Did Infogrames destroy their legacy by selling the Alone in the Dark ip?

[Leeroy ST]

This is something I've wondered for a long time but for some reason never really asked if I'm the only one on this boat. But...

 

Infogrames (Now posing as Atari) had somewhat of a legacy with several favorite computer games. Their biggest for a time was Alone in the Dark and eventually it became the only major ip still "alive" after the 90's.

 

But then they sold the IP to THQ Nordic (which based on rumored VCS development and production budgets the money may not have even been needed) and this begs the question.

 

Did they destroy their legacy by selling their biggest original ip? I mean infogrames after the sale is basically over imo now. It's just a posing Atari putting out the same 20 games in 30 flashbacks and a VCS computer you can install windows on. 

 

There's nothing of the old body left once ALitD left. I know they are a video game company still, but it just feels like they aren't a real video game company to me. I feel like the company destroyed it's original history and the early fake french Atari history to be... Well nothing currently. 

 

I dont know maybe I'm getting old or something, I just feel like there has been 20 years of unused potential erased I guess. 

 

I think they still own test drive and neverwinter nights but good luck seeing major new releases for those. 

 

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

I'm sure this IP would be in better hands at THQ Nordic anyway...

[Lord Mushroom]

On 7/21/2021 at 5:32 AM, Leeroy ST said:

But then they sold the IP to THQ Nordic (which based on rumored VCS development and production budgets the money may not have even been needed) and this begs the question.

They could have done without the money, but they didn´t have the money to do something with Alone in the Dark without taking a big risk, so they did the right thing by selling it.

 

On 7/21/2021 at 5:32 AM, Leeroy ST said:

I mean infogrames after the sale is basically over imo now.

They do seem to be focusing on the Atari stuff. Rollercoaster Tycoon is still the most important franchise in their portfolio, though, but the license has to be renewed every few years. When they lose that one, it is all over for Infogrames.

 

On 7/21/2021 at 5:32 AM, Leeroy ST said:

I feel like the company destroyed it's original history and the early fake french Atari history to be... Well nothing currently. 

When Warner Bros. bought Atari, Atari was still Atari. When Infogrames bought Atari, Atari was still Atari. Infogrames has since emphasized Atari so much at the expense of their other stuff that Atari SA is Atari now, in name and nature. Atari has eaten Infogrames and their other companies from within.

 

On 7/21/2021 at 5:32 AM, Leeroy ST said:

I think they still own test drive and neverwinter nights but good luck seeing major new releases for those. 

Test Drive has been sold. I am not sure about Neverwinter Nights, but it is not on Wikipedia´s list of franchises Atari SA owns.

[Leeroy ST]

Warner bros?

[Lord Mushroom]

1 hour ago, Leeroy ST said:

Warner bros?

I am not sure what you are asking for here. Nolan Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications, which is part of the Warner Bros. (now WarnerMedia) conglomerate, in 1976. I don´t know what the name of the Warner parent company was called at the time, but I think it was Warner Bros..

 

Test Drive was sold to Bigben Interactive.

[Leeroy ST]

2 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I don´t know what the name of the Warner parent company was called at the time, but I think it was Warner Bros..

 

I think you got this backwards.

[CatPix]

Maybe because I'm a Frenchman, but for me, the only good and interesting game in the AITD series was the first; and by us it's widely know as Frédéric's Raynal brainchild, and "merely" published by Infogrames.

(in the same vein, any video game fan here will tell you that Another world is Eric Chahi's game and wouldn't be able to name the original publisher).

 

For me, Infogrames destroyed their legacy when Bruno Bonnel basically ruined the company to buy the Atari name and renamed themselves Atari.

Atari has no legacy nor any continuity, it was a dormant/dead brand between 1996 and 2003. Infogrames destroyed their own legacy by disguising in Atari, without really reviving the legacy of Atari.

 

But back to the question, AITD has no Infogrames legacy since no other AITD game was made by Raynal's input, and were vaguely generic horror games with a famous name sticked on them.

[Lord Mushroom]

3 hours ago, CatPix said:

For me, Infogrames destroyed their legacy when Bruno Bonnel basically ruined the company to buy the Atari name and renamed themselves Atari.

Atari has no legacy nor any continuity, it was a dormant/dead brand between 1996 and 2003. Infogrames destroyed their own legacy by disguising in Atari, without really reviving the legacy of Atari.

I agree that the Infogrames brand would have been stronger without the purchase and rebranding of Atari. But that doesn´t mean that buying Atari was a mistake. The brand probably helped sales a little, and the IP has brought income. Now it is almost all they´ve got.

 

While they bought Hasbro Interactive, which owned Atari, and Game.com for $100 million, Atari was valued at only $5 million 2.5 years earlier, so the Atari part of the price was tiny. Atari SA is today worth 118 million euros. A lot of that comes from issuing stock, but still.

 

Atari has legacy in spades. As for continuity, you are right that they were dormant/dead for many years, but people don´t know that. And those who do, do so because they are big fans of Atari and love them anyway.

[zzip]

On 7/31/2021 at 6:34 PM, Lord Mushroom said:

 

On 7/20/2021 at 11:32 PM, Leeroy ST said:

I feel like the company destroyed it's original history and the early fake french Atari history to be... Well nothing currently. 

When Warner Bros. bought Atari, Atari was still Atari. When Infogrames bought Atari, Atari was still Atari. Infogrames has since emphasized Atari so much at the expense of their other stuff that Atari SA is Atari now, in name and nature. Atari has eaten Infogrames and their other companies from within.

 

Atari history in a nutshell:

 

2001- Present: Infogrames posing as Atari

1998 - 2001  Hasbro posing as Atari

1996 - 1998 JTS NOT posing as Atari

1984 - 1996  Tramel Tech posing as Atari

1976 - 1984 Warner Communications posing as Atari

1972 - 1976 Syzygy posing as Atari

Edited August 2, 2021 by zzip

[Reaperman]

10 hours ago, CatPix said:

Maybe because I'm a Frenchman, but for me, the only good and interesting game in the AITD series was the first; and by us it's widely know as Frédéric's Raynal brainchild, and "merely" published by Infogrames.

 

I'll agree, and go one farther. Outside of the intro being a bit of a tech demo I occasionally ran my 3do though, I can't say I found the first one terribly interesting, either.

 

I just looked up how many there were, and wow, they made 7 of the darn things.

 

Below are their average review scores--that 19/100 for the last one prior to the THQ sale has to be some kind of record. What'd THQ pay for it anyway? A fiver? Maybe they just wanted it to be sure Infogrames would stop making them. ?

 

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by Reaperman

[Lord Mushroom]

8 hours ago, Reaperman said:

What'd THQ pay for it anyway? A fiver?

 

They paid 735 thousand euros for Alone in the Dark and Act of War.

[CatPix]

11 hours ago, Reaperman said:

I'll agree, and go one farther. Outside of the intro being a bit of a tech demo I occasionally ran my 3do though, I can't say I found the first one terribly interesting, either.

I would have to compare the PC and 3DO version.

The issue with the first AITD is that it aged amazingly poorly, gameplay and graphics-wise.

It's overall short, it's clunky, slow, and has lots of unwinnable by mistake situations. I'm not sure how the 3DO fare but on PC you have to make HEAVY use of the saves to make sure you can backtrack and reload a borked save.

But on the other hand it pioneered the survival-horror genre (now more "psychological-horror" genre) by relying on a weak, defenseless hero (or heroin, no less!) and all powerful monsters, relying on your cleverness (and puzzles) to win the game.

It's one of those cases were the original work was so early and so copied, it feels stale and even clumsy with all the improvements made later.

Even the immediately-made-after Dr Hauzer (since you mention the 3DO, get it if you haven't yet) is improvement on many levels (and itself made the path for Resident Evil).

 

 

[Leeroy ST]

Keep in mind the poorly rated and original hyper broken (than updated to super broken) 2nd reboot, Alone in the dark 2008, is the second best selling game in the series and came closest to 2 million copies of the first.

 

So people wanted Alone in the dark, they liked some of the ideas, but infogrames just couldn't pull off a good game outside the first reboot, new nightmare, that was ok.

 

Look at theur internal game output after 2098, they have nearly zero internal games and all of what we're turned out bad for any ip. No wonder they focus on hardware now.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2021 by Leeroy ST

[Lord Mushroom]

25 minutes ago, Leeroy ST said:

Look at theur internal game output after 2098, they have nearly zero internal games and all of what we're turned out bad for any ip. No wonder they focus on hardware now.

They are not focused on hardware. Maybe they were partly focused on hardware up until recently when there was a tiny possibility that the VCS would be a smash hit. But now they are focusing on licensing, crypto-stuff and making games based on their IP.

[Leeroy ST]

11 hours ago, Lord Mushroom said:

They are not focused on hardware. Maybe they were partly focused on hardware up until recently when there was a tiny possibility that the VCS would be a smash hit. But now they are focusing on licensing, crypto-stuff and making games based on their IP.

I mean I dont expect any real major releases anytime soon with the IP they still own.