"...when Los Angeles is buuuuurning!"
The giant Atari logo, which could be found draped over the LA convention center at E3 every year, will not be there this year. In what could only be considered a cost cutting move, Atari has decided that it’s going to no longer be a part of this year’s E3 in LA.
All E3 and Atari representatives were tight lipped as to any kind of motivations behind the move, but again, it can be presumed that the poor economic times might have a hand in this.
The recession claims another victim after the jump!
While it’s not as if Atari is the mainstay of video gamers as it once was, with publishing credits on games like The Witcher and (hopefully) Ghostbusters, it continues to cling desperately to being relevant. While their withdrawal from the show isn’t necessary to continue pimping Ghostbusters as it will be out in a matter of weeks, it is worrisome that they will not be presenting any new game concepts at the show. Which brings up the question, what major titles are they working on? Anything?
This ties in with the whole Atari not being able to publish Ghostbusters in Europe and being a Sony exclusive. Atari presumably was unable to afford the ability to publish the title overseas, and sold the rights to do so to Sony, who then turned it around and stuck it to European Wii and 360 gamers. It’s another one of those signs that points to things going to hell over in the house of Atari. This move looks very similar to Midway having to have Ubisoft publish Wheelman for them before they were forced into bankruptcy.
Their withdrawal from E3 this year is more of a symbolic defeat than anything that most gamers will feel at their consoles or gaming rigs. It feels like the standard bearer has fallen in battle, and someone needs to step in and take the flag to keep the troops morale up.
As hard as is it to believe, the signs are pointing to a very uncomfortable series of questions we have to start asking: Will Atari be around to be a part of next year’s E3? And will anyone miss them if they go under?
Source: EDGE
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The obvious reason is that they’re bleeding cash. This logic ties in well to the publication of Ghostbusters in Europe. Atari couldn’t afford to publish globally until it has a chance for the game to recoup some of its money in North America. So rather than piss off Europe entirely, they handed off publishing to SCEE to serve the majority of the PAL audience in the meantime.
SENSE!
Sanity check:
Didn’t I say all of that in my article?
I wasn’t jumping on the article.. I was jumping on knee jerkers who called shenanigans on Sony when absolutely no information has been made public. Especially high profile dicks like Tycho Douchebag over at Penny Arcade.
Now today it comes to light that Atari is leaving Europe altogether.
We appreciate SENSE!