Atari Facing $291 Million Debt Claim From... Atari 121
An anonymous reader writes "Atari declared bankruptcy earlier this year, and part of that process involves selling off its property in order to pay as many entities holding its debt as possible. The latest round includes a $30 million claim from Atari's parent company in France, and a $261 million claim from another subsidiary of that parent company. The $30 million debt is secured (in other words, they get priority on whatever's left in the U.S. Atari's coffers), but the $261 million debt is not, so they'll have to wait in line with everybody else."
The article also lists some interesting sell-offs. The old Accolade brand got sold for $50,000, the Battlezone Franchise was sold to Rebellion Interactive for $566,500, and Wargaming World Limited purchased the Total Annihilation and Masters of Orion franchises. Stardock Systems, creators of Sins of a Solar Empire, picked up the rights to the Star Control franchise, which they intend to reboot. (Those who played it will recall that StarCon2 was the Best Game Ever. And it's been remade after the creators released the source code.)
And who owns the old atari rights now days (Score:3, Informative)
And who owns the old atari rights now days?
I think it's been a lot of spinoffs / buyouts over the years.
Re:holy fucking shit (Score:4, Informative)
God damn it. Stardock is going to ruin it with their awful, awful writing. GalCiv2 had the worst humor I've ever seen in a 4x game ever. I know that nobody plays 4x games for the writing, but it was so bad it hurt.
Re:also none are actually Atari (Score:5, Informative)
The companies in this story were renamed "Atari" somewhat recently:
Atari Inc. was formerly GT Interactive
Atari SA and Atari Europe were formerly Infogrames Entertainment
The French company Infogrames purchased GT Interactive and Hasbro Interactive. In the late 90's/early 2000's Hasbro bought the rights to the old Atari games and naming rights, which is what allowed Infogrames to rebrand the main company and their various divisions as "Atari."
Stardock didn't get all the rights (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently they only got the trademark to the name "Star Control" and the copyright to Star Control 3. Unless the license the Star Control 2 content as well, we might get something very different with the Star Control name slapped on.