You Don't Know Atari!

what does it mean to be a fan of atari in 2020 and wow are there actually fans of atari in 2020 [Music] atari is a weird phenomenon in the gaming community you recognize the logo and you know what the atari 2600 is but what was the last thing they made that affected you for a large percentage of you out there fruit ninja probably more deeply impacted your past 10 years than atari did so why do we still put so much stock in this tripod logo are we misplacing that emotional investment like so many lost atari game cartridges and why did a bunch of you invest millions into a new atari console i mean seriously millions of dollars why but before we can answer the why first we have to talk about the who who are atari and where did they come from atari was established in 1972 by nolan bushnell and ted dabney as a video game company and that's what they made video games very straightforward this might seem like a weird detail to bring up but this wasn't the case for everyone nintendo founded in the 1800s and they made playing cards sony started after world war ii as a consumer electronics company and sega well they started off in the coin off business but not in video games all these companies who are now giants and icons in the gaming industry have beginnings that were very different but atari's beginning was video games they weren't originally an old leather company or an operating system developer or the first company to sell vodka in japan fact from the beginning atari was all about their video arcade and home console business however this is very different from what they look like today oh yeah we'll get to that but first the games they got their foot in the door with the pong arcade cabinet which later was released as a home plug and play version and after that they revolutionized home entertainment with a famous atari video computer system that goes by the name atari vcs or atari 2600 depending on who you ask now they weren't the first cartridge-based home console on the market but they were the first one to be a huge commercial success it's widely believed that atari grandfathered the current video game landscape we know today even in cases where atari didn't invent something and perhaps heavily borrowed it they found a way to sell it to people who didn't even know they were about to become the very first gamers ever they laid the groundwork for decades of dark basements lit by the warm glow of a tv copious amounts of soda dorito cheese dusted game controllers and thousands of parents everywhere questioning their children's life choices some of the best-selling games on the atari 2600 were home ports of atari's popular arcade games like missile command asteroids and centipede and other games were made exclusively for the console making them unique and only playable at home while their video arcade cabinets are still classic experiences today atari 2600 games haven't aged quite as gracefully but in the 70s they sold like hot pretzels having these games at home on your tv was such a novelty at the time that it didn't matter that the games were blocky only had a few colors and had very very few interesting sound effects there was virtually no competition on the market if you wanted to play video games in the comfort of your shag carpeted wood grain bungalow you'd be doing it with atari they were a success and nothing could stop them so they closed down which probably doesn't make a lot of sense right now but the story continues while atari was founded by bushnell and dabney at the start by the mid 70s atari had a parent company warner communications in 1984 the warner boy sold part of atari to jack trammell he turned it into atari corporation he got the consumer products arm of the company with home consoles and stuff like that the coin-op game arm of the company stayed with big daddy warner and after going through a few different hands it's back with warner brothers interactive today but back to atari corporation they were responsible for home computers like the atari st and video game consoles like the atari jaguar which is not the best thing in the world and then atari corporation was bought by hasbro now you're probably thinking wait atari is hasbro now how does that make any sense well it does because this weird story keeps continuing atari corporation became the property of hasbro interactive in 1998. so now atari isn't even atari anymore it's a cluster of assets under hasbro but then hasbro interactive got sold so that was the end of that in 2001 infograms entertainment bought hasbro interactive which they renamed infograms interactive so we had atari then it was a different atari then it was hasbro and now it's infograms confused yet good so yes an atari company does exist today if you follow the bread trail but how could this company possibly call itself atari when by this point there really doesn't seem to be an atari anymore well the folks at infograms wanted to really flex the power of the atari name they just bought so in 2003 their subsidiary infograms interactive was renamed atari interactive but the holding company was still called infograms entertainment sa this was confusing the whole brand as you could possibly imagine so they renamed themselves atari sa in 2009. the atari that exists today is a completely different company than any of the previous companies that called themselves atari so what is this new atari been doing for the past decade well they've been remaking or repackaging old legacy games that were hits 40 plus years ago and atari fans are so starved for content they keep giving them their money for the same games over and over again first it was with the massive number of atari flashback consoles they licensed out through at games and then the atari flashback classics compilations and now new games like tempest 4000 and missile command recharged so now you're caught up with who atari is and after going through all that history it's not hard to understand how so many gamers have a deep-seated nostalgia for this logo for many it's their childhood and for others it's warm memories of their mom or dad sharing the games they loved as kids with them this logo means something or at least it used to i don't really know what it means to be an atari fan right now i can name the founders of the original atari company and list game titles as well as the developers behind them and while i wasn't around for the launch of the company originally i have the deep respect and admiration for what atari did for the video game industry but those feelings don't stretch into whatever atari is now as an example i like nintendo and nintendo is still the same company i like microsoft and sony and they are still the same as they ever were they followed the same ideologies and involving them were necessary that made them successes in the video game market in the first place but that's not atari i mentioned that atari games faded into obscurity a bit and i think that's true but why didn't the same thing happen to nintendo their games are from the 80s and still widely known and played today well i have a feeling it's simply because nintendo has been around consistently generation after generation they've released new games starring mario luigi donkey kong and link just to name a few this keeps their games relevant now sure they had slip ups every so often but on the whole it's been a success when a classic game does re-emerge from the vault and gets re-released by nintendo everyone is talking about it because it's an event worth noting atari didn't have that though they went through so many different hands with different games belonging to different companies there was no one around long enough to foster an ip into a long and beloved franchise they didn't grow and evolve with their fan base but atari fans are so passionate that when a little box with that familiar name and nostalgic logo appeared online there was an outpouring of excitement to the point that they were willing to invest millions of their own dollars into a new atari video game console using modern hardware and being sold at prices that put it directly in competition against the big three companies on the scene today but why did these people invest well it's probably because they think this atari is this atari and it's not not even remotely let's take a moment to look a bit closer at this new atari vcs console after teasing a new atari box in summer 2017 atari sa took to indiegogo in may 2018 to crowdfund a brand new atari console using modern specs and sporting a retro aesthetic inspired by the original atari's most famous 2600 console it's a project that's been on a rocky ride the atari vcs project has been putting out public relations fires since even before the launch of the indiegogo back in march 2018 at the game developers conference atari showed off their console to journalists in one-on-one meetings and at least one of those meetings didn't have the result they were probably hoping for after their interview and product walkthrough with atari's co technology news site the register wrote an article highlighting their concerns and skepticisms about this new console now atari didn't like this and ended up accusing the register of making stuff up in their article but then the journalist just released his tapes of the interview proving that they didn't make anything up this definitely didn't help the credibility of atari's new project in the industry the atari bcs campaign ended successfully at the end of june 2018 with over two million nine hundred thousand dollars raised atari say has since delayed the release of the console several times now crowdfunded projects are rarely ever easy and despite how much money they made it costs a whole heck of a lot more to make a console this is something they probably found out the hard way reported by ign in october 2019 even the lead console engineer of the project publicly quit claiming that atari sa missed several payments to him to cover everything that has gone wrong with the vcs would take its own video and something i totally would love to cover but i want to judge that project after it has come out as for the fans that backed the vcs well for anyone who invested just to back a new console i guess they had to deal with delays and some confusing messaging but they are probably getting their console however anyone who invested because of their nostalgia for the atari name well unfortunately they probably have been disappointed because the atari vcs isn't really an atari console you see this new atari didn't make any of the original atari video game consoles not even the jaguar they were not involved in the inception of the video game industry they didn't develop or create any of the iconic names or franchises you might still love to this day this new atari vcs is a console that's in no way related to its namesake and what that represents it might have that fun wood grain look but they did it for show probably without understanding why the team at the original atari designed it that way in the first place so has atari sa done anything to try and make their brand their own well they haven't only been working on video games they've been spreading the atari brand into categories that seem bizarre or even crazy cue that hotel picture again yeah that that's what atari sa is trying to do with the brand expanding it into new markets trying to get people that finally remember the old consoles and games to stay in a hotel that happens to share the same name they've even recently begun working on a cryptocurrency trying to make a digital coin called atari token and they've had an announcement of an online hattori casino to play with that very digital currency but perhaps their most effective strategy lately has been taking the atari logo and putting it anywhere they can to keep the icon alive including other crowdfunding projects like some kind of gaming watch that ended in disaster or hot topic selling an atari shirt that's why that logo has been so prolific lately on tons of products this is the strategy of a company desperately trying to make their purchase brand relevant again but what's in a name after all talking about what the namesake of atari means kind of reveals that actually the name doesn't mean anything anymore as a comparison let's take a look at nintendo again the creators of the original nintendo arcade games are still present in the company to this day and have taught and trained their successors same goes for sony microsoft and even sega it's not just about the name of the company the name is almost meaningless each of these companies have a history that defines what they stand for that you can trace right back to the beginning it's the people that made these companies what they are the people and talents that made atari what it was are gone atari today is a shadow of its namesake they seem to have money they've got notoriety but they don't have the lessons that came with that name folks this is not a call to attack the new atari just because they're not the old atari absolutely not what i wanted to do was encourage fans out there to look at this new company with a critical eye don't let yourself be mind tricked into thinking you're gonna get a slice of your childhood again they can't offer that because they don't have the recipe they have to make their own recipe for success that speaks to gamers today and if that's the atari vcs well that's great if that's pong quest an rpg featuring table tennis based combat that would be an impressive first but if you've played it and enjoyed it then i'm happy that this new atari is working for you what i personally would like to see happen is atari essay define itself as a new identity focusing on games alone and building up the brand by making exciting new properties i believe they should stop focusing on trying to make new consoles a field that is so saturated they will almost definitely have difficulty finding any success at all stop it with the hotels and the casinos and the cryptocurrency what they should do is become a new atari that stands for gaming and gaming alone because that's what this crazy logo is it means video games atari sa needs to become the one true original video game company all over again but unless that happens this company that owns this logo right here is atari in name only

Channel: Rerez

Views: 147,375

Keywords: Rerez, Video, Games, Gaming, Gamers, Video Games, Video Game, Atari, Atari Corp, Atari Corporation, Atari VCS, Atari Hotel, Atari Token, Atari S.A., Atari SA, Atari Video Computer System, Atari 2600, Atari is not Atari, Pong, You Don't Know Atari, Who is Atari, Atari History

Id: sVhPC-g17_I

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 30 2020