The Atari brand is fascinating. Over the past 51 years, it’s been in so many hands that you practically need a flowchart to understand it.
But here goes. I’m giving it the old college try.
The original Atari only existed for 4 years, between 1972-76.
One year after Atari’s existence, it created a Japanese subsidiary called Atari Japan. Deemed a failure, a little company called Namco bought Atari Japan – becoming one of the first Japanese video game companies ever.
In 1976, the original Atari was sold to Warner Communications. This coincided with Atari reaching its commercial peak with the Atari 2600, 5200, and 8-bit family of computers.
But then the video game crash of 1983 happened, and Warner Communications no longer wanted Atari. But rather than spinning out Atari as one company, they split it in two.
The “home” division was sold to Jack Tramiel, previous CEO of Commodore who was out for revenge against his old company. This Atari became known as Atari Corporation.
The “arcade” division became known as Atari Games.
At this point, two different trees of Atari came to exist.
Atari Corporation continued to make home consoles and computers. They released the Atari ST, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx, and Atari Jaguar. As well, they published several well known classic games. They were also the rights holders for several 2600, 5200 and 8-bit computer games.
After the Jaguar failed, Atari Corporation tried to pivot to the PC gaming market as a publisher, but the Tramiel family wanted out of the business. So in 1996 they merged with a hard disk drive manufacturer called JTS.
Two years later, in 1998, this version of Atari was sold to Hasbro Interactive.
In 2001, Hasbro Interactive was sold to French video game publisher Infogrames, and Infogrames renamed itself as Atari SA. For awhile, this version of Atari was one of the largest video game publishers in the world.
In 2008, this version of Atari entered a joint venture with Bandai Namco (remember Namco?). One year later, several assets were outright sold to Bandai Namco.
Then in 2014, Atari SA went bankrupt. Due to this, the started selling off even more assets including Deerhunter, Battlezone, Star Control and others.
Miraculously Atari SA still exists and now makes 2600-inspired consoles, republishes old games, also publishes the Rollercoaster Tycoon series, sells NFTs, and is trying to get into the hotel business(?!)
Atari Games is the other Atari, and you can make the case it’s the most “real” Atari since the original Atari was all about arcade cabinets. This version of Atari became known for several classic arcade games such as Gauntlet, Paperboy, Marble Madness, Hard Drivin’, and Primal Rage.
Warner Communications spun out Atari Games as a joint venture between themselves and Namco, with Namco owning 60% of Atari Games.
But Namco got bored of Atari Games, so they sold a 20% stake in the company to Atari Games employees. As a result, Atari Games was owned 40% by Warner Communications, 40% by Namco, and 20% by employees. Since no one owned a controlling stake in Atari Games, it effectively became an independent company.
Atari Games noticed that the Nintendo Entertainment System was getting popular. But unable to enter the home market under the trade name “Atari”, they created a brand to publish games to home consoles. This brand was Tengen. And Tengen became known for a well known fight with Nintendo – that’s a different rabbit trail, though.
In 1989, Warner Communications merged with Time Inc, becoming Time Warner. At this point, Time Warner decided they wanted a controlling stake in Atari Games, so they acquired it. Because of this, Tengen became Time Warner Interactive.
In 1994, Atari Games, Tengen, and Time Warner were all consolidated under the Time Warner Interactive Banner.
One year later, Time Warner decided they didn’t want to be in the video game business anymore. So they sold Atari Games to WMS Industries, the parent company behind Williams, Bally, and Midway.
In 1998, the video game assets of WMS Industries were spun off into a new entity called Midway Games which gained control of Atari Games.
One year later, in 1999, Atari Games was renamed Midway Games West.
Shockingly, Midway Games West continued to exist until Midway Games went bankrupt in 2009. At which point, Midway Games West (a.k.a., Atari Games) was sold to Warner Brothers Interactive, who decided to re-enter the video game market. So now Atari Games is owned by Time Warner again.
So with all this intrigue, who is the “real” Atari? I would say three companies can reasonably claim the Atari lineage:
1- Atari SA: they own the rights to Atari consoles and computers as well as several computer games, and still use the Atari brand
2- Time Warner: they own the rights to Atari Games
3- Bandai Namco: they acquired Atari Japan as well as several Atari assets over a period of many decades
Atari and its brand are complex and more interesting than I could have imagined.
