As GT Interactive Beginnings and growth GT Interactive Software Corp. was founded in February 1993 in New York as the video game publishing division of
GoodTimes Home Video, a video-tape distributor owned by the Cayre family, with Ron Chaimowitz as co-founder and president. In its first year, revenue reached $10.3 million. Their first product was the retail release of
Wolfenstein 3D. GT was unusual among many publishers as they allowed developers they contracted to retain their intellectual property. GT Interactive revenue soared 880% and reached $101 million in its second year of existence, with profits reaching $18 million. GT Interactive's partnership with
id Software scored another hit with
Doom II: Hell on Earth, which was released in October 1994 and sold over 2 million copies. In February 1995, GT Interactive obtained the publishing rights to games based on
Mercer Mayer property, which included
Little Critter and
Little Monster. GT Interactive began to set up displays at
Kmart and
Walmart for low cost software. GT Interactive signed an exclusive software supplier agreement with Walmart that meant, according to
UBS Securities analyst Michael Wallace, "All software developers have to deal with GT if they want to sell in a Walmart."
Initial public offering In December 1995, GT Interactive debuted on the
NASDAQ stock exchange under the stock symbol GTIS. Raising $140 million with its
initial public offering, it was one of the biggest IPOs of the year. GT Interactive offered 10 million shares to the public at $14 each. In January 1996, GT Interactive obtained the publishing rights for the highly anticipated
Quake from
id Software. The game was released in June of that year to huge success, selling 1.8 million copies, becoming a PC classic. In February, GT Interactive and
Target signed an agreement in which GT Interactive became the primary consumer software supplier to all Target's 675 stores. By 1996, GT Interactive began expanding by purchasing other publishers and distributors. The company purchased budget publisher
WizardWorks for 2.4 million shares on June 25, which would form together as part of the company's GT Value Products division. WizardWorks'
Macintosh publishing division
MacSoft became a stand-alone division of GT. On 1 July, they purchased
FormGen for 1 million shares and followed this up on July 11 by purchasing
Humongous Entertainment for 3.5 million shares, or $76 million. Humongous formed as the first developer owned by the publisher, and their revenue had revenue had risen to $10 million in 1995, an increase of 233% over 1994's revenue of $3 million. By October, GT Interactive added their second developer purchase to their portfolio -
SingleTrac, for $14.7 million — $5.4 million in cash and $9.3 million in stock. SingleTrac owned and developed such games as
Twisted Metal and
Jet Moto. In September, Humongous division
Cavedog Entertainment, made its first release,
Total Annihilation, which sold more than 1 million copies. The merger would have made GT Interactive the second largest U.S. gaming software company, exceeded only by
Electronic Arts. But on December 5 the acquisition was cancelled, according to both CEOs "the time is simply not right" for the deal. MicroProse's stock plummeted after the announcement of the deal's cancellation. GT Interactive's result was negatively affected because, in March, they stopped being the exclusive computer software distributor to Walmart, who decided to buy its software directly from the publishers. In 1997, GT Interactive's share of the entertainment software market reached a historical low of 6.4% down from the record highs of 9% and 10% years earlier. GT Interactive was a leader only on the arcade/action category, with a 20.3% market share. Making matters worse, GT Interactive also had a high debt/equity ratio of 41%; for comparison, Electronic Arts had a debt/equity ratio of just 8%. For 1997 GT Interactive's return on equity was a dismal -16.14%. For the year, GT Interactive's revenue growth continued to decelerate, increased only 45% to $530 million. During 1997 GT Interactive posted its first net loss, totaling $25 million. In the fourth quarter of 1998, GT Interactive posted a net income of $16.7 million on revenues of $246.3 million. For the year, GT Interactive reported revenues were almost flat rising 10% to $584 million, but GT Interactive swung into black by posting a $20.3 million net income (results from the fiscal year ending on December 31, 1998). and British based
Reflections Interactive. Legend was purchased for $2 million, while Reflections was purchased for a reported 2.7 million shares of
common stock, which was valued at around . In the same month, GT Interactive filed a lawsuit against Midway Games for a breach of contract for failing to inform them of new game releases and trying to run off with the money from the deal. The lawsuit ended on good faith between both companies six months later. During the year, GT Interactive posted first-quarter losses of $90 million due to restructuring costs. In June,
Reflections-developed
Driver was released, selling approximately 1 million copies. IESA's acquisition came just in time because GT Interactive's 1999 results were dismal. Revenues fell 30% to $408 million in 1999 and GT Interactive posted a net loss of $254 million for the year (results with the fiscal year ending on December 31, 1999). Infogrames' purchase of GT Interactive allowed the company to hold a "distribution network for all of its products in the United States". In February 2000, GT announced the closure of Humongous subsidiary
Cavedog Entertainment as part of a post-purchase restructuring. On May 10, IESA announced that the company would be renamed from GT Interactive, Inc. to Infogrames, Inc. to better represent the Infogrames brand in the country. In June 2000, IESA purchased developer
Paradigm Entertainment for $19.5 million and placed them under the ownership of Infogrames, Inc. In October, IESA's former North American arm, the
California-based Infogrames North America, Inc. (which was formerly
Accolade), was consolidated into the new Infogrames, Inc. and hence became IESA's de-facto North American division. In January 2001, IESA completed the sale of
Hasbro Interactive (which had been renamed Infogrames Interactive, Inc.) and folded its North American publishing arms under Infogrames, Inc., allowing the company to publish titles featuring Hasbro licenses and the legendary
Atari brand. In October, Infogrames, Inc. and Infogrames Europe licensed the Atari brand from Infogrames Interactive and began using it as a secondary publishing label for their core titles aimed towards an 18-34 year-old market.
MX Rider,
Splashdown and
TransWorld Surf were the first three titles to be branded under the reinvented name. In May 2002,
Shiny Entertainment was placed under Infogrames, Inc. management after IESA purchased the developer from
Interplay Entertainment for $47 million. The deal also included the license to
The Matrix and upcoming video game title
Enter the Matrix. Although not a critical success when it was released in May 2003, it represented itself as being one of the most expensive video games ever developed and was a sales success for Infogrames, sold 1.38 million units for the
PlayStation 2 and 1 million units for the
GameCube.
As Atari Inc. On May 8, 2003, Infogrames Entertainment SA announced that they would rebrand all its subsidiaries under the Atari brand name. Infogrames, Inc. would license the Atari brand from Atari Interactive, Inc. and would be renamed as Atari, Inc., However, much of Atari, Inc.'s profits and sales figures came from
Dragon Ball titles, including the
Dragon Ball Z: Budokai series of games and the
Dragon Ball Z: The Legacy of Goku series of games for the
Game Boy Advance. These games have topped the
best-seller charts for numerous console platforms since the release of Atari's first
Dragon Ball Z game,
The Legacy of Goku in 2002, which was the first
Dragon Ball game to be made by an American company,
Webfoot Technologies. In January 2005, Atari and Funimation renewed their partnership for the franchise and with that released more titles including
Dragon Ball Z: Supersonic Warriors,
Dragon Ball Z: Super Sonic Warriors 2,
Dragon Ball Z: Sagas,
Dragon Ball GT: Transformation,
Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure and
Super Dragon Ball Z. Another lineup of licensed titles was those based on
Godzilla, developed by
Pipeworks Software. The series started with
Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee for the GameCube which was released on October 11, 2002, to much success before it was ported to the Microsoft Xbox a year later. It was followed by a sequel,
Godzilla: Save the Earth for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox, on November 16, 2004. Despite
Save the Earths relative commercial failure,
Godzilla: Unleashed was released for the PS2 on November 20, 2007, and the
Wii on December 5, 2007.
Unleashed was accompanied by
Godzilla Unleashed: Double Smash for the Nintendo DS, which was released on November 20, 2007. Alongside new releases, Atari, Inc. also released compilations honoring the classic Atari library, including
Atari Anthology on PC and consoles,
Atari Masterpieces in two volumes on
Nokia N-Gage, and
Retro Atari Classics for
Nintendo DS. The company went into hardware in 2004 with
Atari Flashback, designed and produced by Atari consultant Curt Vendel through his engineering firm Legacy Engineering. With only a 10-week development window, what they produced looked like a miniature version of the
Atari 7800 console originally released in 1984. Twenty classic Atari titles were built into the system. The success of Flashback led to the creation of a follow-up Flashback 2, released in August 2005, based on an implementation of the original Atari 2600 on a single chip that Curt Vendel designed, allowing the original 2600 games to be run instead of ports as in the first Flashback. A total of forty titles were available for the system, including
Pitfall! licensed from
Activision. From 2011 onwards, the Flashback series was licensed out to
AtGames.
Continued profit losses In Atari, Inc.'s fourth quarter results in June 2005, the company announced that they would divest and dispose of various "non-core" assets that they no longer saw as part of their upcoming strategic visions or creative directions. In August 2005, the company laid off the development portion of Humongous Entertainment and divested what was now named
Humongous, Inc. over to Infogrames for shares worth , but retaining a distribution deal for Humongous' titles up until March 2006. which was later extended to March 2007. Infogrames would take over the Humongous brand shortly afterward. In 2006, Atari, Inc. began the process of exiting the first-party development scene and sell-off their self-owned developers to raise cash and stave off the threat of bankruptcy. On May 10, the company sold the Games.com web portal, which had been under control of the company following the Hasbro Interactive purchase, to AOL. On the same day, Developer Paradigm Entertainment and the
Stuntman franchise were purchased by
THQ while publishing rights to
TimeShift were sold to rival
Vivendi Games. The sales would generate $25 million in revenue for the company. On July 13, Reflections Interactive and the
Driver franchise were sold to
Ubisoft for $21.6 million while Shiny Entertainment was acquired by
Foundation 9 Entertainment for $1.6 million on 2 October, a large drop in price from when Infogrames purchased the studio.
Atari Melbourne House, another studio previously placed under the control of Atari, Inc., was sold on 2 November to
Krome Studios, a fellow Australian development studio. On 1 September, Atari, Inc. announced that its stock faced
delisting from the
Nasdaq stock exchange due to its price having fallen below $1.00. Games released during this time included
Neverwinter Nights 2, continuing on Atari's licensing agreement with Hasbro, and
Test Drive Unlimited, developed by
Eden Games of France which was directly owned under Infogrames.
Atari and Infogrames merger On 6 March 2008, IESA announced that it would purchase out all remaining public shares in Atari, Inc. for a value of US$1.68 per share or US$11 million total, making the publisher privately owned. Atari, Inc. accepted the offer on April 30 which would soon lead to NASDAQ delisting them from the NASDAQ stock exchange on May 9 While Atari attempted to appeal, they had received notice of its absolute delisting on 12 September 2008. The Infogrames merger was officially completed on October 9, making Atari, Inc. a privately owned company. The deal allowed for Infogrames to be the only owner of the Atari brand. Infogrames said that it planned to reduce administrative costs and to focus on online gaming. At the end of May 2009, Infogrames Entertainment SA was renamed as Atari SA, allowing for all subsidiaries to be branded under the single "Atari" moniker. Games released during this period included Eden Games'
Alone in the Dark reboot, released in 2008,
Ghostbusters: The Video Game in 2009 and
Test Drive Unlimited 2 in 2011. Atari, Inc., including its fellow American subsidiaries, filed for bankruptcy in 2013. During Atari's bankruptcy sale in July 2013, most assets corresponding to GT Interactive were sold to
Tommo, Inc., and later Billionsoft. (2021) The company exited bankruptcy within a year, and following this, its parent group had a new corporate strategy revolving around new audiences outside the gaming industry, and
mobile games, leading to lessened activities by Atari, Inc. The first release of note was
Alone in the Dark: Illumination in 2015, which was universally panned by critics. For the rest of the decade, the company mainly released new titles in the
RollerCoaster Tycoon series on various platforms, including
RollerCoaster Tycoon World (2016),
RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic (2017) and
RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures (2019), but during this period also released
Tempest 4000, developed by
Llamasoft (Jeff Minter) as a sequel to the original
Tempest, on various systems including the
Atari VCS.
Recharged series and new hardware With a renewed focus of its parent company, led by Wade Rosen, on Atari's retro library and IPs, in 2022 Atari released
Kombinera, the first original IP title that Atari produced in many years. It is a puzzle-platformer, developed by Graphite Lab, and a game that fits into the "Atari gameplay motif" as part of the corporate strategy. 2023 saw the release of
Mr. Run and Jump on consoles and computers, as well as a remake of
Haunted House, developed by Orbit Studio. Atari have also been releasing remakes of classics under the
Atari Recharged series since 2021. On April 20, 2023, Atari re-purchased select titles that had previously been sold to Tommo and Billionsoft, including the GT Interactive brand. At
CES 2023, Atari partnered with My Arcade who produced three dedicated consoles under license with built-in Atari classics: the Atari Gamestation Plus, Pocket Player, and Micro Player. In August 2023, Atari announced the
2600+ console, a product developed by Atari, Inc. and separate from the VCS and
Flashback series. In March 2024, Atari announced that it would bring its
Atari Recharged series to
arcades, which would be the first Atari arcade game since 1999's
San Francisco Rush 2049. Another recreated hardware, Atari 7800+, was announced in August 2024, alongside Atari reissusing cartridges of old titles.
Yars Rising was released in September 2024. ==Subsidiaries==