Infogrames and Atari's new CEO, David Gardner, has been speaking as freely as a CEO of a video games company can this week to UK industry organ, MCV.
Gardner, who took over from Patrick Leleu earlier this month, has money to play with as he attempts to lift both brands up from their recent financial and image troubles. This could also enable him to snap up fresh talent - or even older heads such as Sony's soon to depart PlayStation evangelist Phil Harrison (see SPOnG Feb 25 2008).
Among his comments he manages to have a pop at several big players. Let's start with two of the biggest:
Targets too small for you? How about another huge victim of the self-confessed terrorist publisher - with its ability to use history as a weapon?
You can't fault the guy for getting out there and talking up a good game. Speaking of which, here's what he has to say about, well, games:
What could he possibly mean by 're-hashing the old games'? Could that be a pop at Nintendo and its Virtual Console? Surely not... all that good will, eh?
Finally, the question of people. Now, you'd expect a terrorist not to be too bothered about the whole ethics question. Frankly, you'd expect to see Atari staff with highly volatile copies of Alone in the Dark, Asterix at the Olympic Games and My Horse and Me strapped to themselves ready to explode in the local arcade.
Apparently this is not the case. Osama Bin David cares; he cares about talent and not about empires.
That's good to know. Don't forget to skip over to MCV for the full interview.
Source: MCV
Gardner, who took over from Patrick Leleu earlier this month, has money to play with as he attempts to lift both brands up from their recent financial and image troubles. This could also enable him to snap up fresh talent - or even older heads such as Sony's soon to depart PlayStation evangelist Phil Harrison (see SPOnG Feb 25 2008).
Among his comments he manages to have a pop at several big players. Let's start with two of the biggest:
“My goal is not to go head-on with EA and Activision Blizzard – we’re the terrorist organisation. We’re going to go much faster into the future than anyone else because we’re small.
"We’re going to go from being a top 20 packaged goods player to a top five online player.
"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. They have to and that’s great - we understand it - but that’s why we have new companies with a new focus.”
"We’re going to go from being a top 20 packaged goods player to a top five online player.
"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. They have to and that’s great - we understand it - but that’s why we have new companies with a new focus.”
Targets too small for you? How about another huge victim of the self-confessed terrorist publisher - with its ability to use history as a weapon?
"It has incredible goodwill going for it. Think about some of the other giant brands in the world and you can’t say the same – unfortunately for poor Microsoft they have one of the largest brands in the world but nobody seems to like them. I think that gives us an immediate head start.”
You can't fault the guy for getting out there and talking up a good game. Speaking of which, here's what he has to say about, well, games:
"My vision is to bring the coin-op arcade back home through the web. To me that’s not just re-hashing the old games but it’s re-interpreting them for audiences today. That’s our challenge.”
What could he possibly mean by 're-hashing the old games'? Could that be a pop at Nintendo and its Virtual Console? Surely not... all that good will, eh?
Finally, the question of people. Now, you'd expect a terrorist not to be too bothered about the whole ethics question. Frankly, you'd expect to see Atari staff with highly volatile copies of Alone in the Dark, Asterix at the Olympic Games and My Horse and Me strapped to themselves ready to explode in the local arcade.
Apparently this is not the case. Osama Bin David cares; he cares about talent and not about empires.
"I’m not obsessed with owning people, I’m not in the people-trafficking business. I think the thing to do is to make sure that we build great products that people want to play. We need to work together with the creatives based here in Europe and some are going to like being employed by us and others are going to want total independence. I don’t have to be obsessed with this crazy empire-building approach.”
That's good to know. Don't forget to skip over to MCV for the full interview.
Source: MCV
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