Atari buys Night Dive

EvaUnit02 on 24/3/2023 at 06:03

Perpetual flop publisher Infogrames, aka skinsuit Atari, just bought Night Dive. Oh dear. The same company went bankrupt in 2013, triggering an IP firesale (eg THQ Nordic buying Alone in the Dark; Nacom buying Test Drive).
(https://web.archive.org/web/20230322233407/https://finance.yahoo.com/news/atari-enters-agreement-acquire-night-220300554.html)

Biggest trainwreck publisher in France, even more so than Ubisoft and Nacom.

henke on 24/3/2023 at 06:57

Oh boy, oh dear.

When I think of modern Atari I think of the company that rushed Driv3r out and then bribed Future to give it good reviews in 2004. Are they still the same company? The wiki says (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_SA) there's new leadership since 2020. That Atari 50 collection was apparently good. Does that mean anything? I dunno, I certainly would've felt better about Nightdive being independent tho.

Sulphur on 24/3/2023 at 09:21

Not sure if it's a net loss, but I guess this tiny sum keeps Night Dive afloat, somehow? I'm hoping they get to continue to enact their game preservation remit for games across the industry, but that gets more complicated/untenable now I suppose.

Malf on 24/3/2023 at 10:04

Quote Posted by henke

Are they still the same company?

Pretty sure it's a completely different company now. They're focussing a lot on old Atari IP and retro games that would compliment that back-catalogue. You all know I'm a Llamasoft fan, and they recently released a game with Atari, Akka Arrh, which is a remake of a scrapped Eighties arcade machine. They also released Tempest 4000 through Atari too.

Atari also released their modern remake of the Atari VCS in an effort to ride the wave that the mini-console fad created, but by all accounts it's a bit of a damp squib.

WingedKagouti on 24/3/2023 at 10:08

Quote Posted by henke

Oh boy, oh dear.When I think of modern Atari I think of the company that rushed Driv3r out and then bribed Future to give it good reviews in 2004. Are they still the same company?

The Atari of 2004 was Infogrames under new branding.

But to compare the two companies, in Nightdive Studios' existence they've released 12 remasters and 2 original titles.

In the same timeframe Atari/Infogrames has managed to file for bankruptcy, kickstart and launch the Atari VCS, release one remaster & one original title (outside the emulator + old stuff bundles that take minimal effort) and launch the cryptocurrency Atari Token.

I guess Nightdive Studios were really desperate for money.

EvaUnit02 on 24/3/2023 at 22:22

Likely any IPs that Night Dive bought, eg System Shock, are now owned by these French failures. At very least we'll get that System Shock remake in 2 months and it'll be unaffected by these shenanigans.

TheRealSlimGarrett on 2/4/2023 at 14:15

I've not heard any Atari news for about 3 decades.......

Jason Moyer on 2/4/2023 at 14:20

I thought the rights to System Shock were owned by Tencent or somebody now.

Twist on 2/4/2023 at 19:59

Tencent bought the rights to publish System Shock 3, specifically.

ZylonBane on 2/4/2023 at 21:53

They should just give someone else the rights to make System Shock 4 then. Bam!