Atari Plans to Auction Off Game Assets in July

Atari will be selling off all of its game assets at a scheduled four day auction in July. The auction is expected to net a minimum of a little over $22 Million. Atari filed for bankruptcy in January and as such, the auction still has to be approved by the courts on June 11th.

It’s clear now that the original intention to sell the company as a whole and keep it operating isn’t going to happen. Instead, there’s a chance some of its best known games will get a new lease of life, but under the guidance of a new publisher.

Click to expand...

They still have to go through a judge to get it approved. I wonder if Master of Orion 3 is somewhere in the list of things for sale. The MOO stuff really needs to go out to a company that can make more turn-based fun out of it.

CreepyUncleGoogle said:

They still have to go through a judge to get it approved. I wonder if Master of Orion 3 is somewhere in the list of things for sale. The MOO stuff really needs to go out to a company that can make more turn-based fun out of it.

Click to expand...

While I would love to see a MoO franchise reboot, I don't see it happening, MoO3 left such a nasty tasty in my mouth that I've basically given up on it. Although I will say MoO3 is the reason I will never, under any circumstances, buy a game the day it's released.

sfsuphysics said:

While I would love to see a MoO franchise reboot, I don't see it happening, MoO3 left such a nasty tasty in my mouth that I've basically given up on it. Although I will say MoO3 is the reason I will never, under any circumstances, buy a game the day it's released.

Click to expand...

MOO3 was a great game...after understanding the point. People, I think, expected MOO2 with better graphics which was just a turn-based tactical game with resource management thrown on it to make it seem vaguely strategic. MOO3, on the other hand, really is a strategy game where the person at the keyboard just sets broad policies and overall empire goals, then lets the AI decide how to get there. Like any leader, you step in once in a while to micromanage when someone is doing something dumb, but the fun is actually having a strategic, big picture perspective and not worrying with what every single person is doing.

I started playing it expecting it to be more tactical in nature (in fact, I didn't really even understand strategic gaming at that point, thinking MOO2 and junk like Starcraft were strategy of some sort). It was too complicated, too scary, and too buggy to learn. Then I read this review someplace that went into a similar discussion about it being actual strategy, found the 1.2 patch, grabbed a few mods, and started to play it again. Now, MOO3 is one of those games I always play. It's up there with Sims 3 and a few others that I like for the abstract, big thinking kind of fun you don't get in reflex based gore festival 3D shooters. It's a game that lets the player think on a grand scale instead of just reacting to stimulation like some sort of stupid insect.

If you still have a copy of it, I really suggest trying it again! And, if you can find a friend who will stick with you for several months, multiplayer sessions are really good fun!

Well, Infogrammes really screwed the pooch on this one.

Part of the problem was, they were kept chronically cash-strapped by Hasbro.

Part of the problem was, they and their subsidiaries simply refused to listen to their communities. At all. Even when the communities were going "No. You're trying to ass-rape us here! We're not buying." and then following through on that.

And part of the problem was they refused to actually LEARN from situations like this. Repeating the same stupid mistakes over and over and over again.

With the damage Infogrammes has done to the Atari name, I hope they and those ass-spelunking cum-guzzlers burn in hell.

How many times has Atari been sold? It hasn't been a success since the 2600 days.

The current Atari has NOTHING to do with the original guys.

It was just a logo. Like Zenith is nowadays. Or hundreds of other "brand names" that are produced by all manner of different companies.

Chas said:

The current Atari has NOTHING to do with the original guys.

It was just a logo. Like Zenith is nowadays. Or hundreds of other "brand names" that are produced by all manner of different companies.

Click to expand...

Yup, but lets be honest, it's not like Atari was really that hot shit to start with, it made early games a long time ago that had limited functionality and in today's world those games would make crap games look like works of art, nostalgia is a nice way to remember how things were... not actually replaying them because then you'll see how crap they were.

But I remember being somewhat active on the Master of Orion 3 boards, and recall the head project guy getting canned (I think Alan Emerich) and then one of the lead art guys got promoted to run the game... and going by the art in the game... he wasn't very good at that either... VOXELS MAN!!! It's all about the voxels! A question I asked when mentioned how many unique ships there would be was "are there going to be that many different ships? Or half that amount but with a different color palette" to which they "er ummed" a response.