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Atari "Doesn't Have A Lot Of Room For Mistakes," Decides to Create Flash-Based Online Games
April 11, 2008 | 8:20 PM PST

by: Nathan Grayson



Select "Eye of the Tiger" on your mp3 player of choice and crank the volume, because Atari's the tenacious boxer who just won't go down. And now, with yet another resurgence, they're sporting a new business plan and a slightly used Phil Harrison. But this time around, Atari doesn't plan to ride the rollercoaster of ups-and-downs that previously characterized their position in the gaming industry.

"I think the steps that we have to take have to deliver - we don't have a lot of room for mistakes, we're threading the needle a little bit... When you're smaller it's just not as easy to recover when things don't sell," noted chief executive officer of Infogrames, David Gardner in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

And with any luck, Atari will strike gold when they enter the wild frontier of online Flash-based games. Phil Harrison, former Sony Worldwide Studios head who jumped ship for Infogrames thinks they can; in fact, it's the reason he abandoned his prestigious post at Sony in the first place.

"One is that the Flash technology is getting better all the time, so there is just a rising tide that means in-browser doesn't mean simple 2D anymore," Harrison said while in Paris earlier this week. "You can have 3D really immersive experiences.

Harrison also believes in a try-before-you-buy model, allowing a game to reach more users through demos and trials.

"The second thing," added Harrison, "is for downloads that actually, clicking and buying, or trying and buying, and downloading - you have the rising tide of broadband speeds and the ubiquity of connections in the home."

That's not to say Atari's completely abandoning their loyal -- if not lucrative -- niche within the more traditional sector of the video game marketplace; Alone in the Dark is set to have gamers checking for monsters under their beds this summer, and other games are in the pipeline as well. If executed correctly, Atari's new business plan has a shot at giving gamers the best of both worlds. After all this time, we're beginning to understand why Phil Harrison joined the company.



Editor's Take: The online sector of the video game market is still burgeoning, and doesn't run on multimillion dollar blockbusters like the traditional marketplace. Whereas previously, Atari was battling the likes of EA, Ubisoft, and Activison, they're now free to innovate as they please. Sure, many of their games won't be quite as robust as we're used to, but if what Phil Harrison says is true, Atari's new lineup will be worth checking out nonetheless.

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