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Atari Hotels: roach motels or the bomb-diggity? YOU decide!


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This thread is about the Atari Hotels.  Please discuss Atari Hotels in this thread.  Are Atari Hotels good, bad, or indifferent?

 

I think that Atari Hotels are not ones I would choose to stay in over any other hotel that gives me reward points.

 

Your turn to talk about Atari Hotels!

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Atari Hotels are already the world's biggest hit*.

 

But really, I think it's a poor idea. The handful of old fart users on here are the only people who would be interested, and that's not a substantial enough base of consumers to warrant anything other than a swift liquidation and bankruptcy.

 

*The usage of the word "hit" may mean, alternately, a hit, not a hit, a hit in my house, a hit among people who are me, a hit among myself and three friends, and/or a hit only in my mind (but that's all that matters to me).  Usage will vary with need to move goalposts and/or warp reality to justify my personal opinions. Prices and participation may vary. Speaker disclaims all warranties, express or implied, and reader is limited to the remedy of repair and/or replacement only. Recipient expressly agrees to consent to the jurisdiction of the Courts of Chesnais County and this agreement shall be governed by the laws of VCS Wonderland.

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24 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

I prefer to stay in hotels that actually exist, because features like a bed and a roof over your head are far better for a good night's sleep than dreams and renders. ?

Ummm, hello? PONG AND SPACE INVADERS*? How can you not make a decision based solely on whether those will be involved or not?

 

It'll be interesting to see if these get off the ground. Unlike the TacoBox, they actually have to get real investors instead of fleecing fools on IGG for millions ("NO REFUNDS!"). Real businesses and real lenders won't just buy "b-b-b-but it has a Fuji logo and that alone makes the brand worth a trillion dollars! We just need to resurrect Steve Jobs!"

 

Lenders will want an actual cash flow and business plan. Saying "but Asteroids is worth $40 million as an IP, just look at these socks and this t-shirt!" is NOT going to cut it.

 

I speak from experience, given I represent these types of people on precisely these types of deals. No investor or lender will get stars in their eyes and go "Oh, it's ATARI, guess I'll just ignore the risk assessment and loan profile." The investors in this cockamamie scheme are also going to be much, MUCH more litigious if something goes wrong (HINT BASED ON TACOBOX, IT WILL), again, speaking from experience representing just these types of people.

*DISCLAIMER: Space Invaders not included.

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1 hour ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Atari Hotels are already the world's biggest hit*.

 

But really, I think it's a poor idea. The handful of old fart users on here are the only people who would be interested, and that's not a substantial enough base of consumers to warrant anything other than a swift liquidation and bankruptcy.

 

*The usage of the word "hit" may mean, alternately, a hit, not a hit, a hit in my house, a hit among people who are me, a hit among myself and three friends, and/or a hit only in my mind (but that's all that matters to me).  Usage will vary with need to move goalposts and/or warp reality to justify my personal opinions. Prices and participation may vary. Speaker disclaims all warranties, express or implied, and reader is limited to the remedy of repair and/or replacement only. Recipient expressly agrees to consent to the jurisdiction of the Courts of Chesnais County and this agreement shall be governed by the laws of VCS Wonderland.

Hehe, I KNEW I was approaching the boundaries...nearly 50, Grandpa x2...still, keep long, not grey(somehow)hair, watch the Rick and Morty, play metal guitar...

"Old Fart".

Interestingly honored.

:)

 

Yeah, exactly like you said tho-I'd be in HEAVEN, but even my Family would be like, "let's get the hell out of here..."

 

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6 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Atari Hotels are already the world's biggest hit*.

 

But really, I think it's a poor idea. The handful of old fart users on here are the only people who would be interested, and that's not a substantial enough base of consumers to warrant anything other than a swift liquidation and bankruptcy.

 

*The usage of the word "hit" may mean, alternately, a hit, not a hit, a hit in my house, a hit among people who are me, a hit among myself and three friends, and/or a hit only in my mind (but that's all that matters to me).  Usage will vary with need to move goalposts and/or warp reality to justify my personal opinions. Prices and participation may vary. Speaker disclaims all warranties, express or implied, and reader is limited to the remedy of repair and/or replacement only. Recipient expressly agrees to consent to the jurisdiction of the Courts of Chesnais County and this agreement shall be governed by the laws of VCS Wonderland.

You forgot "For illustrative purposes only"

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7 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

But really, I think it's a poor idea. The handful of old fart users on here are the only people who would be interested, and that's not a substantial enough base of consumers to warrant anything other than a swift liquidation and bankruptcy.

Yes, people hate video games, especially children. And the renderings of the hotels look terrible. I want my hotels to offer as little as possible.

 

The hotels may not be a success, but the idea is worth pursuing.

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6 hours ago, Matt_B said:

I prefer to stay in hotels that actually exist, because features like a bed and a roof over your head are far better for a good night's sleep than dreams and renders. ?

You know there was a time when they didn´t exist, right? If people didn´t design hotels, and then build them, you would have to bring your own tent everywhere you went. And by your own tent, I mean a tent you made yourself, because tents have to be designed and made as well.

 

Unless you were willing to make things yourself, you would actually have to travel naked on foot and sleep under the stars unless you could find a cave or something.

 

But hey, let´s ridicule people who are trying to do something. It makes us feel better about not doing anything ourselves.

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7 hours ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Ummm, hello? PONG AND SPACE INVADERS*? How can you not make a decision based solely on whether those will be involved or not?

Somebody once told me:

"value means how much I personally and individually like the product and somehow my experience extrapolates to everyone else (or at least the majority as I perceive it) and when faced with real, living, breathing contrary facts and/or opinions I will warp reality to justify my expectations."

 

1) It has been clarified that the hotels are supposed to be about video games in general, although Atari will be overrepresented. Yet you suggest it is all about (early) Atari games.

 

2) When I guessed Atari would make millions or tens of millions per year the next 20 years, you ridiculed me for saying they would make tens of millions per year.

 

3) I said "the Atari brand is so strong it is at least the difference between doing badly and ok, or ok and well, or well and very well, or very well and great." And later I specified that for optimal success they would need the involvement of a Steve Jobs type. You responded:  "Atari could be successful if there was a precondition of it being successful, you say?"

 

Could that person have been talking about you?

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29 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

I asked in the other topic, but can you point me to any of the actual building sites for these hotels?

 

Failing that, the planning applications would be nice.

I can´t point to any such things. Like I have said, it may never happen. But you don´t know that they won´t be made either. It is very easy to make fun of people with ambitious plans, and many of them fail, but we need them and their plans. The hotels which exist today were not guaranteed to be built until they were built.

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1 minute ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I can´t point to any such things. Like I have said, it may never happen. But you don´t know that they won´t be made either. It is very easy to make fun of people with ambitious plans, and many of them fail, but we need them and their plans. The hotels which exist today were not guaranteed to be built until they were built.

Well, sure, and you don't know that a kid who lives just down the road from me won't build a spaceship in his back yard and fly it to Mars. You might, for instance, point to his lack of experience in the aerospace industry or appeal to the laws of physics, but you can't say it'll never happen now, can you? ?

 

Seriously, the hotel business has a number of established players who you can generally count upon to follow through on a project; you know, the likes of Wyndham, Marriot, Accor, Hilton and so on. If Atari were to partner up with any one of those, I'd be inclined to believe that the hotels were going to happen barring the sort of circumstances that might cause them to cancel their projects. However, they've not done so as of yet. Rather, their only partners in this are a couple of very obscure startups who seem to operate in very similar areas to Atari (e.g licensing out IP, marketing and crypto-finance) who are mostly likely taking part because they think hawking Atari's name around is going to help them engage one or more of the aforementioned companies.

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30 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

Well, sure, and you don't know that a kid who lives just down the road from me won't build a spaceship in his back yard and fly it to Mars. You might, for instance, point to his lack of experience in the aerospace industry or appeal to the laws of physics, but you can't say it'll never happen now, can you? ?.

No, but if he grows up, invests serious amounts of money in it, which he can´t get back, and has a concept for making it a commercially viable enterprise, I am giving him a decent chance. You do realize you are basically describing Elon Musk, who is well on his way to achieve the exact thing you are using as an example of something virtually impossible? 

 

Don´t be a nay-sayer, they end up bitter at other people´s success. It is ok not to be a fan of the hotel concept, and/or to believe it won´t happen. But that doesn´t mean that they have no chance of being built, or that it is an almost guaranteed failure if they become reality.

 

I thought the VCS was crap from the start. But I still thought it would be built, even during the endless delays. I even thought it would be profitable, which I now doubt. While I still think it is crap, I am now happy for those who enjoy it.

 

One day you might be staying in a city where there is an Atari hotel. You could either pout about it, or grin at the thought of the crazy people inside it. And maybe, just maybe, you would want to take a little peek for yourself.

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No, I'm not talking about Elon Musk, or indeed anyone else who is a billionaire who owns a company that builds rockets. I'm talking about the kid down the road. He's got no money, no rockets and knows nothing about space exploration. He knows how to do pretty awesome renders though. ?

 

For what it's worth, I always thought the VCS would be built too. I also thought it'd be of underwhelming performance, heavily delayed and that they'd lose money on it on account of having to buy in all the expertise to make the thing and I don't think I've been proven wrong on either of those. I'm even happy for those who enjoy it, although that's not going to stop me from chiming in whenever they make outrageous claims about it.

 

The thing is though, people design and build mini PCs and games consoles on relatively small budgets all the time. To someone who knows what they're doing they can turn them around in a matter of months on a six figure budget, even. However, absolutely nobody builds skyscraper resort hotels outside of a very small number of established players in that business. It's really not being overly skeptical at all to presume that a startup, spun out of a brand licensing operation and without any of them on board, is going to be able to do it.

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2 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

No, I'm not talking about Elon Musk, or indeed anyone else who is a billionaire who owns a company that builds rockets. I'm talking about the kid down the road. He's got no money, no rockets and knows nothing about space exploration. He knows how to do pretty awesome renders though. ?

Elon Musk was once a kid. He lived down somebody´s road. He had no money for a long time, no rockets and knew nothing about space exploration. Yet he built rockets, and has very realistic plans to go to Mars. If he had to launch it from his backyard, he would buy his childhood neighbourhood and do just that.

 

7 minutes ago, Matt_B said:

absolutely nobody builds skyscraper resort hotels outside of a very small number of established players in that business. It's really not being overly skeptical at all to presume that a startup, spun out of a brand licensing operation and without any of them on board, is going to be able to do it.

The hotels are likely to be less ambitious than the plans presented (the plans say something about being subject to change), but as long as it has the Atari brand and the video game theme, I think it is a good concept. 

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27 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

The hotels are likely to be less ambitious than the plans presented (the plans say something about being subject to change), but as long as it has the Atari brand and the video game theme, I think it is a good concept. 

I'll start taking them seriously when they announce those less ambitious plans then, along with a new partner who might actually be capable of realizing them.

 

I'm still not entirely sure why anyone would, but I suppose even the investor classes aren't immune to FOMO and rationalizing bad decisions. ?

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I acknowledge this question is probably going to make discussion circular, but:

 

It strikes me as particularly important to note that none of any major players in either industry have pitched this, tried this, or done this in the past. (In fact, that may not be true; I am trying to find it, but I thought Warner-era Atari actually DID kick the tires on this, and even at the height of the brand decided it was a loser project.)

 

Video games have been around for nearly half a century now, and have certainly been ubiquitous for at least 30.

 

Yet there's nothing like this in Orlando, nothing like this in Vegas, and nothing like this in Anaheim, which are presumably the top places to draw guests within the target market in the United States. If we look internationally, there's none in Japan, either, where one would think such an idea would happen.

 

Why isn't Nintendo doing this? Why not Sony? Why not the much chagrined and worthless brand that only makes people want to break things Microsoft? (I admit the idea of the Microsoft Excel Presidential Suite would sell like hotcakes!). They have the resources, the cash flow, and could easily make this happen. Yet....crickets.

 

Is it that Atari in its current form is a trail breaking underdog with chutzpah and a fabulous idea if we just give them a chance, because they've struck pure gold and they're just the first to do this or think of it?

 

Or could it be that it's not an effective idea and those who have thought of it have disregarded it as a money sink project?  Surely Disney or others would want to integrate video games near their parks or something, right?

 

(Or am I just salty because I want my Colecovision hotel, DAMN IT ALL?!)

 

One of these two options has little, if any, proof, and in fact has a track record that shows absolutely the opposite.  I think it's reasonable to assume the latter, rather than the former.

 

And before the rod strikes the deceased equine yet one more time, I'm aware Elon Musk exists and I'm aware he may have some unique ideas, but I don't recall Elon Musk being involved in this project, so any comparison between Tesla and Atari seems irrelevant.

 

(My realistic and non-sarcastic expectation is that if an Atari hotel gets off the ground, an unlikely occurrence in and of itself, it will be competing in the same market as Holiday Inn Express, AKA it will get guests because people treat it like any other hotel, rather than a unique and special "destination attraction" - the fact that they want to drop the first in Phoenix of all places indicates to me that it's not intended to be a tourist destination attraction, or more likely that it IS intended as such but the execution is as poor as, well, everything else they've done in the past.)

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2 hours ago, Matt_B said:

I'll start taking them seriously when they announce those less ambitious plans then, along with a new partner who might actually be capable of realizing them.

The structure and presentation of the company - while appearing to fulfill the letter of the law - is what brings me back to the 'ability to execute' question that was part of the Atacobox saga for so long.  BTW, most of this is likely to be not of much interest to most folks, but I wanted to document what I've dug up so far.  Beware: some stream-of-consciousness follows.

 

From the lower right-hand corner of the main page of the Atari Hotels website, there are three things that stand out: a contact telephone number (800 617 8981; goes to a generic voicemail message purporting to be an overloaded call centre queue voicemail box) and a general enquiries email address (info@atarihotels.com).  But the third one is what's interesting: it's the copyright notice, which reads, in part, "© 2020 Breakout 1976, LLC d/b/a ATARI Hotels."

 

Some brief searching shows that Breakout 1976, LLC is a Delaware-registered company.  The Delaware Secretary of State's office (Division of Corporations) lists Breakout 1976, LLC as being registered to The Corporation Trust Company in Wilmington, DE.  The Corporation Trust Company (also known as CT Corporation) exists solely to provide business registrants in a given jurisdiction with an address that they can use for legal service when incorporating a business in that jurisdiction.  This has the effect of CT Corporation acting as a proxy between the registrant and the public, thus giving a degree of obfuscation between the actual registrant and public records.

 

As a side note, I am not planning on spending either the $10 or $20 on pulling either company status or status, tax, and filing history info from the Division of Corporations.  This just doesn't interest me that much.  But if someone else would like to, by all means go for it :D

 

Coming back around to the copyright notice, the second part of it reads, "ATARI and the ATARI logo are registered trademarks of Atari Interactive Inc."  Atari Interactive seems to be the entity under which they sue people (see this case and this case for examples), while Atari, Inc. is the mothership corporation.  Between that and Atari Hotels being featured on their licensing page, it's probably safe to assume that Atari Interactive is effectively acting as Atari, Inc.'s legal firm in this matter and no actual Atari-owned entity has day-to-day involvement in the development of the hotels.  Some input, sure, but it appears as though risk management is making them stay well away from the hospitality venture unless absolutely necessary.

 

Moving on: there is a link to GSD Group's website on the main page of the Atari Hotels site.  GSD Group's registered address is 421 E University Dr, Mesa, AZ; also at that address is T. Carmichael, PC, an accounting firm that appears to act as a registered agent address for a number of Arizona corporations.  Notably, "H.M. Gilbert, Jr."'s name appears on a large number of business registrations at that address, including that of the GSD Group.  On the same registration the name, "Shelly Murphy," who is listed as the CEO & Managing Partner of GSD Group on the 'Our Team' section of their website, also appears, so this is definitely the right company to focus on.  Incidentally, Shelly is likely to become memorable to Taco thread regulars in a moment.

 

As an aside, Shelly's much-vaunted experience with DesTechAZ doesn't mention that it's a hot-air vacuum that more or less exists solely to give attendees buzzwords to potentially bandwagon on later.  As an example, check out this video of Woz on stage with Shelly - at about the 7m30s mark, she 'invites' Fred Chesnais to come up on stage and talk with Woz, which the Taco thread had a field day with when it happened.  Chesnais shows Woz the prototype Atacobox while basically using the moment as an excuse to advertise it to the audience - as well as the Speakerhat.  The whole thing just underlines how much of a load of gladhanding, opportunistic bullshit the event appears to have been.

 

So, what, ultimately does all of this say?  Well, nothing that is outright illegal stands out.  However, it very much points to a company (GSD Group) that is essentially trying to do the same thing with the Atari Hotels that Fauxtari itself does: license a property, outsource everything involving actual effort to third parties, ???, PROFIT.  The company has three principal officers, which does not exactly make it a business powerhouse.  It will certainly let you think that it is one, however.

 

Returning to my original point at the start of this post: ability to execute is very much at question here.  None of the actors involved appear to have a track record that suggests being able to see something of this scale through to completion, and one very noticeable omission from the principals' credentials is experience in the construction industry.  In building hotels, that's only slightly important, almost as much as having people on board who understand that different states and municipalities have different permitting and approval processes for lodging being built in their jurisdictions.

 

These are people who very much believe that they can Lego-brick their way to success in business if they just find the right combination of third parties and create the relationships that enable the synergies which will extend the brand into verticals that are ripe for transformative change of what has been considered possible.  The problem with believing your own bullshit is that it's still bullshit, and others can smell it too.

Edited by x=usr(1536)
Made YouTube starting time more accurate.
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10 minutes ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

It strikes me as particularly important to note that none of any major players in either industry have pitched this, tried this, or done this in the past. Video games have been around for nearly half a century now, and have certainly been ubiquitous for at least 30.

I think one reason why it hasn´t been done before is that there didn´t use to be a lot of adults interested in video games. Kids who play video games end up as adults who play video games. Whereas people who were adults when video games arrived are still non-gamers. So every year that passes there is an additional year´s worth of people interested in video games, and one year´s worth less of people who are not interested in video games.

 

1 hour ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

If we look internationally, there's none in Japan, either, where one would think such an idea would happen.

Maybe there are so many arcades over there that there is no need for a hotel to offer games themselves.

 

1 hour ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Why isn't Nintendo doing this? Why not Sony?

They have thriving core businesses, which they are focusing on. Making a theme park is a much more natural thing for Nintendo to do, and they only recently did that. I also think Nintendo are very protective of their brand, so they don´t want to put it on just anything.

 

But most importantly, I think there are so many things to potentially put your brand on that it probably hasn´t crossed their minds to put it on a hotel. I didn´t know I wanted a video game hotel until it was presented to me.

1 hour ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Why not the much chagrined and worthless brand that only makes people want to break things Microsoft? (I admit the idea of the Microsoft Excel Presidential Suite would sell like hotcakes!).

:) 

 

Made me laugh. You would probably have to pay for windows.

 

Microsoft doesn´t have ideas. And we should be glad they didn´t make hotels, because they would suck.

 

Microsoft would be a perfect brand for a drug that induces vomitting. You wouldn´t even need to take the drug, you could just look at the bottle. I don´t know if you can tell, but I don´t like Microsoft very much.

 

1 hour ago, Cebus Capucinis said:

Is it that Atari in its current form is a trail breaking underdog with chutzpah and a fabulous idea if we just give them a chance, because they've struck pure gold and they're just the first to do this or think of it?

They could have stumbled on to something. I don´t know if it was them, or one of the hotel partners, who came up with the idea. I doubt that it is pure gold, but a very nice source of income for a tiny company like Atari is possible.

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There's enough venture captital and United Arab Emirates money involved that I'm sure the hotels will be all nice and modern and slick and fancy and heavily branded and probably all right. That said I don't expect anything more from them than other theme hotels, which tend to come and go over time. I'll stay at one if it is less than $100/night probably, and I assume it'll be nicer than the $50/night Motel 6's I'm used to...

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45 minutes ago, Mockduck said:

There's enough venture captital and United Arab Emirates money involved that I'm sure the hotels will be all nice and modern and slick and fancy and heavily branded and probably all right. That said I don't expect anything more from them than other theme hotels, which tend to come and go over time. I'll stay at one if it is less than $100/night probably, and I assume it'll be nicer than the $50/night Motel 6's I'm used to...

Investment capital can't make up for incompetence.  It can certainly magnify it, though.

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I always love it when someone drills down into the ownership and corporate history. Thanks for that.  

 

Personally, I don't believe anything will come of this, aside from some investors losing some money.

 

I would definitely want to check it out if the hotels did come to fruition for a meal or a drink, but probably only once, because it probably would not be great.

 

This is just another example of the pimping of the Atari name, which has not been used for anything good since the Jaguar, or arguably something else ST related that came afterwards. 

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