you got a good point seems like they got a new leader that is much better than the previous one. i guess with these old legacy brands it goes up and down all the time as they change owners like intelivision was doing great things for the fanbase in the late 80s 90s and 2000s and early 10s but then the brand got tainted by tommy and now the next owners will probably be much better. with Atari i used to wonder why random games like roller coater tycoon and the lucky Luke games were published by atari in the early 2000s but the games were decent. but then they got less creative and greedy and weird in the 2010s .but now they got a good owner again but a lot of people are sceptical now when dead brands show up with ambitious projects. Infogrames probably wanted to use the atari name because its very iconic a lot of casuals know them only Nintendo and sega and PlayStation are more popular. i was born in the time of the jaguar so i don't remember the golden age of atari but i always knew them as one of the first gaming companies everybody knows about them from my grandma to kids that were born recently .Infogrames is a bad name its hard to pronounce and feels very 80s and dated despite being newer than atari a name like that seems more timeless.
Ooh, LOVE the title for this new video series! As for the Infogrames name, personally, I'm all for it, being old enough to remember the original company - I always had a soft spot for Mission:Impossible on the N64.
I was never a huge atari fan but i do like what they are doing with the new consoles and games. Its solid. It appeals to the older genwration who remember what it was and the younger generation can appreciate it too, without a confused mess of product identity. I tell you what appeals to me is gsmes being released under their old software company names, even if atari/infrogrames is still on the adverts and artwork. I couldnt imagine, for instance, UFO/Xcom being rereleased without the original artwork and the Microprose name. Obviously thats difficult when companies own the games but not the company name.
Infogrames did adapt a lot of French/Belgium graphic novels into video games (North and South, Bobo, The Quest for the Time Bird, Passengers on the Wind), sometimes painstakingly adapting the art to limited computer graphics (e.g. Passengers on the Wind). If those graphic novels can be considered obscure to an international audience, they are all very well known in the French-speaking world. I assume Infogrames wrote such games primarily for the French market.
Infogrames is one of these video game companies that was created when the video game market was extremely fragmented across computer systems and countries, allowing them to grow in a semi-protected market. Infogrames got its start by publishing games for Thomson computers, a line of 8-bit French machines - often making clones of popular games (e.g. Roger & Paulo was a clone of Donkey Kong). They actually snubbed Atari during the 8-bit era and only started making games for Atari with the ST (although to be fair, so did most of the European game makers such as Ocean).
I remember Infogrames but from memory could not name a title that was synonymous with them. In a world where 'brand' matters so much, style over substance, this is that kind of nostalgia move. But unless there is something of substance in terms of the games released, it will die as quickly as it has risen. This is pure marketing that still requires results.
that late 90s period was kind of sad a lot of iconic companies seemed to die very quickly even when they seemed to be doing well .they got bought out or went bankrupt because they had one bad or slightly outdated product after a lot of good ones
I'd say Infogrames was pretty well known in the US, especially if you were a racing game enthusiast in the PS1/PS2 era Bringing them back to be the umbrella for "non original Atari IP" is a great idea... Better bring back the armadillo tho Side Note: Love the A-Team shirt!
They have brought back the Armadillo, its the new design for the logo that I've used in the thumbnail/intro screen. I was hoping somebody would spot the T-shirt!!!
I feel like most people who talk about games these days don’t actually know what “isometric” means. I’ve heard so many people use the term for any 3/4 perspective game.
I think the difference is that Jack Tramiel bought the entire home computer and video game portion of Atari. Which included all of the existing hardware manufacturing, designs, software, licenses, etc. Infogrammes only bought the rights to the name and some of the software licenses right?
This is a big misunderstanding that I often see people say - Infogrames bought EVERYTHING that Jack Tramiel owned when he merged Atari with JTS Storage except for the old Atari buildings, plus whatever Hasbro had published under the Atari brand. I always see people say that Infogrames just bought some I.P., but that's not true as they bought all the existing assets of Atari corporation going right back to Pong including all the consoles, computers, designs, I.P., patents, artwork etc. In fact I was told that they bought so much that they are still discovering stuff they own that they didn't know about, for example the recent Flashback/Atari 50 releases of games like Maze Invaders, Mini Golf and Akkr Arrh.
This is a very good format for you. I'm an adult Lynx fan, so I've been watching your channel since it was new. Of the changes you've made through the years, I think this one works best for you. If you occasionally cut in some motion screen captures (and other media), I think you'll have the perfect formula! As for the new Atari, it's not a question of legitimacy. To be "real", they'll need to *innovate* rather than capitalize on nostalgia. The "real" Atari, in any past form, took risks and was innovative. If the Atari of the 1970's had chosen to specialize in the sale of card tables, chips, and card decks to profit from 1940's nostalgia, we probably wouldn't even talk about the brand today. Capturing properties from decades ago or onboarding celebrity staff won't replace innovation. I hope they do that.
The innovation point is a good one, although I'm not sure what there is left to innovate at this point, but yes, it would be nice to see something that defines the modern Atari. I did cut quite a bit of media into this one and did think about putting in game clips too, but barely had time to get this video made as my real job is kicking my arse right now.
Cheers for the fascinating background to all of this. One minor nit-pick (and this is just me being a stickler for detail, no offence intended), but as a French company it's pronounced an-fo-gram.
Sorry for still being a stickler, just watching your latest video and this was bugging me. Tried to search TH-cam for a French news piece but couldn't find anything because TH-cam search is rubbish. Had a brainwave and did a video search on Google instead. Here at 50s is Infogrames co-founder Bruno Bonnell saying the name (and the reporter repeating it later). I'll take his pronunciation over that of the American Wade Rosen! Reportage et interviews chez Infogrames et Cryo, dans E=M6 Spéciale jeux vidéo (1993) th-cam.com/video/_JS2YqSRW3M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=NLvnJbr4qHXlqbMJ&t=48 Apart from that, keep up the good work. I enjoy your videos. Your videos are very informative!
Infogrames is in my top 3 favorite developers for sure. Super underrated. Also not trying to be rude or anything by correcting you but the name is actually pronounced "Info GRAMS."
@@TheLairdsLair well.. all I can say is this is the correct one. It's a portmanteau of the French words "informatique" (information technology) and "programme" (computer program). The name, Infogrames, was a slightly modified version of that. Which just means it has one M instead of two. And also explains why it has the E on the end. Because it's french. So ProGRAM - InfoGRAMS.
Did we say that the original sprint was isometric? We know it's not isometric.. Must have been some confused language someplace in describing Neo Sprint.
1. I never said who called Neo Sprint isometric in my video, so unless you can read my search history and work for the website I was referring to, I'm not sure what on earth you're talking about! 2. Atari definitely seem own the Rollercoaster Tycoon I.P., I couldn't find a single source online that says they don't and they literally have a whole page dedicated to it on their website: atari.com/pages/rollercoaster-tycoon In fact I even found this direct quote "Licensing for the series is currently held by Atari Interactive, who renewed their deal with Chris Sawyer on 11 October 2022, for ten more years." So yes, they definitely seem to own the rights to it, well at the moment anyway. 3. Ok, so Atari didn't actually buy Tiny Build, that was my mistake, but they did a lot more than "just buy games from them", they made a huge investment in the company and now own a big chunk of it (so I wasn't completely wrong) www.standard.co.uk/business/iconic-console-brand-atari-offers-2m-lifeline-to-struggling-game-studio-tinybuild-b1128450.html Do you actually work for Atari then? Because if you do you're a very bad representative for the brand, just randomly turning up on my channel making glib comments without any real context or sources to prove your points. Not only were you factually incorrect you came across rather rude too. I am really glad that I didn't deal with you when I was working with Atari a few years back.
Its short for programme, which, if you didn't already guess, is the French word for program. Infogrames is a portmanteau of Informatique Programme, a what many French people called software at the time.
The Atari of today IS Infogrames, they're really just going home :)
You always have such an impressive knowledge/perspective of the history of this industry. You are a great teacher!
Wow, thank you!
Agreed! I've learned so much since I started watching this channel.
you got a good point seems like they got a new leader that is much better than the previous one. i guess with these old legacy brands it goes up and down all the time as they change owners like intelivision was doing great things for the fanbase in the late 80s 90s and 2000s and early 10s but then the brand got tainted by tommy and now the next owners will probably be much better. with Atari i used to wonder why random games like roller coater tycoon and the lucky Luke games were published by atari in the early 2000s but the games were decent. but then they got less creative and greedy and weird in the 2010s .but now they got a good owner again but a lot of people are sceptical now when dead brands show up with ambitious projects. Infogrames probably wanted to use the atari name because its very iconic a lot of casuals know them only Nintendo and sega and PlayStation are more popular. i was born in the time of the jaguar so i don't remember the golden age of atari but i always knew them as one of the first gaming companies everybody knows about them from my grandma to kids that were born recently .Infogrames is a bad name its hard to pronounce and feels very 80s and dated despite being newer than atari a name like that seems more timeless.
It's good seeing you on camera
Not sure why 😂😂😂
Ooh, LOVE the title for this new video series!
As for the Infogrames name, personally, I'm all for it, being old enough to remember the original company - I always had a soft spot for Mission:Impossible on the N64.
Alone in the dark was the granddaddy of survival horror games and you can still see their influence in that genre today. It's pretty iconic.
Why Did Atari Resurrect Infogrames? Because Atari does not exist, they literally are Infogrames.
Great video! I couldn’t agree with you more!
I was never a huge atari fan but i do like what they are doing with the new consoles and games. Its solid. It appeals to the older genwration who remember what it was and the younger generation can appreciate it too, without a confused mess of product identity.
I tell you what appeals to me is gsmes being released under their old software company names, even if atari/infrogrames is still on the adverts and artwork. I couldnt imagine, for instance, UFO/Xcom being rereleased without the original artwork and the Microprose name. Obviously thats difficult when companies own the games but not the company name.
Infogrames did adapt a lot of French/Belgium graphic novels into video games (North and South, Bobo, The Quest for the Time Bird, Passengers on the Wind), sometimes painstakingly adapting the art to limited computer graphics (e.g. Passengers on the Wind). If those graphic novels can be considered obscure to an international audience, they are all very well known in the French-speaking world. I assume Infogrames wrote such games primarily for the French market.
Infogrames is one of these video game companies that was created when the video game market was extremely fragmented across computer systems and countries, allowing them to grow in a semi-protected market. Infogrames got its start by publishing games for Thomson computers, a line of 8-bit French machines - often making clones of popular games (e.g. Roger & Paulo was a clone of Donkey Kong). They actually snubbed Atari during the 8-bit era and only started making games for Atari with the ST (although to be fair, so did most of the European game makers such as Ocean).
$50,000 this is what anyone here could have bought Atari for in or around the year 2000.
I remember Infogrames but from memory could not name a title that was synonymous with them. In a world where 'brand' matters so much, style over substance, this is that kind of nostalgia move. But unless there is something of substance in terms of the games released, it will die as quickly as it has risen. This is pure marketing that still requires results.
that late 90s period was kind of sad a lot of iconic companies seemed to die very quickly even when they seemed to be doing well .they got bought out or went bankrupt because they had one bad or slightly outdated product after a lot of good ones
Because the Atari we know today IS Infogrames, they're just returning to their roots.
I loved Hostages and North & South on the Amiga❤
I'd say Infogrames was pretty well known in the US, especially if you were a racing game enthusiast in the PS1/PS2 era
Bringing them back to be the umbrella for "non original Atari IP" is a great idea... Better bring back the armadillo tho
Side Note: Love the A-Team shirt!
They have brought back the Armadillo, its the new design for the logo that I've used in the thumbnail/intro screen.
I was hoping somebody would spot the T-shirt!!!
I feel like most people who talk about games these days don’t actually know what “isometric” means. I’ve heard so many people use the term for any 3/4 perspective game.
Totally! And the original Sprint games definitely aren't anything like that - they are top-down!
I think the difference is that Jack Tramiel bought the entire home computer and video game portion of Atari. Which included all of the existing hardware manufacturing, designs, software, licenses, etc. Infogrammes only bought the rights to the name and some of the software licenses right?
This is a big misunderstanding that I often see people say - Infogrames bought EVERYTHING that Jack Tramiel owned
when he merged Atari with JTS Storage except for the old Atari buildings, plus whatever Hasbro had published under the Atari brand.
I always see people say that Infogrames just bought some I.P., but that's not true as they bought all the existing assets of Atari corporation going right back to Pong including all the consoles, computers, designs, I.P., patents, artwork etc. In fact I was told that they bought so much that they are still discovering stuff they own that they didn't know about, for example the recent Flashback/Atari 50 releases of games like Maze Invaders, Mini Golf and Akkr Arrh.
@@TheLairdsLairI stand corrected. I would love to see them rerelease classic Atari games and systems.
Good to see your channel growing and getting closer to that 20k. I think you were a little over 20k on the old channel if I remember correctly?
No, I was at 17.2K when I lost it.
@@TheLairdsLair I hope you beat that really soon. I bet It's not easy getting a channel to this number of subscribers in a niche genre.
This is a very good format for you. I'm an adult Lynx fan, so I've been watching your channel since it was new. Of the changes you've made through the years, I think this one works best for you. If you occasionally cut in some motion screen captures (and other media), I think you'll have the perfect formula!
As for the new Atari, it's not a question of legitimacy. To be "real", they'll need to *innovate* rather than capitalize on nostalgia. The "real" Atari, in any past form, took risks and was innovative. If the Atari of the 1970's had chosen to specialize in the sale of card tables, chips, and card decks to profit from 1940's nostalgia, we probably wouldn't even talk about the brand today. Capturing properties from decades ago or onboarding celebrity staff won't replace innovation. I hope they do that.
The innovation point is a good one, although I'm not sure what there is left to innovate at this point, but yes, it would be nice to see something that defines the modern Atari.
I did cut quite a bit of media into this one and did think about putting in game clips too, but barely had time to get this video made as my real job is kicking my arse right now.
@TheLairdsLair Well, I think you did great, man! 👍
Cheers for the fascinating background to all of this. One minor nit-pick (and this is just me being a stickler for detail, no offence intended), but as a French company it's pronounced an-fo-gram.
I'd say you have a point but Wade Rosen himself pronounced it In-fo-grayms in a recent interview and he's in charge!
@@TheLairdsLair Hehe! I didn't know that bit. Fair point!
Sorry for still being a stickler, just watching your latest video and this was bugging me. Tried to search TH-cam for a French news piece but couldn't find anything because TH-cam search is rubbish.
Had a brainwave and did a video search on Google instead. Here at 50s is Infogrames co-founder Bruno Bonnell saying the name (and the reporter repeating it later). I'll take his pronunciation over that of the American Wade Rosen!
Reportage et interviews chez Infogrames et Cryo, dans E=M6 Spéciale jeux vidéo (1993)
th-cam.com/video/_JS2YqSRW3M/w-d-xo.htmlsi=NLvnJbr4qHXlqbMJ&t=48
Apart from that, keep up the good work. I enjoy your videos. Your videos are very informative!
Infogrames is in my top 3 favorite developers for sure. Super underrated. Also not trying to be rude or anything by correcting you but the name is actually pronounced "Info GRAMS."
Haha, I have now been corrected 3 times on the way I say Infogrames and all 3 of you have suggested a totally different pronunciation!
@@TheLairdsLair well.. all I can say is this is the correct one. It's a portmanteau of the French words "informatique" (information technology) and "programme" (computer program). The name, Infogrames, was a slightly modified version of that. Which just means it has one M instead of two. And also explains why it has the E on the end. Because it's french. So ProGRAM - InfoGRAMS.
Yep, I am very aware of the nomenclature, but I have always said it this way 🤷♂️
First !
i loved infogrames as a kid north n south asterix whre my go to games on nes and master system
Nice to see you. Great video as usual. Keep up the good work.
Did we say that the original sprint was isometric? We know it's not isometric.. Must have been some confused language someplace in describing Neo Sprint.
Also, we don't own the RollerCoaster IP.
We didn't acquire Tiny Build. We just bought games from them.
1. I never said who called Neo Sprint isometric in my video, so unless you can read my search history and work for the website I was referring to, I'm not sure what on earth you're talking about!
2. Atari definitely seem own the Rollercoaster Tycoon I.P., I couldn't find a single source online that says they don't and they literally have a whole page dedicated to it on their website: atari.com/pages/rollercoaster-tycoon
In fact I even found this direct quote "Licensing for the series is currently held by Atari Interactive, who renewed their deal with Chris Sawyer on 11 October 2022, for ten more years." So yes, they definitely seem to own the rights to it, well at the moment anyway.
3. Ok, so Atari didn't actually buy Tiny Build, that was my mistake, but they did a lot more than "just buy games from them", they made a huge investment in the company and now own a big chunk of it (so I wasn't completely wrong)
www.standard.co.uk/business/iconic-console-brand-atari-offers-2m-lifeline-to-struggling-game-studio-tinybuild-b1128450.html
Do you actually work for Atari then? Because if you do you're a very bad representative for the brand, just randomly turning up on my channel making glib comments without any real context or sources to prove your points. Not only were you factually incorrect you came across rather rude too. I am really glad that I didn't deal with you when I was working with Atari a few years back.
I’ll say it.
What’s a “grame”?
Its short for programme, which, if you didn't already guess, is the French word for program. Infogrames is a portmanteau of Informatique Programme, a what many French people called software at the time.
Yeah they’re not the original Atari, but they still are Atari.