of this confusion for people, feel free to take a gander:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=33735
Leave a comment