Bumpy road ahead
With digital downloads becoming increasingly popular, there's certainly a saving to be had on distributing the future Atari catalogue entirely online, but sadly it also could mean an end to big budget games from the company.Infogram's President, Phli Harrison has suggested that a large chunk of the future of Atari Inc. could well lie in the casual games arena, which has been expanding rapidly in recent year with reports suggesting that 200million people play casual games over the internet each month, generating annual global sales of more than $2.5billion. In an interview with Games Industry.biz, he said that:
Flash games are delivering PlayStation 1 to PlayStation 2 levels of quality, but that trend is growing fast. So in-browser doesn't necessarily mean rubbish games forever.
Harrison has also suggested that we can also expect to see some community focused and social-based games from Atari, although stiff competition in that arena will mean that it will have to be really be inventive with its games if it hopes to compete successfully against companies who have been plying their trade in that area since the outset.
Sadly, it seems that Alone in the Dark was probably the last major, big budget single player title from Atari Inc as it adjusts its business model to fit in with the trends of the industry.
One thing's for sure, Atari Inc has a bumpy road ahead and one that is still full of uncertainty.
Sources :: MCV
