Atari is Opening Video Game Hotels Across the US

Just when you thought nostaliga-mining had already reached its peak: Atari is in talks to build a series of gaming hotels across the country. From a report: The hotels, which will be created in conjunction with innovation and strategy company GSD Group and real estate company True North Studio, promise to be a "one-of-a-kind video game-themed destination." The hotels are planned for Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, San Francisco, and San Jose, and the first is set to break ground in mid-2020. At first glance, a video game-themed hotel might sound too gimmicky to be anything other than an old company's pipe dream. But there's reason to believe that, if executed well, the Atari Hotel could actually work. As the company reports in its press release, more than $152 billion was spent on games last year alone. And games love to get together and compete.

Well, if Cartoon Network can do it...

[Shag]

I don't think I'd feel any worse staying in a room with Atari decor. As long as the hotel restaurant off the lobby isn't a Chuck E. Cheese -- which, for historical propriety, it should be.

Re:Well, if Cartoon Network can do it...

[Kitkoan]

What?

You wouldn't want to spend "Five Nights at Chuck E. Cheese's"?

Re:

[freeze128]

I wouldn't want to sleep in the Centipede suite.

And games love to get together and compete.

[110010001000]

Only the AI games.

Depends on a lot of things, IMO....

[King_TJ]

I can definitely see ONE of these hotels doing great, as a novelty place to stay. Maybe as a "staple" for a tech-centric community (like parts of California) where you get a high percentage of "geek" types who fly in and book rooms for expos and conventions, tech training or seminars.

I'm not sure it'll have long term success with multiple locations, though? I imagine the price will be a big factor. I mean, if it costs no more to stay at the "Atari" than at a boring old Comfort Inn or Quality Inn or something? Heck yeah, I'm in!

I get the idea they'll want premium rates though, under the guise of you subsidizing all the gaming entertainment they've put in place.... That's going to make it kind of questionable if I'd pay for it after an initial visit.

Re:

[rtb61]

I think LAN clubs would do better, not club rooms but night clubs, where adult gamers get together to game around a digital table top and have meals provided, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com], stepford mom mini meals delivered right to the gaming table top, people can game together at each booth and compete from booth to booth and from LAN Club room to LAN club room. Get geeks an nerds out of their homes (it is the failed douche jock straps who live in moms basement, the geeks and nerds go to universi

Re:

[JaredOfEuropa]

Young people might not be all that interested (though to my surprise my young nephews were quite keen on the vintage SNES we had lying around)

Hey, when they are old and affluent, maybe they'll check into a nostalgic XBox 1 motel.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

When I sold off my console games collection to a local shop that paid proper prices for stuff, I was surprised to find out that there was a steady stream of youngsters coming in to buy retro games and systems as old as the NES. They like their instant-on, works-without-internet nature.

It's more often than not Gen Z & Millennials

[rsilvergun]

both groups don't have much in the way of distinct pop culture compared to the folks of the 60s, 70s and 80s. By the 90s focus groups were watering everything down and by the mid 2000 the need to market everything globally combined with endless mergers producing fewer and fewer odd ball companies meant everything's kind of homogeneous.

I keep running across 20 somethings wistful for a time before they were born. It's kinda goofy actually.

Re: OK, Boomer

[Lije Baley]

Come on now, you're old enough to know how to use "OK Boomer" correctly, and yet you try associating them with Atari? But it is funny how you got labeled as a millennial snowflake.

What Boomers?

[bussdriver]

Am I the only one annoyed at how everybody older is a Boomer? Boomers weren't the videogame generation that is Gen X... the marginalized generation. Boomers fucked up America and continue to do so...still, long past their time. Ironic that the younger generation might finally get a say using a boomer to represent them...

Remember... this is not the Atari you remember

[seeker_1us]

Atari is a company that bought the name and is trying all sorts of stuff to capitalize on it... including but not limited to the unreleased Atari Watches and the as of yet unreleased Atari Box/VCS.

Re:Remember... this is not the Atari you remember

[Megane]

Looks like it's still (a slightly evolved) Infogrames. I'm a bit surprised that it didn't get sold off yet again.

Tell me they will be holding raves....

[Kitkoan]

Being in a dark room with repetitive music and munching on pills... Pacman IRL

Too Ambitious

[Koby77]

Some of these hotel locations might make sense for tournament event sites. But I doubt that very many of them will be successful. Mabye only Vegas and perhaps 2 others.

Not a chance

[crgrace]

Atari is failing. All they are at this point is few mostly non-technical people who own some IP. They did a quasi-fraudulent Indiegogo campaign for the new VCS vaporware box (which will probably exist for sale at some point, but Atari massively under-delivered).

I suspect his Hotel thing is a ruse to get someone to invest more in them. I would bet $100 this never happens. The guys running Atari are BS artists just shy of scammers.

Worse editing than Slashdot?

[anonymouscoward52236]

Does this rag "inputmag" have worse editors than Slashdot? "And games love to get together and compete."
I have to admit, I've never seen a game itself compete... (Maybe if it were some kind of anthropomorphication? A fighting game box?)

No it's not

[rsilvergun]

the holding company that owns the shambling corpse that was Atari licensed out the brand. Slight difference.

It's the theme

[Had_It146]

"And games love to get together and compete." and all your bases are belong to us.

IF removed from room will be billed X2 retail cost

[Joe_Dragon]

IF removed from room will be billed X2 retail cost

Are they really?

[DrXym]

Or is it more likely that Atari just licenced their defunct brand to some poor asshole who wants to open a chain of hotels and wants a gimmick to sell the idea?

Sonic the Hedgehog at Howard Johnson's

[Daralantan]

This just reminds me of some big advertisement or whatever from Howard Johnson (I think? I feel like the commercials were also calling it HoJo's for short?) in the 90s where they said they had Sega Genesis with Sonic the Hedgehog in their hotel rooms. I kept pestering my parents to take us on a vacation in one as a result..... never happened.... but what a good way to get kids to guilt their parents or whatever!

in room N64 only $6.95 /HR + TAX

[Joe_Dragon]

in room N64 only $6.95 /HR + TAX

That's not atari.

[engineer37]

That's just some company no one has ever heard of that bought the name "atari."

Yeah....but no

[tannhaus]

I'm part of their demographic... My first video game system was an Atari 2600. Do you know what I don't do? Go on a vacation in another city to stay in the hotel playing video games. The people that would want to do that aren't able to afford to go on vacation and stay in your hotel.

They should have done this at like Disney World or Six Flags... somewhere you're going on a family trip anyway and it could be a cool gimmick before breakfast and before bed.

Re: Yeah....but no

[Ambvai]

I'm NOT old enough for Atari (tail of NES for me) but I spent literally over 200 days last year away from home for work and leisure and certainly could afford and wouldn't mind a gamer-themed place... Though usually, I just jack into whatever TV is around and run something off my laptop.

Even bucketlist caliber places get tiresome eventually... Six Panama canal crossings in three months. I napped through the last one.

as long as it's a hotel first..

[yodleboy]

I don't see an issue as long as it's a decent hotel that happens to have a video game theme. I know if I drove down to Austin and had to pick between a generic hotel and an Atari themed one for about the same price, I'd be sleeping in a RoadBlasters themed bed.

Re:

[freeze128]

What if it turned out to be the Night Driver suite? Or Battlezone? Red Baron? Sprint? Or that crappy black and white football game with the trackballs? A lot of Atari's most memorable games had TERRIBLE graphics, sounds, or story lines, and the younger generations wont stand for them. The only generations that they hold appeal for are the older ones who actually played the games.

So, in order to make money, this *ATARI* hotel will need to license game designs from other companies (maybe not even arcade game

a better idea

[soft_guy]

If they wanted to do something truly great with the Atari brand, they would finish the Atari 1450XLD project and bring it to market. My parents promised to buy me one as soon as they were available. That was 36 years ago. I still am waiting to have a computer with speech synthesis, a 300 baud modem, and a floppy drive all built-in! No more cables running everywhere to connect all these separate things.