The story
Founded by Bruno Bonnell on Jun 1983.1
Founding and beginnings (1983–1996)
The company was founded by Bruno Bonnell and Christophe Sapet. They wanted to christen the company Zboub Système (which can be approximately translated to Dick System in English), but were dissuaded by their legal counsel. According to Bonnell in a TV interview, they then used a mix-and-match computer program to suggest other names, one of which was "Infogramme": a portmanteau of the French words "informatique" (information technology) and "programme" (computer program). The final choice, Infogrames, was a slightly modified version of that suggestion.
The company logo and mascot is an armadillo (tatou in French), chosen when the company was moved to Villeurbanne. Bonnell commented: "This dinosaur [sic] is our symbol. The armadillo has always survived changes to its environment, from the melting of glaciers to the worst of heat waves."
In 1983, Infogrames released their first title The Cube, which sold 60,000 copies.
In the late 1980s, Infogrames was noted for its French computer games that often featured original game ideas and occasionally humorous content. They had acquired several licences for popular Franco-Belgian comics.
In 1987, Infogrames extended to the growing Multimedia market by founding Infogrames Multimedia, which would later develop and publish CD-ROM based games and software. In the same year, they formed an interactive videotex division, Infogrames Télématique.
In 1992, they released Alone in the Dark, a 3D horror adventure game, to international attention.
By 1995, Infogrames was held by many shareholders, including a 20% stake from Pathé Interactive (joint-venture between Phillips Media and Chargeurs) and 3.3% by Productions Marcel Dassault. By August, Phillips Media acquired Chargeurs' stake in Pathé Interactive, which led to the 20% shareholding stake of the company transferring fully over to Phillips.
Growth through acquisition (1996–2003)
In 1996, Infogrames embarked on an acquisition campaign that would last seven years and cost more than $500 million; the objective was to become the world's leading interactive entertainment publisher. While the company's debt increased from $55 million in 1999 to $493 million in 2002, the company's revenue also increased from $246 million to $650 million during the same period.
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In July 1996, the company announced that it would purchase the British-based holding company Ocean International Ltd. for $100 million, beginning Infogrames' status as a major publisher. Ocean International consisted of British developer and publisher Ocean Software and its North American division Ocean of America. After the deal was closed, Ocean became a standalone subsidiary of Infogrames and continued releasing its own titles distant from those of Infogrames. Both Ocean subsidiaries soon became the official distributors for Infogrames in both territories.
In 1997, Infogrames Télématique launched Oceanline, a website that would offer simplified online versions of Infogrames titles. On 3 February, Infogrames announced that they would purchase the French division of Phillips Media BV for 191.5 million F with the deal closing on 9 June. Phillips Media France, in addition to holding a 20% shareholding stake in Infogrames, also owned the distributors Ecudis (France), Leisuresoft (UK), Bomico Entertainment Software (Germany and Holland), and German publisher Laguna Video Games. Leisuresoft was however not included in the sale, and was shuttered following the purchase. In October 1997, Infogrames announced to set up a subsidiary in India for the South East Asian market, mentioning interest in Thailand.
On 30 January 1998, Infogrames signed a licensing deal with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to publish and develop five titles based on the Looney Tunes franchise. On 8 February, Infogrames rebranded its subsidiaries under its own banner, with Ocean Software becoming Infogrames United Kingdom, Ocean of America becoming Infogrames Entertainment, Inc. and Bomico Entertainment Software becoming Infogrames Deutschland. On the same day, the company announced a two-year distribution deal with Canal+ Multimedia to distribute the company's titles in the UK, France and Germany. Later on in the year the company purchased the distributors ABS Multimedia, Arcadia, and the Swiss Gamecity GmbH and ending the year off with the purchase of a 62.5% in Australian game distributor Ozisoft, following its then-recent relinquishment from Sega.
On 10 February 1999, Infogrames extended its partnership with Canal+ Multimedia by purchasing a 50% stake in the publisher, with the intentions to invest 50 million F into creating titles based on Canal+'s licenses. Infogrames made major purchases for 1999, beginning in March with the purchase of the Gremlin Group for $40 million in March, who owned developers Gremlin Interactive and DMA Design, with Gremlin rebranding as Infogrames Sheffield House. On 5 April, Psygnosis' Paris development studio was purchased. The company's first major purchase of the year came on 20 April, with the purchase of publisher Accolade for $60 million in order to gain a major North American distribution network. Accolade was rebranded as Infogrames North America, with the company's former North American distribution arm (the ex-Ocean of America) being folded into it. On 24 June, the company extended its Looney Tunes licensing deal with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment for five years, with a maximum of twenty titles. Later on in the year, the company purchased the video game division of the Australian-based Beam Software, and rebranded it as Infogrames Melbourne House. On 29 September, Take-Two Interactive purchased DMA Design from Infogrames for US$11 million and transitioned it over to their Rockstar Games subsidiary, soon becoming Rockstar North.
In December 1999, Infogrames made their then-largest purchase with the acquisition of a 70% stake in publisher GT Interactive Software for $135 million, and assumed GT's $75 million bank debt. IESA justified the purchase by stating that GT Interactive provided Infogrames with a "distribution network for all of its products in the United States, as well as a catalog of products that includes Driver, Duke Nukem, Oddworld, Unreal Tournament and Deer Hunter. The deal also included the developers SingleTrac, Humongous Entertainment, Cavedog Entertainment, WizardWorks, MacSoft, Legend Entertainment and Reflections Interactive.
Infogrames began the new millennium of 2000 with a new identity and branding, while in February GT closed down Cavedog Entertainment as part of its restructuring. In June, The company invested another $30 million in GT Interactive, and renamed the publisher as Infogrames, Inc. On 30 June, Infogrames purchased developer Paradigm Entertainment for $19.5 million and placed them within Infogrames, Inc. operations. and soon afterwards purchased in-flight games developer Den-o-Tech Int. (DTI) for $5.6 million, renaming them as Infogrames DTI. Infogrames was also one of the interested companies in purchasing Eidos Interactive.
On 7 September 2000, Infogrames announced a licensing deal with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Comics to publish Superman video games.
On 6 December 2000, board game manufacturer Hasbro announced that they would sell their struggling Hasbro Interactive division to Infogrames for $100 million, $95 million as 4.5 million common shares of Infogrames and $5 million in cash. The deal included all of Hasbro Interactive's product library, the Atari and MicroProse brands and titles such as Civilization, Falcon, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Centipede, Missile Command, and Pong, MicroProse's owned developers, the Games.com web portal, third-party video game licenses including Thomas the Tank Engine, Family Feud and various Namco properties, as well as a fifteen-year licensing deal to develop and publish titles based on Hasbro IP such as Dungeons & Dragons, Monopoly, Mr. Potato Head and My Little Pony, with an option for an additional 5 years based on performance. The deal did not include Avalon Hill, which was retained by Hasbro. The deal was closed on 29 January 2001, and Hasbro Interactive was rebranded as Infogrames Interactive, Inc.
On 2 October 2001, Infogrames announced that they would reinvent the Atari brand as a second major publishing label with the launch of three new games featuring prominent Atari branding on their boxarts: Splashdown, MX Rider and TransWorld Surf. Infogrames titles released under the Atari brand would focus within a core 18-34-year-old male audience, while children's and casual games would retain the Infogrames banner. In November 2001, Frédéric Chesnais became Deputy CEO.
In April 2002, the company's Japanese division Infogrames Japan K.K. signed a Japanese distribution deal with Konami for select titles and soon relaunched the Atari brand in the country with the publication of Splashdown, TransWorld Surf and V-Rally 3 in the region. On 28 August, Infogrames purchased the remaining shares in OziSoft for $3.7 million and rebranded the distributor as Infogrames Australia and Infogrames New Zealand. On 12 September 2002, Infogrames announced the closure of MicroProse's UK studio, then named Infogrames Chippenham. On 2 October, the company closed Infogrames Lyon House. and on 22 October, had acquired the remaining 80% of Eden Studios for $4.1 million,. In the fiscal year of 2002, IESA had a net loss of $67 million on revenues of $650 million, and in 2003 the net losses increased to $89 million.
On 1 May, the company shuttered the Infogrames Sheffield House development studio.
Rebranding subsidiaries to Atari (2003–2008)
On 7 May 2003, Infogrames officially reorganized all its subsidiaries under the Atari banner. Its two publishing divisions in the United States – Infogrames, Inc., based in Santa Monica (the former GT Interactive) which handled a majority of the company's "core" titles such as Enter the Matrix, Dungeons and Dragons (including Neverwinter Nights) and other movie tie-ins, was rebranded as Atari, Inc., and Infogrames Interactive, Inc., based in Beverly, Massachusetts, which focused on children's and casual titles such as games based on the Dragon Ball franchise and their Hasbro license, was renamed Atari Interactive, Inc., merging with the previously existing Atari Interactive, Inc. which held all rights to the Atari brand. Other subsidiaries that rebranded included Infogrames Australia Pty, Ltd. rebranding as Atari Australia Pty, Ltd., Infogrames United Kingdom Limited rebranding as Atari United Kingdom Limited, Infogrames Europe rebranding as Atari Europe and development studio Infogrames Melbourne House Pty Ltd becoming Atari Melbourne House Pty Ltd. The Infogrames Entertainment SA company as a whole remained under its name, and became a holding company for the Atari assets. Atari, Inc.'s majority shareholder was California U.S. Holdings, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Infogrames Entertainment SA. and had exclusive publishing and sublicensing in North America to release titles from Infogrames or its subsidiaries, including Atari Interactive.
In September 2003, Atari announced the closure of its Hunt Valley (the former headquarters of MicroProse) development studio. On 2 October, Zoo Digital Publishing, a then-new publisher founded by Gremlin Interactive co-founder Ian Stewart, announced that they had acquired Gremlin's former assets from Infogrames for an undisclosed one-off payment. The deal included all of Gremlin's catalogue alongside their brand, logo and trademark. On 18 December, Atari, Inc. announced that they would shutter Legend Entertainment in January 2004.
Throughout the whole company, Infogrames and Atari continued to close studios and divest intellectual properties and sell off franchises by 2004. On 25 November 2004, Infogrames announced they had sold the Civilization franchise to an undisclosed buyer for $22.3 million.
In January 2005, it was revealed that the buyer for the Civilization franchise was Take-Two Interactive, who acquired distribution rights to the then-upcoming title Civilization IV under their 2K label. On 2 May, after signing a new deal with Firaxis Games, 2K fully acquired the Civilization back catalog as well as the publishing rights to the then-recent Sid Meier's Pirates! from Infogrames.
On 9 June, Hasbro announced it had purchased back Atari's exclusive digital gaming rights to its properties for $65 million. In exchange for the deal, Atari acquired a seven-year exclusive agreement to publish titles based on select Hasbro board game properties, alongside a separate deal for the Dungeons & Dragons license. On 22 August, Atari, Inc. sold Humongous, Inc. to Infogrames Entertainment SA for shares worth US$10.3 million. With this, Infogrames laid off all remaining employees at the company with possible plans to relaunch the company's IP. Atari would continue to distribute the company's titles for a period until March 2006, and was later extended to March 2007.
On 5 September 2006, David Pierce was appointed as new CEO of Atari, replacing Bruno Bonnell. Pierce previously worked as an executive at Universal Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Sony Pictures, Sony Music, and Sony Wonder.
In April 2007, Infogrames' founding chairman Bruno Bonnell left the company after 24 years; on the day of the announcement of his departure IESA's shares jumped 24%. In the same year, Infogrames fired the majority of Atari's directors and laid off 20% of its workforce. For the 2006–2007 fiscal year, Atari posted a net loss of $70 million. In July 2007, Atari sold their exclusive licensing deal with Hasbro back to them for $19 million, which concluded with Hasbro signing a new casual game deal with Electronic Arts a month later.
Merger with Atari, Inc. and asset selling to Namco Bandai Games (2008–2009)
On 6 March 2008, Infogrames made an offer to Atari Inc. to buy out all remaining public shares for a value of US$1.68 per share or US$11 million total. The offer would make Infogrames the sole owner of Atari Inc., making it a privately held company. On 30 April, Atari Inc. announced its intentions to accept Infogrames' buyout offer and merge with Infogrames, which was completed by 9 October. With that acquisition Infogrames was the only owner of the Atari brand. Infogrames said that it planned to reduce administrative costs and to focus on online gaming. On 9 May 2008, it was revealed that NASDAQ would be removing Atari from the NASDAQ stock exchange. Atari has stated its intentions to appeal the decision. Atari was notified of NASDAQ's final decision on 24 April 2008, and the appeal hearing took place on 1 May 2008. Atari was expected to raise its value to $15 million USD from the period of 20 December 2007 through to March 2008. Atari received notice of its absolute delisting on 12 September 2008.
In September 2008, Namco Bandai Games, who had been attempting to gain a PAL distribution network since their merger in 2006, announced that they had entered into a joint venture with Infogrames/Atari called Distribution Partners. The venture, with Atari holding a 66% stake and Namco Bandai holding a 34% stake, would consolidate Atari's entire distribution network outside of North America and Japan into a single business with exclusive physical packaged-goods distribution rights for video games produced by Namco Bandai and Infogrames within Europe, Asia, South America, Oceania and Africa.
In December 2008, Infogrames bought Cryptic Studios for $26.7 million in cash plus performance bonuses. Cryptic Studios is a massively multiplayer online game developer, and its acquisition is in line with the company's new business strategy which focuses on online games. Despite restructuring, Infogrames continued to struggle to become profitable. For the 2008 fiscal year, the company posted €51.1 million ($72.17 million) in net losses, and for the 2009 fiscal year, which ended in March, Infogrames posted losses of €226.1 million ($319.33 million).
In March 2009, Infogrames Entertainment SA announced that as part of its new focus on developing and publishing games for the MMO market it would completely exit the PAL-region distribution arm and would sell its 66% stake at Distribution Partners over to Namco Bandai Games Europe. According to an Infogrames press-release, this sale allowed "Atari to focus its financial resources and creative energy exclusively on developing and publishing online-enabled games". In May 2009, it was revealed that the assets of Atari Europe, which Namco Bandai purchased a 34% stake in, would also be folded into their own operations. Its sale and marketing personnel were transferred to Distribution Partners. The deal, valued at €37 million was closed on 7 July and Distribution Partners' entire operations were rebranded as Namco Bandai Partners, with Atari holding a five-year distribution deal for the rebranded company to exclusively distribute their titles in those territories. At that time the company had operations in 50 countries and 17 dedicated offices. The first title published by Atari under the new distribution agreement with Namco Bandai was Champions Online.
Rebranding to Atari SA (2009–2013)
During their fiscal year meeting in May 2009, IESA announced that it would be changing its corporate name to an Atari branded name, in line with the use of the name for its subsidiaries. In reference to this, Atari, Inc.'s CEO Jim Wilson said: "We've gotten rid of the Infogrames and Atari duality, the confusion around that. We are one simplified company, under one management team, under one brand."
Infogrames' 29 May earnings report stated:
"The Board agreed to change Infogrames Entertainment's name to Atari. This decision will enable us to make the best use of the Atari brand, capitalising on worldwide strong name recognition and affinity, which are keys drivers to implement the Company's online, product and licensing strategies."
An earnings press release on 24 July 2009 also provided clarification regarding the ensuing name change that was initially announced some two months prior, rebranding themselves as Atari, SA from Infogrames Entertainment, SA. Furthermore, this release also stated their intentions of henceforth utilising the much more recognisable 'Atari Group' moniker with all Atari-related brands and similar such subsidiaries already under their control.
On 21 October 2010, Atari announced Atari's reference shareholders BlueBay Value Recovery (Master) Fund Limited and BlueBay Multi-Strategy (Master) Fund Limited are exploring a disposal of the shares and equity-linked instruments held by them. However, BlueBay shareholders later interrupted the sale process of its holding in Atari. BlueBay later converted the conversion of a portion of the ORANEs held by them.
On 4 April 2012, Glu Mobile acquired the Deer Hunter franchise from Atari. On 12 April, Eden Games began negotiations as an attempt to separate from Atari SA following a prior strike after Atari laid off a majority of the studios' employees the prior April. On 28 September, Atari, SA, BlueBay Value Recovery (Master) Fund Limited, and The BlueBay Multi-Strategy (Master) Fund Limited reached an agreement following their negotiations regarding the restructuring of the debt and capital structure of the Atari group. As part of the agreement, the €20.9 million Credit Facility Agreement was extinguished via €10.9 million loan forgiveness from BlueBay Value Recovery (Master) Fund Limited and Atari's payment of €10 million; the cancellation of the dilutive effect of the ORANEs held by BlueBay; €20 million capital increases to be submitted to the vote of Atari shareholders (of which €10 million with preferential subscription right).
From Wikipedia’s article on Atari SA, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5