Atari CEO resigns

Publisher licenses Test Drive franchise to its parent company as chief restructuring officer takes the reins on an interim basis.

Atari is looking to change its bad fortunes of late, but it will have to start by changing its leadership. The company announced today that CEO David Pierce has resigned his position with the company and a search is on the way for a successor. Pierce ends his run at the helm of Atari after just over a year on the job.

Taking over the CEO role on an interim basis will be the company's chief restructuring officer, Curtis G. Solsvig III. No explanation was given for Pierce's departure, but the chairman of the publisher's board wished him well and expressed appreciation for his "support and commitment through a difficult period in the company's history."

Speaking of that difficult period, the company also announced part of its plan to turn things around, including the licensing of its Test Drive series to its parent company Infogrames. Under the terms of the deal, Atari will receive a $5 million advance on royalties and Infogrames gets the license for a six-year term, during which the company will make and sell at least two new releases.

As has been noted before, the company no longer owns any internal development studios. In today's announcement, Atari specified that it "will refocus its operations on publishing and distribution in North America, completing its withdrawal from the production business."

72 Comments

  • HALCONAZUL

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 9:28 pm PT

    Ill still getting DBZ BT3 and Godzilla, Ill help you my child hood friend

  • wiidominance

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 6:46 pm PT

    @ Polkastripe ... LoL .. Nintendo was the second most valuable company after Toyota a short while ago, I duno if it still is, i.e. it passed, Sony, Toshiba, Canon "name any big jap company apart from Toyota". Therefore, even if the gamecube completely died, they had the GBA to hold their back "strongly" It will take some serious failures for Nintendo to go downhill ..its not impossible, but its unlikely ... "in case that happens, I'll buy the license of Mario and Zelda for 1000 buck .. serious ... xD"

  • Agreb91

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 2:13 pm PT

    Hard times for Atari. They will get through it because they have in the past.

  • lamprey263

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 1:30 pm PT

    I wonder whether Atari or the developers for Atari published games own the IP for most recent games. If other companies started yanking away pieces of IP I think it could definitely benefit fans of those games.

  • MedevilDragon

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 11:54 am PT

    "I bet EA will buy them out. And maybe Infogrames, too. But then again, "EA might not, because they might consider a company like Infogrames, & Atari to be deadweight"

    I would rather hope that 2K would buy them out, because EA sucks and will just close them down, but I much more rather hope that Atari will escape from bankruptcy and achieve some success.

  • PolkaStripe

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 11:36 am PT

    if this started happening to nintendo it would suck so bad =[

  • chadw_genx

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 11:10 am PT

    One thing that must be mentioned is that Atari's woes have been broadcasted on an almost weekly basis for a very, very long time now and yet they are still here. I don't ever want to read the article that states Atari is completely dead. To know that Sega, another company that's been in this industry since virtually the start, will no longer make any consoles or even hardware, sucks. I know that's ancient news, but Atari has been around forever and I hope they're around as long as they can hold out. Nintendo, Sega, and Atari --> may they live forever.

  • jojo1983

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 11:09 am PT

    Like somebody else said before, Atari should sell some of their older games for like 2 bucks a piece on the VC. I would definately buy some, and it would be a good way for them to make some revenue

  • enoslives7

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 10:39 am PT

    Atari is a disaster

  • 1357900

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 10:34 am PT

    I bet EA will buy them out. And maybe Infogrames, too. But then again, EA might not, because they might consider a company like Infogrames, & Atari to be deadweight.

  • dj_b02us

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 10:23 am PT

    why doesnt someone just buy the damn place. Some company has to see the value in having the name and using it to publish new vc or xbox live content or any of its older titles or something. Plus right now its probably dirt cheap.

  • mrkame16

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 8:43 am PT

    Pierce ends his run at the helm of Atari after just over a year on the job. "damn! Is it that bad at Atari. hope they pull out of the slump

  • DMC2677

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 7:34 am PT

    Too bad for Atarl. I loved Transformers for PS2 (Armada version). R.I.P. 2600/5200/7800 makers. I'm sure millions of us enjoyed those Defender, Pac Man, Asteroids, Maze Craze (and TOO MANY MORE GAMES to mention) days. Oh well...at least it's in the Smithsonian as a part of American History.

  • mikewalsh69

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 7:17 am PT

    poor poor atari

  • pixelsword

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 7:02 am PT

    It's sad to think that this company, once the leader of the beginning of the game console era and at one time owning Nintendo, now is in such poor shape. It goes to show that if you don't change with the times you can be left behind. I think the Jaguar was the beginning of the end; well actually their games: Iron Soldier was a solid game but they hardly texture-mapped anything. I think their best game was Aliens Versus Predator, which was argueably the scariest AVP title of all time. The graphics were top notch for it's day and the sound effects were the best. The alien screaming would get you almost every time when they snuck up on you.

  • skatefreak89

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 5:54 am PT

    Test Drive wasn't horrible at all. I spend over 100 hours in that game

  • Unkillable

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 5:09 am PT

    Looks like their CEO bailed out early, how long can poor Atari last now?

  • wittbolds

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 4:44 am PT

    Atari has made horrible games for a long time, it's about time they flush themselves out the toilet.

  • wittbolds

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 4:44 am PT

    Atari has made horrible games for a long time, it's about time they flush themselves out the toilet.

  • Tuor7

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 4:32 am PT

    Light_Power,

    Looking Glass Studios *did not* make Thief III. It made Thief I and II only.

  • -HCMF-

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 4:12 am PT

    Well, if they would call me - I would fix it...

  • wizard_levy

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 2:56 am PT

    What's that story where the captain has to sink with the ship?

  • slickr

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 2:27 am PT

    Atari has been on the downsife since 2003. Actually when i think of it the only upside was from 1997-2001 and that was also decent and not great.
    Anyways i think they have themselfs to blame, they went for fast publishing and never really made their games great and polished.
    Test drive 5+ was all about fast publishing, Driver 3 also, boling point also, as well as their other games.
    All these games could have been really great with some additional time to develop them.

  • slickr

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 2:23 am PT

    Atari has been on the downsife since 2003. Actually when i think of it the only upside was from 1997-2001 and that was also decent and not great.
    Anyways i think they have themselfs to blame, they went for fast publishing and never really made their games great and polished.
    Test drive 5+ was all about fast publishing, Driver 3 also, boling point also, as well as their other games.
    All these games could have been really great with some additional time to develop them.

  • Light_Power

    Posted Nov 14, 2007 12:24 am PT

    This kind of sucks though, because I loved their last couple releases. Its like the Looking Glass studios which made Thief stopped their Saga after the Thief 3.....which I really hated. Why when thing are just starting to get great something always has to go wrong. Anyways only time will tell whats going to happen with Atari in the end.

  • RaiKageRyu

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 11:29 pm PT

    Can a new CEO help? Or is this a sign of the nearing of the end?

  • theclaw135

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 11:01 pm PT

    One thing that really hurt them was losing the valuable Unreal license.

  • SpookyXJ

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 10:24 pm PT

    Niteowl74 They alreadey started with The Witcher. Made by a Polish developer thats a subsidiary of one of the largest Eastern European publishers. Atari is the publisher for NA and Western Europe. Excelent move by Atari and I am extremly happy they broght This wonderful RPG to the Western audiences.

  • playa42018

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 9:52 pm PT

    Are they still bringing the retro Atari titles to XBLA? I want to play 4 player Warlords over live.

  • niteowl74

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 9:44 pm PT

    Maybe they should get into the game localization buisness and bring some imports here. be a way to make some quick cash perhaps?

  • niteowl74

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 9:44 pm PT

    Maybe they should get into the game localization buisness and bring some imports here. be a way to make some quick cash perhaps?

  • NeoNavarro

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 9:01 pm PT

    Hopfully well start to see Atari do a nice turn around in the near future.

  • living_wmd_888

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 8:55 pm PT

    The "Atari" name seems to be a big white elephant; to Nolan Bushnell, to Warner Communications, to the Tramiels, to Hasbro, and now to Infogrames. Infogrames should just sell Atari's IP to Nintendo and have done with it.

  • EMZayas

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 8:25 pm PT

    I'm a huge Atari fan. Retro Atari and current Atari. I'll buy their products to support them. DBZ, Godzilla, Jenga, Swashbucklers, and more.

  • ShikamaruNaraX

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 8:11 pm PT

    I am going to buy the new DBZ game when it comes to Wii in December and the new Godzilla game, not sure how much that will help, but I will support Atari when it makes cool games. Trunks rules!

  • BraindeadRacr

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 8:10 pm PT

    After all of this, I personally feel it's better off to let them declare bankrupcy. I don't hate or dislike Atari at all, infact they're veterans you can hardly hate.

    But this is like a suffering nearly dead animal, and a few kids with sticks in their hands. It's nothing more than poking and pouring salt in the wounds.

    It's a damn shame, but it's better for theirselfs...

  • Lumenadducere

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 7:16 pm PT

    Yikes. I hope they pull through as well. I'd hate to see them go after all that's been happening.

  • DonutTrooper

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 7:00 pm PT

    After all this, I just want to see Atari die. I don't dislike the company, I really don't. But watching news report like these every week, it's like chasing off a cat eating a living mouse, only staying to poke its wounds with a stick.

  • lew_0911

    Posted Nov 13, 2007 6:50 pm PT

    Good luck to you guys, hope you get through.

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