Atari Looks To Reinvent Itself As A Mobile Games Company; Hires Former IWON/Marvel Exec As EVP

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Atari Looks To Reinvent Itself As A Mobile Games Company; Hires Former IWON/Marvel Exec As EVP

November 30th, 2011 androidoholic Leave a comment Go to comments

Founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, Atari played a middle purpose in the early story of video games, going on to emanate what are still a few of the many tangible colonnade games on the planet, similar to Pac-Man and Pong, to name a few. Not to speak of the fact that its joystick-controlled Atari 2600 console was flattering sufficient synonymous with “video games” in the 1980s.

Although Atari waste a tangible brand around the globe, the firm struggled by the video games collision of 1983, financial issues, and assorted properties have depressed beneath a number of not similar tenure and care regimes, inclusive Warner Communications and Hasbro – amid many others.

Today, Atari is a 65-person company, with domicile in New York and France. The firm looks a lot not similar than it did two decades ago, but the stream care group is focused on leveraging Atari’s assets, its burly brand approval and universal distribution, to reinvent it as a mobile and amicable games company.

But carrying out so is no easy task. EA, one of the largest and many tangible video games companies, moreover has the gain of burly brand approval and a number of successful and renouned titles, similar to Battlefield, Need for Speed, Mass Effect, FIFA and Madden, to name a few. EA has established that it can’t hope to vie with the likes of Zynga simply by outstanding a console firm and pumping out sequels to renouned titles. Over the final few years, EA has gotten active porting its flagship games in to amicable and mobile channels. Of course, even that’s not enough. ( More here .)

As Atari CEO Jim Wilson said, the key to success for any firm is formulating quality, initial products. “There’s no other way to sustain long-term viability”, he said. “Atari can’t rest on its laurels, you have to stay relevant”.

In refocusing on mobile and amicable as the two-headed future of gaming, Atari expelled “Greatest Hits” for iOS back in April, that is an 18-title representation march of Atari’s typical games. Earlier this month, Atari launched Greatest Hits on Android. And two weeks ago, the firm brought its Asteroids authorization to iOS , tailoring the retro diversion for a new medium.

Asteroids: Gunner became a tip 10 bestseller on the App Store for its first two weeks, and Greatest Hits has racked up over 3.5 million downloads opposite platforms given its let go in April. So, the maestro games firm has found a few success in relocating its typical games to mobile, only as EA and others had found before it.

On December 8th, Atari will go on its let go of its typical games on mobile, as it will launch “Breakout: Boost”, an amped-up chronicle of the 1976 colonnade classic, on iOS. The diversion will add the normal 5 levels, along with 200 extra levels of brick-breaking that may be unbarred by in-app purchases.

Breakout will moreover see new manage features that enable gamers to change round speed to ramp up the difficulty, together with power-ups, “Grenade Balls” (and round upgrades), section varieties, the aptitude to save progress, and OpenFeint and Game Center integration.

To back up the retooling of its games for mobile devices, Atari has moreover done a few additions to its senior manager leadership, inclusive the new employing of Gui Karyo, a gaming and entertainment attention veteran, as EVP of Development Operations. Karyo has formerly hold senior senior manager positions at Mindspark, Majesco, and Marvel and has taken over day-to-day omission of the company’s product development, operations, and Atari.com in an bid to hasten the growth of its mobile and online strategies.

Leadership with previous experience in amicable and mobile diversion growth and restructuring business processes and products around these flourishing channels is key as Atari goes after a new freemium, microtransaction-driven rebranding. Atari has miles to go before it can ever vie with the bigs in amicable gaming, but as a comparatively gaunt company, it may have an simpler time transitioning in to the mobile and unintentional diversion space than a few other heavier companies that have advance before it.

Of course, care is only the start. To erect a successful modern mobile gaming company, Atari has to internally turn a firm comprised of developers, engineers, and designers that specialize in mobile. They’re on their way, and the Atari CEO says that the firm is constructing initiatives that will enlarge overdo to the developer residents to drum up fascination around modernizing Atari’s games.

Atari is happily the owners and/or manager of an endless library of more than 200 games and franchises that add brands similar to Centipede, Missile Command, Pong, Test Drive, Backyard Sports, and Deer Hunter. Moving forward, Wilson says that the firm is seeking to develop these games for a new era of gamers – updating their look – whilst progressing gameplay identity.

But more critical will be launching, new initial titles. Atari can coastline on its brand and typical colonnade games and probably go on to money in on brand recognition, retooling its games for any and all new channels that evident over the years. But without formulating new, applicable products, Atari’s reinvention as a mobile firm will unequivocally only be skin deep.

And seeking at Atari’s stream financials, it seems that this reinvention as a mobile and digital operation is right away a must. The company’s digital income (for the first half of the year) comprised 63.6 percent of its complete net income – compared to 20.1 percent in the first half of final year. Digital revenues were $10.5 million in the first half of the year, an enlarge of $6.3 million over the previous year. This has led the firm to cut its working loss to about $2.6 million, a 61.2 percent alleviation over the same time final year.

Revenues are still low, but focusing on fewer and more essential games has helped the firm see alleviation in its sum margin; and whilst ramping up its outlay on RD and selling for its new digital games has contributed to descend numbers, Wilson and group are anticipating that these type of investments can help pull its mobile passing from one to another forward.

To that end, the CEO moreover mentioned the firm is currently hiring, and is right away going after “the most appropriate and brightest” to help drive its new mobile/social trajectory. If the firm can pick up from Zynga’s metrics-driven draw close to patron retention, whilst baking freemium, location, and amicable elements in to their new titles, Atari could be staid to lift itself out of replay mode.

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