pridefest
Latest
Atari partners with LGBT Media to make more inclusive games
Atari is making good on its promise to stake part of its strategy on LGBTQ apps. The company has formed a partnership with LGBT Media, the company behind the social app LGBTQutie, to reach more of the community. The deal will see LGBT Media acquire and "re-launch" Atari's city-building game Pridefest by taking advantage of its connections to the LGBTQ community, including an expansion of the title's social side. Ultimately, the two hope to create a "new standard" for gaming in a demographic that they see as underserved.
Atari's betting its future on gays and gamblers
"If I had a hole in New Mexico, maybe that one [the Project Runway game] would have made it there." Todd Shallbetter, Atari's chief operating officer, is just joking of course. He's referencing the company's infamous 1983 move to bury countless amounts of unsold gaming hardware and E.T. game cartridges under a slab of cement in the desert. Shallbetter doesn't deny his company's rocky legacy. On the contrary, he embraces it, using its failures as a counterpoint for a new version of Atari he's helping to build. To push the company past the €31.7 million (about $42 million) in revenues it earned in the 2011-2012 fiscal year (PDF), Shallbetter is targeting markets that most companies would rather ignore; markets that represent hundreds of billions of dollars. Atari is going after gays and gamblers.
Pridefest is the gay pride parade simulator from Atari
Pridefest is the new social-sim game from Atari where players create and launch their very own gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender pride parade. This is the "first" of LGBT-themed games from Atari. "We will continue offering a variety of games that are inclusive for all Atari fans and Pridefest is another example of how we are doing that," said Atari Chief Operating Officer Todd Shallbetter. The game will allow players to design and customize floats, solve challenges to unlock new festival and parade supplies and "each building has a fun capacity and once it is filled, the building upgrades and draws even more city-folk to the party." We have no images, examples of gameplay or release date. Let your imagination run wild.
