The decline of Atari

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

I've always found Atari's decline to be an interesting subject in video game history. Atari, after all, is the company that made home video games big in the first place. They brought PONG home. They didn't have the first programmable video game console, but their 2600 is the first successful programmable video game console. Technically, the Atari of classic video gaming fame is three companies: Atari, Inc, was founded in 1972 and split up on July 1, 1984 into Atari Corporation and Atari Games. Atari Corporation went defunct in 1996, being acquired by JT Storage, and Atari Games was bought by Time Warner in 1993 and sold to Midway in 1996, being renamed Midway Games West by 1998. Atari Games also changed their logo from the classic "Fuji" logo in 1996.

In effect, Atari Corporation's closing date is pretty clear cut: 1996. Atari Games, on the other hand, was a process from 1993-1998 - 1993 being when they became a subsidiary instead of an independent company, Tengen was closed up and their home video games sold under the Time Warner Interactive label. 1996 is when they were sold to Midway, who changed the logo and, a couple of years later, retired the Atari name.

The "Atari" name is still active, but is not a continuation of the original company; rather, it's owned by another company (Atari, SA), which was founded as GT Interactive in 1993.

It always surprises me just how late Atari remained relatively successful. To many, it's seen as a company that lost relevance around 1983-1984. And while the "golden age of Atari" did end around that time, they did a lot more in the latter half of the 1980s than is often realized, and it was the 1990s when they went into steep decline and ultimately out of business. I found a thread from 2010 that detailed how Atari's home consoles fell further and further behind the times, but let's look at what Atari did as a company as a whole. They competed in three areas for most of their history: home video games, arcade video games, and home computers.

In the late 1980s, Atari was still relatively healthy. Their home video game division included the 2600 Jr., the 7800, and the XEGS, as well as the Tengen division selling NES games. While they were a far cry from their dominant position in the home video game market in the early 1980s, they still held a substantial share of the home video game market, about 10-15 percent with hardware as well as being a prominent publisher for the NES. They released a steady stream of arcade titles like Gauntlet, Klax, Paperboy, and Marble Madness in an arcade market that, again, was a far cry from its early 1980s state but still relatively healthy. Their 8-bit computer line was still going and selling reasonably well, and the ST was very successful in Europe. I consider the period from about 1986-1989 to be Atari's "Silver Age", not as good as its golden age, but still decent. At the end of the 1980s, they came out with the Lynx, which was nowhere near as successful as the Game Boy but did become the first luxury handheld console.

Right around 1990, Atari's fortunes began to go south on all three fronts. In the home console arena, the 7800 and XEGS faltered, and were discontinued very early in the 1990s. The 2600 had lived out its life and was discontinued at the same time. By 1991-1992, Atari was left with the Lynx and Tengen in this area. The Sega Game Gear launched, providing a better option in the color portable market.

At the same time, the Atari computers (as well as Commodore) were being squeezed out of the market as the forerunners of the modern Wintel platform (IBM architecture / MS-DOS) was rapidly becoming the standard for PCs. The market was headed toward IBM/DOS dominance; Apple hung on but became a niche product with only a few percent market share.

On the arcade front, few games were produced after the early 1990s, and Atari Games themselves were bought out in 1993.

By 1993, Tengen was discontinued, Atari computer production stopped altogether, few arcade games were coming out, and the Lynx was fast declining against the Game Gear and Game Boy. The Jaguar console was a sort of "last-ditch effort" released that year, with very few games available at launch. Atari had gone from fairly healthy to nearly dead in just a few years.

The Jaguar wasn't much more capable than the Genesis and SNES; if the SNES was the benchmark for 16-bit and the PlayStation the benchmark for 32-bit, then the Jag might have been 20-bit. From what I understand, it was about as powerful as an SNES with a Super FX chip. However, it was far cheaper than the 3DO, and may have been as successful as the 3DO (admittedly, that's still not a roaring success) if it had a few good games near launch in 1993 with a wide range of good games available by the holiday season of 1994. Instead there was a trickle of games the first year and most Jag games came in 1995 when the Sega Saturn and PlayStation were launching. Sam Tramiel actually thought the Jaguar could compete with the PlayStation. The Jag had about as much chance against the PlayStation as a paper McDonalds cup against a 1982 Cadillac.

[gbpxl]

Atari was king of the arcade in the 70s and 80s and it seems like they never could find a ton of success with anything beyond that from the mid-80s going forward. Consumer trends really started shifting toward the home console experience... in a way, Atari's demise foreshadowed Sega's in that they were an extremely talented company that just couldnt evolve for one reason or another. I think Nintendo cornered the market in 1985 and it was very hard for anyone to compete let alone Atari.

[Greg2600]

Well OP's post seems to lop Tramiel's Atari Co. with the various owners of Atari Games, when they truly had nothing at all to do with each other. Atari Games, aside from the short period of Tengen, primarily made arcade games. Their final foray was SF Rush 2049, and through the late 80s and 90s, Atari specialized in highly innovative and unique designs. That was something the original Atari was known for. The stuff that was put out on PC or console in the 90s was not Atari, it was Midway subsidiaries.

Atari Corp, the home unit ol' Jack bought from Warner's in 1985, continued to progress through the 80s and 90s. The ST computer line, as well as the Lynx handheld, were typical "Atari" releases. Granted most of the "classic Atari" staff were out as Tramiel cleaned house. The Jaguar was a disaster. Honestly, like I said, the only products worthy of "Atari" name were the ST, Lynx, and the arcade games. The rest, including the miserable post-launch 7800 lineup, the XEGS, Jag, and whatever else they sold were trash that the original Atari would never have put its name on.

[7th lutz]

Atari Games Corp's Tengen division was hurt by Nintendo lawsuits. They lost the Tetris lawsuit. There was a series of lawsuits involving copyright and patent infringement that Tengen lost also.

[Greg2600]

https://www.timeextension.com/featur...ar-on-nintendo

This article was written a year ago, but I totally missed it. They do an interview with Lawrence Siegel, who spent decades primarily in video game software design. Larry pulled no punches in this, let me tell you! I found it a brutally honest take from the inside. His software house was purchased by Atari (Tramiel), making him the VP of software development for Atari in 1987.

What's funny of course, is that the narrative about Jack Tramiel, seemingly forever, was that he was too cheap, didn't invest in marketing, and the result were a string of failed retail products. At some point over the last few years, there has been a level of revisionist history whereby the Tramiel's were "spared" blame for the consistent string of bad products which Atari put out there. I would frequently get piled on by Atari fans on this. They would say, well Jack bought Atari but GCC held the 7800 hostage. Well, Jack bought the Epyx Lynx project, but it was this or that to blame. But the Panther. But Nintendo beat Atari in a lawsuit. Blah blah blah. NO, Mr. Siegel, in quite a fun interview to read, throws cold water on all of that. Jack Tramiel routinely and consistently kneecapped his own company, partly because he was too frugal, but mostly because he took a failed mindset over from Commodore with him.

Siegel found Tramiel's fatal business logic to be that if you simply produced capable hardware at a much lower price, you would beat the competition. This was his practice at Commodore, where the Tramiel-instigated price war between them and Atari on the computer front helped to bury both companies. He was shown the door. Siegel goes over the Lynx project, which had no software really beyond the initial batch Epyx produced. Why? Because Tramiel refused to pay for it, and Mr. Siegel often found himself producing regrettably poor games on the console, as a result. When Siegel pleaded with Tramiel to get help with Nintendo's blockade of third party devs, his response was to sue Nintendo. Rather than secure competent lawyers, Tramiel went cheap, and lost a highly defensible suit because of poor legal representation. He mentions the Panther project, where Atari paid another company (like Epyx) for hardware that had no software to go with it. Time and time, again. Perhaps the most serious volley was when Tramiel scuttled the deal which Siegel and associates worked to become the official World distributor for the upcoming Sega MegaDrive.

[Gametrek]

Lets be fair. Atari never had content/lore. They figured they could rerelease what people already own. Rather then making something different. 7800 might have been able to outdo the NES. But look at the art-work and the content. The NES had the "World building" from the arcade games, comics, and freindly looking characters. What did Atari have in it's place? Then of course was the ease of gameplay ( Do not recreate the Wheel ), when something like E.T. came out.

Stratergy is literally "The kids saw the film so they will want the game". But when your game looks like
bleh or is a pain to understand "Last Action Hero" I am looking at you. Why bother. The same with Robocop, Aliens, Tazmania, and Samurai Jack. You expect a certain level of "respect" to the actual product and consumer in front of you. Not yourself.

Then we have the Jaguar. 64-bits and the ability to have fully functional 3d games and possibility of the best sprite engine on the market. Whoops!!! Weird looking worlds, characters nobody cares about. Originalism that is just a rehash of the 2d market.

"Videogames with story is literally when a porn makes a story. You came for the gameplay/porn
not for the story" - the Programmer of ID-software "DOOM"

That is what Atari did wrong. They had great gameplay and ideas, but there was little to no
lore. There is little to no music. Half the time I ask myself what I am looking at. Most games
that was ports is what sold on the Jaguar. If you had a SNES/Gens you might as well get that or even a Gameboy variant.

Armaro of Final Fantasy fame said this "without Manga(comics) Videogames would not exsist"
He is right. If FF was just an a typical RPG simulator with no story leaving you in the dark, and barely any interaction ( animation on screen sprites ) telling a story. To dramatic cut-scenes. We all would probably turn away from it. Then of course was the PCE an entire system dedicated to animation/comics/Audio. It is like looking at you favorite Manga strip from the 1950's or 1970's. But updated.

Take Pokemon. If they ( Atari ) had produced a respectable animation ( Animated ) for Rayman ( like the commercials you see nowadays ).

Everything is military, Everything is kill, kill, kill, Everything is not Kawaii, or reasonable. "Ghost N' Goblins/Ghouls" had all I mentioned and was challenging and did not "re-invent the wheel" and keeps me comming back for more. I could get lost in the art-style or just the setup and not feel anything at all. Am I a pervert for wanting to an Aurthor-plush?

You could put the Atari Jaguar on one-side and the NEC PC-Engine on the other. That represents the entire "West Side v. East Side" of the Videogaming market. Strip them of the ports and ask yourself how many games was actually playable and holds your interest.

We had the SNES we had Mario Cartoons, Zelda, and more. We had colorful Kirby, and daring Starfox. Genesis we had Sonic, Jim, Football ( roll eyes ), and of course was Streetfighter and Mortal Kombat. What did the Atari Jaguar have that anybody could identify with outside of "oh it is the most powerful". That is like me with an Lumia 1020, for it's near proffessional camera ( not enough to convince some fashion people ).

"Ultra Vortex" for instance should have been called "Street Kombat" and feature some Jeans levels, energy balls, Locations, and things going on all over. Or even "Combat Fighter" with a bunch of Military on bases having fights ( which the military across various worlds does have literally sports-circuits within various branches, at least in the past ). Then the game could have fighters from Opposing forces, or you could be captured inside the enemy base, or even some animal fighters, and special stages, To secret Robot/Aliens/Blahblah. Nope we get a bunch of Metal-Rock demonic creatures with scary stuff all over the place.

Last time I saw an Atari Jag in the wild, was a pretty girl a bit older then me with a big smile trying so hard to bargain down the price for it at a thrift store in big city. This was in the 1990's when you had people selling piles of SNES at these big flea-market places.

[Atomicfear]

I don't know why they fell; there are plenty of good answers in this thread. But, I remember vivdly in 1989-1992 every house in arkansas having a defunct atari in the closet.

[retroman]

Well, on the brighter side. At least Atari is looking the best they have in years, and I dont want to hear that(its not really Atari crap). Thats like saying Sega is not really Sega or SNK is not really SNK because they have changed ownership and whatever else over the years. NO different.

[Greg2600]

Well, on the brighter side. At least Atari is looking the best they have in years, and I dont want to hear that(its not really Atari crap). Thats like saying Sega is not really Sega or SNK is not really SNK because they have changed ownership and whatever else over the years. NO different.

Yes. I for one am still curious if they intend to do anything hardware-wise with the Intellivision.

[YoshiM]

Lets be fair. Atari never had content/lore. They figured they could rerelease what people already own. Rather then making something different. 7800 might have been able to outdo the NES. But look at the art-work and the content. The NES had the "World building" from the arcade games, comics, and freindly looking characters. What did Atari have in it's place? Then of course was the ease of gameplay ( Do not recreate the Wheel ), when something like E.T. came out.

Wait, what? Content and lore? If you're looking at the 80's with Atari, NES and such, other than MAYBE RPGs, none of the games released really had any "lore" or [story] content. Maybe a page to give you the objective of the game, but that's about it. The hit games like "Super Mario Bros", "Contra", "Commando", "Ikari Warriors", "Legendary Wings", etc. etc. had paper thin plots, not unlike the Atari games of yesteryear. Heck, I bet many a gamer back then didn't read the manual because they rented the game and just got the little card that explained what button did what.

What many popular games on the NES had were great graphics, solid gameplay and great sound. Many titles early on were versions ("Gradius", "Life Force", "Contra", "Breakthru", "Mag Max", "Seicross", "Galaga", "Pac-Man", "Karnov", "Double Dragon", etc.). Some of those games that were originally arcade had "consolized" versions made (like "Ninja Gaiden",
"Strider", etc.). Then of course the original console-only games like "The Legend of Zelda", "Mike Tyson's Punch Out", "Pro Wrestling", etc.

The 7800, which was geared to be rise above the consoles of 1984 and prior, came out when the American market was dominated by the NES. The Master System, even though it was technically superior in many ways, was trying to scarf up the table scraps that fell to the floor in the States thanks to Nintendo's draconian licensing with developers. Both arcade games and console games moved beyond what was already set for the 7800. Sure it got some better titles that were in the (then) present like "Xenophobe" (which is a better port than Sunsoft's version on the NES), but it was too little too late.

No one talked about the lore at the school yards. No one mentioned the plight of Zelda or how Impa tried to help. It was tips, tricks, what game was hot (and hot, I mean, how it looked/played) and how far a person got in a game and/if they beat the game. The importance of lore to folks really didn't kick in until maybe a decade later when people were losing their minds about Sephiroth killing Aeris in "Final Fantasy VII"

Stratergy is literally "The kids saw the film so they will want the game". But when your game looks like
bleh or is a pain to understand "Last Action Hero" I am looking at you. Why bother. The same with Robocop, Aliens, Tazmania, and Samurai Jack. You expect a certain level of "respect" to the actual product and consumer in front of you. Not yourself.

How does this relate to Atari? "Last Action Hero" came out on the NES and was published by Sony. "Robocop" was Data East. What does this have to do with the decline of Atari beyond "E.T."? "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was a solid game for the 2600. You had to do the "RTF'nM" to understand what to do (or do what I did-read a walkthough in an issue of "Joystik" magazine I checked out from the library), but once you did...dang that game had a lot going on. HSW, I salute you!

Then we have the Jaguar. 64-bits and the ability to have fully functional 3d games and possibility of the best sprite engine on the market. Whoops!!! Weird looking worlds, characters nobody cares about. Originalism that is just a rehash of the 2d market.

What system didn't have character nobody cared about? It was powerful but there was a lot of wrong going for it (you can read about it" It did have few...very few IMO sweet games but nothing else that would give it an edge against the upcoming 3D consoles. Heck, the expensive 3DO outsold the Jaguar system (I read like 2 million in its lifespan compared to the Jaguar of something like 250,000 systems-my google fu could be wrong on the latter). The Panasonic FZ-1 was like $700 in 1993 (with the more game console like Goldstar model being $400).

"Videogames with story is literally when a porn makes a story. You came for the gameplay/porn
not for the story" - the Programmer of ID-software "DOOM"

That is what Atari did wrong. They had great gameplay and ideas, but there was little to no
lore. There is little to no music. Half the time I ask myself what I am looking at. Most games
that was ports is what sold on the Jaguar. If you had a SNES/Gens you might as well get that or even a Gameboy variant.

So which is it, story with games like porn with stories? Or Games needing lore?

Armaro of Final Fantasy fame said this "without Manga(comics) Videogames would not exsist"
He is right. If FF was just an a typical RPG simulator with no story leaving you in the dark, and barely any interaction ( animation on screen sprites ) telling a story. To dramatic cut-scenes. We all would probably turn away from it. Then of course was the PCE an entire system dedicated to animation/comics/Audio. It is like looking at you favorite Manga strip from the 1950's or 1970's. But updated.

How about fiction in general? The added story gave the games more of an appeal than just a D&D type game brought to the screen, though that didn't stop folks from enjoying those games on the computer ("Ultima", "Wizardry", etc.) But then again, in the olden days, you pretty much were out to seek a big bad, get treasure and survive.

Take Pokemon. If they ( Atari ) had produced a respectable animation ( Animated ) for Rayman ( like the commercials you see nowadays ).

Wha? Rayman was Ubisoft that was published on the Jaguar and then also came out for Saturn and Playstation, which got rated better. I don't get this.

Everything is military, Everything is kill, kill, kill, Everything is not Kawaii, or reasonable. "Ghost N' Goblins/Ghouls" had all I mentioned and was challenging and did not "re-invent the wheel" and keeps me comming back for more. I could get lost in the art-style or just the setup and not feel anything at all. Am I a pervert for wanting to an Aurthor-plush?

Everything has been "kill kill kill" since the first blocky laser hit the first blocky alien. This is not an Atari problem, it's something that's been on every console.

You could put the Atari Jaguar on one-side and the NEC PC-Engine on the other. That represents the entire "West Side v. East Side" of the Videogaming market. Strip them of the ports and ask yourself how many games was actually playable and holds your interest.

Subjective, especially since the two machines were released at two different times of the gaming spectrum. PC-Engine had its time in the sun and had a strong catalog of games. The Jaguar was trying to figure out what it was trying to be.

We had the SNES we had Mario Cartoons, Zelda, and more. We had colorful Kirby, and daring Starfox. Genesis we had Sonic, Jim, Football ( roll eyes ), and of course was Streetfighter and Mortal Kombat. What did the Atari Jaguar have that anybody could identify with outside of "oh it is the most powerful". That is like me with an Lumia 1020, for it's near proffessional camera ( not enough to convince some fashion people ).

That's called marketing. The property owners followed the money and marketed their characters for other media. Mario, at least in the States, didn't get a cartoon until 1989. Mascots, like getting athletes to be on the cover of sports games, got people's attention.

"Ultra Vortex" for instance should have been called "Street Kombat" and feature some Jeans levels, energy balls, Locations, and things going on all over. Or even "Combat Fighter" with a bunch of Military on bases having fights ( which the military across various worlds does have literally sports-circuits within various branches, at least in the past ). Then the game could have fighters from Opposing forces, or you could be captured inside the enemy base, or even some animal fighters, and special stages, To secret Robot/Aliens/Blahblah. Nope we get a bunch of Metal-Rock demonic creatures with scary stuff all over the place.

Never played it but my guess is that they wanted to stand out from an already saturated fighting market regarding titles. Mortal Kombat, Pit Fighter, Street Fighter, Way of the Warrior, Kasumi Ninja (which could also be the name of a side scrolling beatemup). It reads like it's supposed to be futuristic. This was when there was a glut of fighting games.


So to sum up this mental roller coaster of a post, no, games lacking story/lore had nothing to do with the decline of Atari. Nor did not having a mascot character (I mean, Bonk really moved mountains for the Turbografix in the States, amiright?!).

If lore is TRULY so important, then why the heck are games like "Minecraft" popular? Ain't no lore to speak of there. It's the gameplay and what you do, through and through.