https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/atari-has-acquired-game-database-mobygames-for-1-5-million/

Well, not sure what to say about this. Opinions?

I just read that their new CEO was the CEO of Ziggurat Interactive. It's good that he's a fan of gaming and knows his stuff, but it's always odd to see executives hopping from one company to another.

Atari has money to spare?

I hadnot even realised Atari still existed. Well, it’s one way to get noticed by tencent or m$ or someone who is buying up everything like that.

Apparently. :D Though, 1,5 million is not that much.

Had been announced for a while, now just seems it was finalized and made official.
Granted, for a while MG had been owned by Antstream and other than taking up the ad space they didn't seem to do anything else, letting things run on their own, while now Reed's saying there will be a full time dev and a new version of the site is in the works, replacing the current codebase... Which, after the GameFly mess, makes me very wary. Yes, changes and fixes are needed, but an overhaul like that, and knowing what modern web design means... *shudder*

i'll take 1.5 million, thank you very much! lol

What even is Atari anymore?

I use it from time to time, I hope they don't spoil it with the new website.

they are going to edit the page for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, to make it seem like it was not their fault

Considering it went bankrupt and repacked several times, it's just a name that holds a handful of IP's. Some years ago i remember seeing some Atari 'games' being pushed out like Asteroids which is nothing like what you'd remember and no one liked it. Literally cash grabbing based on nostalgia, and not even that good of one.

Has it gotten better? Can't be sure. I have fond memories of the Atari800XL system, but that's a computer not Atari as a whole which was a greedy corporation on par with EA/Activision.

Nope. Since Infogrames that was wearing the Atari clothing went down the tubes it's been just piddling around here and there, creating the nth questionable rehash of the old arcade games, and throwing out nonsense ideas like the Atari hotel. It's been pretty much an inconsequential entity for over a decade now, and the last few decent titles it published were back in the mid-2000s.

Hmmm... I'd really love to see someone take ahold of it with a little bit of love, and not only put out stuff for free (BIOS, manuals, etc) but really push for good 8/16bit emulation, and maybe making environments or helping to make more retro games that could actually run on old hardware.

And maybe, just maybe, making 8/16bit machines for enthusiasts who want the actual hardware again. So purchasing old machines, fixing them up, reselling them, or making them new assuming enough of the chips are available still. Or doing a good shell and doing a Pi and full emulation using a micro SD with a basic system or full games that they have ownership of.

Funny you should say that because there's also this Atari VCS... thing. ;) Basically it's just an AMD-based mini PC running Linux in a Atari console-like shell.