How many games can you remember with the little Infogrames symbol on the bottom of the front cover? Sim City, V-Rally Championship Edition, Unreal Tournament, Rollercoaster Tycoon – these were classic games from our youth that had a massive impact on our love of gaming growing up. Now that Atari is relaunching Infogrames, it means that a slice of our childhoods that was lost in 2003 has, quite literally, come back into play.
The French company was responsible for some amazing games and will now be brought back to focus on publishing games and acquiring IP (intellectual properties), and the first IP on their list is the epic Totally Reliable Delivery Service, a game that, while released on April 1st 2020, proved to be anything but a silly joke!
L’avenir d’Atari – The Future Of Atari
Atari and Infogrames plan to revitalise the series and produce new content moving forward, as well as a heavy focus on preserving games that are on the brink of extinction, something that seems to be on the minds of other companies after Microsoft President Sarah Bond recently setup of her own future proofing team.
Speaking on the Atari Website, the Manager of Infogrames LLC and current Chief Operating Officer of Atari Geoffroy Châteauvieux states “With Totally Reliable Delivery Service, Infogrames is starting off with a strong IP that has a loyal and enthusiastic player base. The Infogrames team will be able to expand upon the strong work of tinyBuild, and re-energize this high-potential franchise.”
Atari is now owned by a French company called Atari SA, which (this will blow your mind), used to be Infogrames. It’s all done through a subsidiary called Atari Interactive, so while the original Atari company came from California, the future of the company is firmly set in France.
So technically, Infogrames never really went away entirely, it just disappeared as a brand label on the bottom of our games. Now that the company has been relaunched by Atari, however, we can expect to see this little Armadillo taking Totally Reliable Delivery Service and more games from yesteryear to new highs over the coming years. Working alongside tinyBuild who the company recently invested $2 million into and acquired the IP from this week, the l’avenir d’Atari looks incredibly promising!
