Atari no longer developing games @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on November 14, 2007

News: The iconic (in name only) company switches to a publishing role.

Just one day after announcing the expansion of the next Alone in the Dark game to the PS2 and Wii, Atari has announced that they will cease all in-house development in an effort to cut costs.

This appears to be the end of a systematic sell off of all of their in-house development studios that started last year. Reflections Interactive was sold to Ubisoft, Paradigm was sold to THQ, Atari Melbourne House was sold to Krome Studios and Shiny was sold to Foundation 9.

The signs for this move began to become apparent after Atari signed a deal with 1C to publish several of their games in America. Atari has also stated they will focus on publishing games developed by their parent company, Infogrames.

Part of that deal includes Atari's agreement to license their Test Drive series to Infogrames. The agreement will last six years and will allow Eden Games, an Infogrames in-house studio to development two Test Drive games.

Atari has also recently entered into a dispute with FUNimation over their status as the publisher of Dragon Ball games. FUNimation belives Atari has breached their contract and want to revoke the license, while Atari believes there has been no breach. Alone in the Dark for the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, PS2 and Wii and N+ for the PSP and DS are the only current publishing deals Atari has in place.

Atari's new status as a publishing house will also mean layoffs for many of the company's employees. We wish them the best of luck.