I think the issue was that:
* Driver was a popular franchise
* atari was working on driv3r for three years - it was enormous and very over budget
* in the interim, the grand theft auto really took off
* atari decided that it was vital to release driv3r before grand theft auto san andreas was released
* atari traded advance copies to a couple of publications in exchange for high ratings to help goose anticipation and sales
* atari released the game in an unfinished and basically unplayable state
* when the gaming public found out how problematic the game actually was, they opted not to buy - not sure you can call that a boycott
* atari lost a huge amount of money on the game
* driv3r was never fully finished and the IP was eventually sold off
* and atari lost so much money that it really jeopardized their business going forward.
it's a really weird story