Atari Is So Done With Big Single-Player Games

Atari’s recent woes are common knowledge, and out of sympathy, don’t bear repeating. Suffice to say, they’re in their current pickle thanks to a trail of shitty releases over the past five years or so. So with new Infogrames man Phil Harrison looking to clean up shop, some stock has to be taken, and some changes made. One is an abandonment of big-budget, single-player games.

I don’t see that we’re going to be making huge-budget, single-player games in the future. Now, that doesn’t mean that we won’t have ambition to do really incredible games that have high quality, high execution, and high innovation, but they won’t be one-player, narrative-driven, start-middle-end games.

So…Atari need Alone in the Dark to do well. It’s the only big game they’ve got this year. Yet if it does do well, they won’t make any more games like it. Interesting!

Phil Harrison On Why Atari Is Softening Its Hardcore Focus [Gamasutra]