Atari Games

Atari Games
Industry Arcade games, video games
Fate merged into and later closed by Midway Games
Founded July 1, 1984 (1984-07-01) (entity established)
December 15, 1984 (1984-12-15) (first games)
Defunct March 1, 2003 (2003-03-01)
Headquarters Milpitas, California, U.S.
Key people
 Ed Logg
Products Gauntlet, Marble Madness, Paperboy
Number of employees
 400
Parent Warner Communications (1984–1985)
Namco[lower-alpha 1] (1985–1986)
Time Warner Interactive (1993–1996)
Midway Games (1996–2003)
Subsidiaries Midway Games
Website web.archive.org/web/*/http://atarigames.com Edit this on Wikidata

Atari Games Corporation was an American producer of arcade games. It was originally the coin-operated arcade game division of Atari, Inc. and was split off into its own company in 1984.

History

When the Atari Inc. division of Warner Communications lost $500 million in the first three quarters of 1983, its arcade coin-op division was the only one to make money.[1] In 1984 Warner sold the Atari Consumer division of Atari Inc. (which included the video game divisions) to Jack Tramiel (who named his company Atari Corporation), but retained the arcade coin-op division (Atari Coin), renaming it "Atari Games". The agreement between Tramiel and Warner Communications was that Atari Games must always include the "Games" after "Atari" on its logo and that Atari Games could not use the Atari brand at all in the consumer market (computers and home consoles). Atari Games retained most of the same employees and managers that had worked at the old Atari Inc. It was able to carry on with many of its projects from before the transition. Atari Corp., in contrast, froze projects and streamlined staff and operations. In 1985, the controlling interest of Atari Games was sold to Namco, who soon lost interest in operating an American subsidiary. In 1986 a group of employees bought Namco's share.

Atari Games continued to manufacture arcade games and units, and starting in 1987, also sold cartridges for the Nintendo Entertainment System under the Tengen brand name, including a version of Tetris. The companies exchanged a number of lawsuits in the late 1980s related to disputes over the rights to Tetris and Tengen's circumvention of Nintendo's lockout chip, which prevented third parties from creating unauthorized games. (Atari Games' legal battles with Nintendo should not be confused with those of its former parent company—Atari also exchanged lawsuits with Nintendo in the late 1980s and early 1990s.) The suit finally reached a settlement in 1994, with Atari Games paying Nintendo cash damages and use of several patent licenses.[2]

In 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc., forming Time Warner. In 1993, Time Warner bought a controlling interest in Atari Games and made it a subsidiary of its Time Warner Interactive division. While Atari Games maintained its identity under the new ownership, its consumer division Tengen, on the other hand, had been removed from the map in favor of the Time Warner Interactive label.[3] In mid-1994 Atari Games, Tengen, and Time Warner Interactive Group were all consolidated as Time Warner Interactive.[4] In April 1996, after an unsuccessful bid by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari Games was sold to WMS Industries (owners of the Williams, and Bally/Midway arcade brands).[5][6] When Hasbro Interactive bought the remains of Atari Corporation, the console manufacturer, and resurrected the Atari name in the home software arena starting in late 1998, Atari Games was renamed Midway Games West by parent company Midway Games to avoid confusing two Atari brands shortly after the release of San Francisco Rush 2049 in late 1999. Midway left the arcade market to concentrate on home systems in 2001, ending at the same time Atari Games' influence in the arcade industry. Midway Games West produced games for home systems, but was disbanded by Midway in early 2003 after a slump in game sales, ending the existence of Atari Games.

Until 2009, Midway Games West still existed as a holding entity whose primary function was to be the copyright and trademark owner for its franchises. In July 2009, all of the intellectual property of Midway was sold to Warner Bros. Entertainment, ultimately bringing the Atari Games properties and history back to Warner one final time.[7] However, the entity still existed for legal reasons until October 2, 2013 when it was dissolved.

Arcade games developed by Atari Games

Unreleased prototypes

Notes

  1. ↑ Warner Communications and its successor Time Warner continued to own minority interest in Atari Games after Warner sold controlling interest of the company to Namco. Warner did not fully divest itself of Atari Games until 1996.

References

  1. ↑ Mace, Scott (1984-02-27). "Can Atari Bounce Back?". InfoWorld. p. 100. Retrieved 18 January 2015.
  2. ↑ "Atari's Full-Court Press". GamePro (59). IDG. June 1994. p. 184.
  3. ↑ "A History of AT Games / Atari Games / Midway Games West". mcurrent.name. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  4. ↑ "Time Warner's Family Reunion". GamePro (60). IDG. July 1994. p. 170.
  5. ↑ "Tidbits...". Electronic Gaming Monthly. Ziff Davis (82): 17. May 1996.
  6. ↑ "Time Warner to Quit Game Business". Next Generation. No. 21. Imagine Media. September 1996. p. 15.
  7. ↑ "exv2w1". www.sec.gov. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  8. ↑ "Freeze". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 89. Ziff Davis. December 1996. p. 150.
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