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March 3rd, 2008 @ 15:14
According to this, new boss David Gardner has said online gaming is key to Atari’s rebirth.
“The business and the industry is moving online on a global basis,” he said. “It’s moving at different speeds in different countries, but it’s pretty clear to me that the whole way that people are going to want to buy their games, play their games, interface with their games is network-centric. That’s where we need to get a lot smarter, a lot quicker, and use this famous brand.”
Gardner, formally of EA, also outlined some of his vision for Atari’s new brand of online gaming and content delivery.
“For me, the future is in creating very high quality games that are using technology with games playing on a server, not worrying about configurations and all those performance issues,” he said. “All that stuff should be seamless like a phone service – you pick up the phone and you get a dial tone and that’s it. You should be able to go to the computer and get some game time.”
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March 3rd, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Oh dear. There goes another Atari.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Could surprise us all yet. Apparently they’ve got super-cash this time around.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
“The former Electronic Arts veteran has also said the company has a rich portfolio of titles from acquired companies such as Gremlin, GT Interactive, Ocean Software and Accolade”
I am interested. I assume they’re talking about Flash gaming? I think there is a lot of mileage in branding and marketing a portal for modernised versions of old games from the “Home computer” era. It’s quite rich compared to the ‘productized’ gaming model we see today.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Yep, I reckon he is. Apparently there was a huge amount of talk of Flash games at GDC this year, and lots of “instant” gaming on display.
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:58 pm
But would people ever pay for Flash games when there are a gazillion ‘free’ ones out there?
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
That’s a very good point. I know I wouldn’t. But they do have a huge amount of IP. I’m sure there are plenty of people out there that might pay a small amount for a portal membership that gave access to all Atari’s old games, for example.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I’d happily pay a nominal fee for quality Flash gaming. For every diamond you find, there’s an awful lot of Elf Bowling type crap out there.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I think there’s a lot of people would happily pay for Flash games. Flash is secretly the start of the one console future
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
According to Raph Koster, “Flash is the Web console”
Bless him.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:35 pm
Raph commented on that report we did from the Luminaries Lunch at GDC. We misquoted him a bit. Sorry about that, Raph.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Haha. He was funny at that lunch - excited but still mumbling. He had good table manners though, I like that in a designer. N’Gai Croal actually started nodding off during the lunch, it was very disappointing. Hardly a cutting edge, hard news writer. Did he actually write anything up on his blog about the lunch?
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Not that I saw, nope. I was getting MSNs about him from the Microsoft conference and his chats with the Wired guy. Apparently Croal does great formatting on his interviews. Chris Kohler’s very envious.
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Deep, man. My favourite over-hearing was a very respected industry analyst describing Brian Crecente as “evil looking”
March 3rd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
haha
Brian, N’Gai or Chris, you’re perfectly entitled to slag me off on the internet should you ever read any of this.