Topic: Atari SELLS OFF Shiny Entertainment

[MysterD]

Link:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/061002/nym191.html

Press Release   Source: Atari, Inc.

Atari, Inc. Completes Its Strategic Divesture
Monday October 2, 4:15 pm ET
- Shiny Joins Foundation 9 Entertainment -

NEW YORK, Oct. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR - News) a leader in interactive entertainment, today announced the completion of the Company's strategic internal studio divesture through the sale of Shiny Entertainment to Foundation 9 Entertainment. The operational streamlining and portfolio refocus was announced by Atari in early 2006.

"The sale of Shiny Entertainment completes the final phase of our strategic restructuring," said David Pierce, President and Chief Executive Officer, Atari, Inc. "We now have a centralized organization that can utilize external studio execution while maintaining internal focus on creative development and production."

Atari will retain its current project planning formerly developed by Shiny, including Earthworm Jim. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed by the parties.

[Quemaqua]

Poor Shiny.  They've been jerked the fuck around, and they haven't done anything truly great since Sacrifice.  In fact, they've done a bunch of money-making bullshit since Sacrifice, nothing that was actually good.  Grrr.  I used to be a huge fan, but it's pretty hard to call yourself one these days.

[Xessive]

I was a big fan of Dave Perry since Cool Spot! (That was an awesome game ) He went on to devise Disney's Aladdin on the MegaDrive, Earthworm Jim, MDK, and a few other titles..

Honestly after Enter The Matrix, I lost hope with Shiny. After seeing the quality of that game, I thought Shiny was done for. Then they came up with the next Matrix game and I thought "Hmm, maybe they've learned." And surely enough it was even worse. Now I have no faith in Shiny.

[MysterD]

I was a big fan of Dave Perry since Cool Spot! (That was an awesome game ) He went on to devise Disney's Aladdin on the MegaDrive, Earthworm Jim, MDK, and a few other titles..

Honestly after Enter The Matrix, I lost hope with Shiny. After seeing the quality of that game, I thought Shiny was done for. Then they came up with the next Matrix game and I thought "Hmm, maybe they've learned." And surely enough it was even worse. Now I have no faith in Shiny.

Wow.....Path of Neo was worse than ETM?!?!!? 

I bet Shiny would do a hell of a lot better w/out Atari, myself...

[Xessive]

Wow.....Path of Neo was worse than ETM?!?!!? 

I bet Shiny would do a hell of a lot better w/out Atari, myself...

Some people might argue that it wasn't worse. However I can tell you that it was definitely buggier, less appealing visually, and more boring. I won't really go in the details of how much it really is worse, it was pretty bad.

I have to admit that it did try to be creative. There were a couple of missions that looked kinda cool, but were executed terribly. For example there was one of Neo's "I know Kung Fu" training missions that takes you into feudal Japan, and it all goes black & white (a la Seven Samurai, or the one scene from Kill Bill if you prefer). Cool premise, but it just fanned out very poorly.

I really hope Shiny go back to their own cool creative style. MDK was one of my favourite games for Shiny, and I really hope that's the sort of quality we'll start to see from them from now on. Wild 9 was not great, but atleast iut was creative.

[poomcgoo]

Obviously, there was the awesome Earthworm Jim series.  I actually liked Wild 9, too.  MDK was fucking awesome.  MDK 2 was even fucking awesomer.  Sure, they kinda dropped the ball with the Matrix stuff, but they've done some awesome stuff in the past.  Hopefully they still "got it" with whatevers in the works.

[Cobra951]

I have MDK 2, and I played some of the EWJ games.  Yeah, better days for the man.  This always happens, get successful with inventiveness, then become one cog in a big machine with a money-making agenda.  It's no wonder some founders end up leaving their own companies.

[sirean_syan]

I wonder how much David Perry is actually still involved with all this stuff. It occasionally seemed like he was a step or two away from being someone like Derek Smart. Thankfully it seemed like he had the talent to keep him away from that, but maybe the dude just finally broke down.

Sacrifice still goes down as something completely special in my mind and I now-a-days I sorta think it was responsible for a lot of my gaming habits that I developed in the days just prior to our arrive at AOG. That is, getting behind an underdog and appreciating games for more than what they have at face value. That's not to say I didn't do that before, but Sacrifice made me realize I was doing it and had me activitely thinking about it.

[Quemaqua]

Sacrifice remains one of my all-time favorite games.  I still play it sometimes.  And they supported it like crazy.  Patch #3 was like a blessing from heaven, not so much because the game was buggy (because it really wasn't), but because of all the great stuff they added to it.  I loved that.

Messiah was pretty damn cool too, for what it was.  It was short and a bit wonky, but it was very unique and still a lot of fun to play.  I never could beat it because of a sound bug, though.  The sound would just stop at this one point in the game and never continue from there on out.  Couldn't figure out why and nobody else seemed to have the problem.

Wonder if I could get that one to run on XP...

[Pugnate]

Sacrifice: The best game no one played.

I guess it was because it was just too weird.

[Xessive]

Sacrifice: The best game no one played.

I guess it was because it was just too weird.

Haha I still remember when Phil would show it to us, and we never really developed any link to the game.. Both our minds just automatically went to "Wow, that's weird. Not interested." I have no idea why it doesn't it attract me.

[Pugnate]

I think even Phil liked it as much as I did, but just found it too weird. It was one of those games I'd rather watch etc.

Actually I'd love to try it again.

[Quemaqua]

I've heard that argument but I don't get it.  I mean, it definitely had a unique art style, but I didn't really think it was that weird.  Seriously, if you haven't given it a serious shot, you should.  One of the best games of its generation, and still quite pretty because of its unique design and art elements.  Plus there's nothing else on the market like it.  There have been some other hybrid action/strategy titles like that, but they all played very differently from Sacrifice.

[scottws]

I never did play Sacrifice...