Atari attempts to revive itself by bringing the old classics online
Atari was once synonymous with all that was cool in gaming. If you're old enough to remember playing Frogger's first level for hours on end because you simply weren't coordinated enough yet... well, you'd have a lot in common with some of us. These days, however, the once hallowed brand has been reduced to a shadow of its former self, outpaced by newer, bigger companies, and awash in debt. Still, the company's set up a new office in LA, turned its attention to cleaning up some of its money messes, and is now looking to what it sees as the future (or present) of gaming: online classics such as Centipede, played on social networking sites like Facebook. Licensing titles it already owns to online properties, as well as for movies seems to be the direction Atari is heading now, with two projects already in the works. In just the past year, the company has gone from a state which could be described as "hemorrhaging" to... well, it's not profitable yet, but it certainly looks to be moving in that direction. Atari-owned Cryptic Games is responsible for the Star Trek Online game, and while it's no WoW, its certainly got its own fanbase. We'll say this: if we could get even a few of those games on Facebook, we'd probably spend more than two minutes a week on it.
