Atari Drops F2P and Mobile in Favor of PC and Consoles
Atari announced a return to its roots. The future of the publisher is to be premium games for PC and consoles. The company will get rid of most mobile free-to-play titles instead.
- Atari will focus on premium games for PC and consoles;
- Most of the publisher's mobile free-to-play games will be shut down or sold;
- The company is also pulling back from virtual casinos and attempts to create screen adaptations of its IPs.
Recent years have not been good for Atari. The company dealt mainly with creating not very successful mobile installments of its classic IPs, turning them into F2P games. Now, however, this is about to change. Publisher informed of a new development strategy adopted by the board, in which the focus will be mainly on premium productions for PC and consoles (which will also include the Atari VCS system).
Atari does not intend to completely abandon mobile and free-to-play games, but they will constitute a small part of the publisher's future portfolio. The most popular free-to-play games, which still boast a large player base, will continue to be developed, but the company intends to get rid of such iOS and Android titles as RollerCoaster Tycoon Story, Castles & Catapults, Ninja Golf and Atari Combat: Tank Fury. It will first attempt to sell them to other entities, and if that fails, they will simply be shut down.
The company will also withdraw from investing in online casinos. This is surprising, because in March this year cryptocurrency-based Atari Casino was launched on African markets with considerable envelope. The publisher will also withdraw from working on TV and cinema adaptations of its IPs.
So you can see that the company's announcement of a change in direction is not just an empty declaration. Atari really intends to focus on premium productions. The company's management explains that the nature of the company and the brands it owns are much more suited to traditional PC and console games.
The decision was made by Wade J. Rosen, who took over as CEO of Atari in April this year. The first productions under the new strategy are expected to be released before March 31, 2022.
The change is welcome, as Atari has been a shadow of its former self in recent years. After the disastrous Alone in the Dark: Illumination and RollerCoaster Tycoon World, the publisher focused on rehashing its old hits and creating mobile versions of classic IPs. which were usually characterized by low quality and aggressive monetizations. Some time ago the company attempted to return to PC and consoles, but RollerCoaster Tycoon Joyride and RollerCoaster Tycoon Adventures also proved to be failures. One can only hope that the next attempt will be more successful.
