Atari was once synonymous with all that was cool in gaming. If you're old enough to remember playing Frogger's first level for hours on end because you simply weren't coordinated enough yet... well, you'd have a lot in common with some of us. These days, however, the once hallowed brand has been reduced to a shadow of its former self, outpaced by newer, bigger companies, and awash in debt. Still, the company's set up a new office in LA, turned its attention to cleaning up some of its money messes, and is now looking to what it sees as the future (or present) of gaming: online classics such as Centipede, played on social networking sites like Facebook. Licensing titles it already owns to online properties, as well as for movies seems to be the direction Atari is heading now, with two projects already in the works. In just the past year, the company has gone from a state which could be described as "hemorrhaging" to... well, it's not profitable yet, but it certainly looks to be moving in that direction. Atari-owned Cryptic Games is responsible for the Star Trek Online game, and while it's no WoW, its certainly got its own fanbase. We'll say this: if we could get even a few of those games on
Facebook, we'd probably spend more than two minutes a week on it.
posted August 12th 2010 1:11AM
*Throws away Starcraft 2*
@Diggler
How awesome. I really hope they do!!! I would love to play/have breakout on my page.
So full of win! :'D
@Diggler How dare you!! Someone needs to make a Kerrigan Engadget account and rectify this!
@Diggler
I'm gonna rock Asteroid and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial so hard.
@Diggler: Whatever. I would get excited and play for about an hour before getting totally bored. I grew up with Atari and appreciate the nostalgia value as much as the next person, but there is absolutely no stickiness to those games at all, and Facebook profit is all about stickiness.
@Dante of the Inferno
I hope you are joking. ET is probally the worst atari game that was ever made.
Can I get some Apps for my phone plz?
centipede, river raid, digdug, some of those old classics in app form would be great games.
@tonicboy
Funny, that's exactly how I feel about Facebook. I'm gonna go play Haunted House right now.
Dear Atari, good luck.
That is all
I thought Atari from the old days is no more and a different company bought/took its name.
@Mariohd277
It's changed a bit.
Atari Inc. (1972–1984)
Atari Corporation (1984–1996)
As a division of Hasbro (1998–2001)
Atari Inc., a division of Infogrames (2001 to present)
Atari SA (2009-)
@NCase - And Hasbro just bought the name and property...though the Tramiels replaced most pre-1984 Atari employees when they bought it, so was sort of a new company then too.
Nice
will i be able to play those games on my Commodore/Amiga phone ?.........oh well a man can dream
@IMarius
Can't help you with the phone part, but yes, you can (already) play them on your Amiga--and AcornOS, DOS, FreeBSD, IRIX, Linux, OS/2, MacOS, Unix, and Windows... to wit, behold, the magic of STELLA:
http://stella.sourceforge.net/
GALAGA!
@DocDoom
That's Namco. Wrong gaming company. -.-
@NCase Nevertheless, Galaga is a legendary game that deserves our worship and praise.
@wemustcontrolpeople
I won't deny it. I have a plug & play with Galaga on it right in front of me.
@NCase
Galaga was available on the Atari 7800.
@DocDoom
But it's not published by Atari, thus it really has no place under this article.
@NCase Neither was Frogger (it was a Sega property but was on the 2600, just like everything else).
@Enduro - Konami
Wasn't there a game called like loops where you had to stear this rocket ship around without crashing into walls and dripping water or something *clearing out cob webs in brain* Maybe that was the caleco or however it was spelled.
@quiksilverz
It was called Looping (by Venture Line) for the Coleco Vision.
I only this because it's one of the 20 Coleco Vision (and about 35 Atari 2600 games) still sitting in my closet.
@kinless
I played way too much looping on my Coleco. I can still remember the music :)
@Darkroom
YOU SPEAK BLASPHEMY!!!!
They tried to change the taste of Coke once.
ONCE.
Dig Dug miss the 7800 that didn't get popular as the 2600 my first video game could have all my fiends staring back in Africa
@Darkroom That's the whole reason it's a GOOD logo.
Atari really has failed to impress in a long time, just like THQ and many more random game developers...yet the companies live...odd I thougt that capitalism killed all products that consumers don't like
@23542354 Your forgetting the nostalgia market.
@23542354
Capitalism also allows the infusion of new ideas and money so a Corp can keep evolving and thus survive.
They need to release these on android market/app store
Milipede FTW!!!
Well... Good luck, Atari. Things changed a lot since they left.
I think they'll have to adapt their retro-games to the latest tablet-PC devices, or... make their own? Hmmm... What about an atar_iPad running an updated TOS au goût du jour? Sounds nerdy enough :).
@GSGeek
Atari has been making games this whole time you know...
I'd rather see people's Centipede high score than see their friggin farmville invites! Bring it on!
@Darkroom
That logo is what makes us all stop and look at their games in a store still despite years of lackluster releases. Changing the logo would be suicide.
I was wondering why I made a facebook account... ATARI FTW
@Darkroom
They did change the logo. Before, all of the lines in the logo stayed at the same thickness. In the new logo, the lines are thicker on the bottom than on the top. The picture in this article is of the old logo.
I like the old logo better.
Just a Joystick and one button... Those were the days
@Darkroom I have shirts, stickers and accessories with that LOGO... If they need to change it, why they are still selling so many merchandise with that LOGO???
So many golden age arcade games were made by Atari. They had the coolest cabinets and some of the best games. The 2600 was fun because it was the only game in town but Atari's strength was in the quarter munching department. Bring on the Tempest, Asteroids Deluxe and the some two player Space Duel.
@Enduro
Yeah, I remember when $5 would last a whole Saturday at the arcade, which is another thing that doesn't exist anymore, there used to be one next to every movie theater!
@Enduro
I can't agree that was the only reason. The graphics weren't amazing, but there was a lot of creativity behind those games. In Adventure you play a block, but I don't think anybody really cared. Yar's Revenge was one of the better-looking ones, but like most of them it came with a book laying out an entire back story that helped flesh it out. Most people would prefer HD to imagination, I'll give you that, but there are few games today that can hold your interest on concept and game play alone, especially over repeated play. Too many console games today are derivative in concept and narrative, get played through once, often in a few hours, and are then sold or forgotten.
@m66 I have to agree that Yar's Revenge was a gem. I'd rather play that then a lot of HD crap, certain more fun than trying to pull down the Super Star Destroyer in The Force Unleashed. The 2600 wasn't all bad, I played the hell out of it but the arcade games still hold up really well, at least in my opinion. Go to Klov and search for Atari 1977-1984, pretty strong line up.
@Darkroom
Evoking the past is the whole point of nostalgia, you realize. If you don't now, you will later.
@Darkroom
I voted up your comment, not because I agree with you, but because only troll posts deserve to be voted down.
But would you also recommend Lucas update the look of Darth Vader?
(Actually, that chest plate with the flashing lights makes absolutely no sense.)
When Hasbro owned Atari, they also had free Flash versions on their website of CENTIPEDE and 3 other Atari games that appeared to be Flash-based emulators running the genuine arcade ROMs. If not, they were VERY accurate recreations.
Hasbro also released rights to the defunct Jaguar, making it legal to use the original system ROMs (not games) for non-profit hacking/emulation purposes.
I was an Atarian from the early 80s through the mid-90s, certainly what you would call a fanboy today. But they stopped being relevant when they died. Hasbro's attempts to update some of Atari's old titles were pretty sad, and Infogrames turned Atari into little more than a publisher. Now, trying to reinvent themselves by publishing their classics online through Facebook ... well, that just seems like another step down to me. It might be profitable for them perhaps, and I'd like that to be so, but Atari's done nothing but regress since '95. Well, since 1985 really, but it has been various attempts at keeping Atari's corpse alive that has really underscored how far the brand has fallen.
Plus, they pulled all of their games from the iPhone App Store, so I'm kinda pissed at them.
I wouldn't call it atari since Infogrames bought it and renamed themself to Atari