CNN Money have an article speculating about Atari's future:
The Atari of old offered games and a home console – the Atari 2600 – that could be found in the living rooms of cool kids everywhere. The Atari of today is plagued by a revolving door in the executive suite and boasts a questionable line-up of upcoming games.
Fourth-quarter losses for the firm, reported earlier this week, came in at $9.1 million – better than last year's $17.3 million loss, but hardly confidence inspiring. And the comments from company executives in the conference call following the earnings announcement weren't exactly upbeat.
Poor Atari... I had no idea things were so dire for them, and I also had no idea that they were making another Matrix game. Lets hope that it's better thean Enter the Matrix was...
Hmm I once watched some doco on the inception/creation of Atari... was quite interesting.
Out of those losses, I'd really like to know exactly how much these execs are taking home... And I'd like to know if any of the execs have a f***ing clue about games/gaming. My guess is they don't and that's why they keep leaving.
Out of those losses, I'd really like to know exactly how much these execs are taking home... And I'd like to know if any of the execs have a f***ing clue about games/gaming. My guess is they don't and that's why they keep leaving.
I'd like to know if Qantas executives can fly large commercial planes.
hahaha.
the difference is qantas execs need to know how to run a cargo business, which is mainly logistics.
gaming is a creative process with a fickle audience.
gaming is a creative process with a fickle audience. Most of gaming now is about brands and licenses. How many new titles have you played recently?! I don't remember the last original PC game I played.
hahaha.
the difference is qantas execs need to know how to run a cargo business, which is mainly logistics.
gaming is a creative process with a fickle audience.
That's why they hire Game Designers, and Market Research personal. Besides, in creative industries the chances are the executives would have different tastes to their markets anyway.
I'm not saying that there is a lot of things wrong in the Executive circles of Atari and I don't know if they actually listen to their Designers/Research personal, or how talented they are.
do you think the omg doom3 is dark joke will ever grow old? Nah, as long as there exist people who have only watched a mate play, they'll keep retelling the joke of a game they haven't played.
never thought it was that funny to begin with, lol... but then again, i'm someone who's played it.
Companies don't make games like they used to. You may notice how recently they've been getting worse (i think so anyway)... but i have to say that the more recent line up is getting better, i think they've realised that Graphics won't be enough to get games sold...
Just because you haven't played any doesn't mean they are not out there. Of the 106 new titles that I catalogued at E3 this year for our various games databases, 57 of them are either sequels or based on a brand. This is a biased pool in some ways, as I mostly went out of my way to add titles that seemed 'new' - for example, I didn't add a whole host of EA Sports' lineup, and it in no way represents a full list of games that were announced at E3 - but I'd be surprised if the mix wasn't at _least_ 60% brand/sequel versus 40% new titles.
Of the titles that aren't brand/sequels, 8 of these suffer from 'colonitis' - their name has a colon in it. The last year or so has truly been the Year of the Colon when it comes to games, as everyone is frantically trying to establish their brand so they can peel of a zillion sub-games later.
So, they're certainly out there, of course. But the probability that they're going to be worth playing keeps getting worse, because publishers make more money off games that are already doing the brand thing.
Case in point - Enter the Matrix by Atari. It sold like 4 million copies or something overall. I never played it, but by all reports it was a fairly terrible game - I had lots of actual serious gamers tell me it was buggy and not much fun. It didn't sell 4 million copies because it was a good game - it was market positioning of the Matrix brand (ie, just before it was destroyed by the last two movies so I guess it was more good timing :)
lol, the funny thing is that people keep buying games based on outsied opinion. Very few gamers like myself look for what they like, then buy... That is pretty much our only option now, otherwise you'd be buying a game and later thinking, why on earth did i buy this junk, and a few times of that, and people might eventually stop buying games... not good for business overall.
Companies need to pick up their game. (lol, that's a pun... isn't it?)
I dont care if it was an original idea or who it ripped off, the first one was still a really really cool movie. All these other people who had all these great ideas that were apparently ripped off never made any really really cool movies like the Matrix, they just cry about it when someone else does.
Maybe the wachowskis should just stick to ripping off other people's ideas and turning them into awesome movies, cos when they tried to write their own they ended up pretty lame compared to the first one.
And to make this relevant to the thread, my brother bought Act of War in an EB sale recently, and its put out by Atari, and its a really really cool RTS, I'm really getting into it, has a cool Command and Conquer feel to it, with a plot that could almost be an episode of 24.
