Greetings!
I have an important announcement to make to the AtariAge community, and I'll cut right to the chase: AtariAge has agreed to be acquired by Atari, and I have come on as a full-time employee at Atari. This won't be a surprise to some of you, given the speculation I've seen over the past month.
The first thing I'd like to say is that this is not a decision I made lightly! If you asked me 20 years ago if I would have considered working for Atari (much less selling AtariAge to Atari), I would have said no. But fast forward to the present, and this is the first version of Atari I've seen since the 1980s that is taking many positive steps to restore the magic that we all associated with the original company, the Atari that left so many of us with enduring memories of experiencing the Atari 2600 for the first time, learning how to program on an Atari 800, or pumping quarters into the amazing arcade games produced by Atari in the heyday of arcades.
My role at Atari will be multifaceted, but my primary tasks, especially early on, will be to operate AtariAge as I have been doing for the past two decades. This includes managing the forums and the AtariAge Store. Longer term, I will have more time to significantly update the games database, something I've wanted to do for some time, but simply have not had the bandwidth for. And I will be moving the store early in the new year to a new ecommerce platform, something I’ve wanted to accomplish for a while now.
Early last year, Atari approached me about the possibility of working more closely together. Talks were slow at first, but they accelerated at the beginning of this year, and after months of going back and forth, we finally worked out a deal that benefits both parties.
What does this mean? Short-term, nothing is going to change. I will continue running the entire AtariAge website, including the forums and the store. Nothing is going to be neutered in the forums, and Atari will not have access to personal conversations, private forums and clubs, and so forth. No content is going to be removed from the forum, and those posting content will be liable for anything they post (which was already the case).
I will also be running the store, building games, shipping games, and publishing new games for the store. In fact, I am currently working on releasing over 20 new games on a variety of platforms for the upcoming Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Over time, and with Atari’s help, I will be able to more efficiently produce and ship these games, without sacrificing quality (which is very important to me). This will free up more of my time to make improvements to other areas of AtariAge, as well as embark on new and exciting projects.
this does open up some new avenues for homebrew authors. For instance, Atari is interested in bringing more content to their VCS platform, and a few homebrew authors have already been working with Atari to sell their games on the VCS (such as with Amoeba Jump and Tower of Rubble). And such arrangements don’t affect the AtariAge Store. I still plan on offering digital downloads in the store once I get the store moved to new software, which will be a primary focus of mine once I get through several other major tasks (such as surviving this year's PRGE).
There's also the possibility of original homebrew games being released in physical form under the Atari label if they do well in the AtariAge Store. With the new 2600+ console, Atari is certainly interested in compelling, original content to augment that platform, and of course the XP line will continue along as well. And I anticipate many other interesting possibilities over time as well. I feel this will greatly benefit the homebrew community, homebrew authors, and everyone who loves seeing new games for the Atari 2600 and other classic systems.
