Did Atari just hire a guy who publicly refers to himself as the President of a terrorist organisation to put the final nail in the coffin?

They most certainly did. They most certainly did...

stranger

Did this guy just liken Atari to a terrorist organization?!
Man, Atari just lost millions of sales in the Republicans-who-can't-interpret-analogies demographic.

Kai_

Wow, I bet he REALLY regrets saying that...

ThisCharmingMan

That's where the big guys are sleeping because they can't move fast enough - they're too busy on the treadmill trying to get to their next billion dollars.

Right... so they may be held up by their massive inertia and only make hundreds of millions of dollars instead. Meanwhile Atari might strike it rich and make a couple million?

Atari, nothing personal, but die or make a comeback. Dying every few years doesn't exactly inspire confidence. :/

fuchikoma

And thats how Ata-Qaeda was born X_x
Seriously, what a moron...

neojam

Once he's done at Atari, he should have no problem finding a job at Sony.

D00mM4r1n3

Atari is so dead :P

Irenicus-the one and only

Hey, cut the guy some slack.,

Anyone who thinks Atari ISN'T a terrorist organization obviously didn't play DRIV3R.

chinesedentist

What...a...dummy. If I was working at Atari, I'd be putting on my life preserver and heading toward the bow.

That's your BOSS, people!

boopadoo

I don't know what he was thinking referring to Atari as a new company, and furthermore as a 'terrorist organization'. That's bad mojo.

SolInvictus

No doubt. What a damaging parallel.

paseana

Don't think I've ever heard a public company refer to themselves as a terrorist organization before. Interesting.

baked ham

Did he actually write that press release himself, or did someone in the PR department write that? Either way, he's an idiot - either for thinking it was a good idea, or for agreeing to say something that would obviously rub the shareholders (the people that control his job security) the wrong way.

seafisch

Hmmmm . . . game company with smaller budget that has a connection to Infocom . . . I smell new text adventures on the horizon!

chucklebuck

Why did he not say freedom fight and go something like this.

We are the Freedom fighters of the publishers we are going to do yada yada yada and so on.

Freedom fight are a Positively charged word like Puppy and flower's and hot sexy lesbian action.

Terrorist is a negatively charged word like Murder, Anal Rape and George Bush, you know things we hate.

CrimsonAngel

ATARI TERRORRRR

pandafresh

Gaming company admitting to terrorism? Uh-oh. Nobody tell Jack.

MrPerson

Is he fighting the war on terror-ble games?
...
I'll get my coat.

mrrobsa

Dear Atari,

I know you are having financial problems, me too! I could really use a new job. I hear you are in the market for someone to write down what you say to the press before you speak to them, so let me type out my qualification for you!

Sometimes I think before I speak.

I know it's not -all- the time, but hey! You're on a budget, right?

Regards,

Me.

Saxboy

In the unlikely event that Atari ever have a successful financial endeavour, the gaming media simply MUST headline the article "TERRORISTS WIN!"

Amaryllis

Berzerk 2 is a go.

Pinhead

*Looks at Pan-Am, Atari logos on cursed Bladerunner BD
*Squints at Atari
*Waits for Atari to leave quietly.

GMC

Clearly he's not used to the gaming press.

Sabre_Justice: Look, I have a long name too! Yay! I'm such a trend whore!

@Dipskana: Agreed. But lol he should have thought more before saying "terrorist", talk about bad PR. Thankfully casual types don't read this stuff online.

Tiberian

Terrorist Organizations go into the future. Big guys are sleeping on treadmills with a billion dollars. Thats great, though, because other companies can always come in focused on other things... than sleeping on treadmills... they go into the future, quickly.

WHAT in the SMOKE HELL is he talking about?!

Yes, that is most definitely bad PR.

The Bruce

Atari = Terrorists.

Learn something new every day.

BD

heh, he sort of refers to Atari, the single oldest oldest video game company there is, as a newer company.

khdownes

@Dipskana: Yeah, but come on, what's the point of saying 'guerilla'? No pussyfooting around - terrorist is much better. I like that part of his statement.

Not so keen on the part where he tries to suggest it's a new small company rather than one that could have been in the big league but spent the last N years failing, but hey.

quen

Come on the current Atari isn't the old Atari - they just stole its corpse and err replaced its innards with something that was equally decomposing it seems.. oops.

Way to go new CEO as well... inspiring! Welcome to the war on terror!

TurtleSoup

@GUNLOC_MORIYM: I think he's just running off a version of the word that everyone was using constantly 8 years ago, when the connotation was iconoclastic.

Now that some icons have been clasted, everyone is way to sensitive about it.

Blizzard could stand to have their wow farm exploded with feisty Indie ingenuity. The fact that there's just no way in this universe or any other that that's going to happen unless you change your target audience from human beings to rocks, or parameciums or delicious subway sandwiches, or something--doesn't make the sentiment any less noble. Or retarded.

deathbunny

Didn't activison say they were going to whore their franchises?

One_Way_Mule

@GUNLOC_MORIYM: Dude Suda's totally punk. Nothing new there.

Luke Plunkett

I think this guy must have just read something interesting to him about terrorism and thought it would be "cool" to relate it to gaming. Kinda like Suda51 & punk gaming.

Atari just bring out a sequel to TDU. It's the only game of theirs that I still play from time to time.

GUNLOC_MORIYM

Rock on Gardner!!!!!!!!

WillW

Wow, things are certainly looking up for Atari! A new boss, and he's already shown us that he's a complete idiot.

Does Atari have any investors left?

Atheist Jew

Good luck on developing brain inducing IP's from that headquarters you call a cave.

Trowble (XBL/PSN)

It's "isn't", damn it.

Atari ISN'T a new company.

You sound like freakin' I.R. Baboon.

Pulse-Wave

No, David. No.

He could have said "guerilla" instead of terrorist at the very least.

Dipskana

You know, being small is fine and good when you're a startup, but not when you've been in a booming industry for 35 years!

But I suppose terrorists need to keep on the down-low.

Neo_Deus

"That's where the big guys are sleeping because they can't move fast enough - they're too busy on the treadmill trying to get to their next billion dollars."

Yeah, those "crazy" publishers are too busy working towards making a large profit. What a foolish idea. You'll never see Atari doing something as stupid like that...they are too hardcore. They need to release Alone in the Dark 5 and then stick to milking the DBZ license. Most creative idea ever? No. But it seems like the only way they could possibly make a profit and stay afloat.

Ganglor

Okay, so they're still going downhill then.

Clushje

EA and Activision may focus on getting their next billion dollars, but Atari needs to focus on getting its next dollar in general.

ArmyofJuan

I wonder which lights the stockholders' fires more, when the new CEO calls the company a terrorist organization or when the new CEO disparages the industry leaders for making money. Well when it comes to the shunning of profit, no one in the biz is as good as Atari, so I see this as a perfect fit.

sleeptastic

David Gardener: Never Remember.

Miksho

@Shindokie

big mouths*****

Shindokie: Kotaku's Whore

Does this mean no more Budokai?

Korbei

People with bigs better know what they are saying because those might bite them in the ass, bend them over and make them come out from where they came. Now that is the way the industry rolls.

Shindokie: Kotaku's Whore