Atari Inc. Buyout Completed - Relevant to OTA IP?

[Forboding Angel]

Atari Inc. Buyout Completed
Some of you may remember our feature article last August entitled Atari Is Down For The Count......

Well, a lot has happened since then. They survived that delisting threat, had their CEO removed, their board members removed, massive layoffs and retooling to a distribution only company in December, followed by another delisting threat - which this time they failed to meet. However, majority stock holder Infogrames made an offer on March 6th to buyout all remaining shares, making Atari Inc. a privately held company.

After a review by an independent board (and the appointment of a token CEO to helm the company during the buyout), the buyout was approved - for a paltry 11 million.

Or was it actually too generous an offer? In reality, Infogrames just paid 11 million to buy back its own lease. Atari Inc. basically owns nothing - it was leasing the name and old Atari properties from Infogrames, it sold off just about all its modern properties and closed or sold off all its dev studios. So what does Infogrames get out of the deal? A chance to fully control the public image of the Atari brand, and a North American office consisting of a handful of people to build up a distribution center for their now European produced games.

What's your take on this event? To much? To little? A long time coming?

[LordMatt]

Who owns the OTA IP now?

[KDR_11k]

USPTO still says:

(LAST LISTED OWNER) ATARI, INC. CORPORATION DELAWARE 417 FIFTH AVENUE NEW YORK NEW YORK 10016

[SwiftSpear]

Atari claimed they didn't own the TA IP... and if that's true then this is inconsequential. If it's not true then it simply means we have a different imaginary threat.

[Saktoth]

Atari Inc. basically owns nothing - it was leasing the name and old Atari properties from Infogrames, it sold off just about all its modern properties and closed or sold off all its dev studios.

Sounds like the 'Atari doesnt own it' is pretty plausible. So who then, Infogrames? The most logical prospect...

[el_matarife]

I suspect the rights may be a little more cloudy than just that listing. Remember when Phantagram licensed TA make a sequel? Who knows how that deal was structured. Sure the project went nowhere, but its entirely possible they retain some sort of rights to the IP or something like that.

[AF]

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ohim?ohimnum=E4500311

Atari owns the Total Annihilation trademark in the UK for english language, a second company is noted down for french language INLEX IP EXPERTISE.

The trademark was filed in 2005 and registered in 2006.

[Felix the Cat]

It's OK, in 3 years I'll own the TA IP.

(what's wrong with optimism?)

[El Idiot]

So... who does have the rights to release the source?
...If there even is a copy of the source floating around?
That's all I really care about. Since I own a copy I can legally play the TA mods.

[Peet]

The engine and the content+name+etc are owned by separate entities, iirc.

[Felix the Cat]

The latter is what we're concerned about.

The engine is hopelessly outdated, I'm sure.

[Crayfish]

Isn't there some sort of expiry date on unused IP? I seem to recall something about this. Might be quite a while though.

Edit: Okay never mind, looked this up and it's on the order of 70 years.

[KDR_11k]

Since I own a copy I can legally play the TA mods.

Owning the game doesn't change anything there but that's another topic.

[tombom]

Isn't there some sort of expiry date on unused IP? I seem to recall something about this. Might be quite a while though.

Edit: Okay never mind, looked this up and it's on the order of 70 years.

Yeah, you're thinking of trademarks.

[El Idiot]

The engine is hopelessly outdated, I'm sure.

Yet it runs with more units, on bigger maps, smoother than Spring.
Wish there was a simpler version of the Spring engine for older computers. Rotatable cameras and deformable terrain really has rarely made much of a major gameplay difference. OTA just needed area commands, more scripting support, and a bigger unit limit, which would be possible with the source.

[AF]

And a slew of extra fbi tags and a lua engine, and proper pathfinding, and fixes for various unit behaviours, and draggable orders, and starting boxes, and linux support, and several hundred other things.

Besides we dont have any source code since the original TA engine is closed source.

[Nemo]

The engine is hopelessly outdated, I'm sure.

Yet it runs with more units, on bigger maps, smoother than Spring.

Except that instead of just lagging down into unplayability with lots of units, pathfinding just got really, really stupid after a point. I don't think that particular issue would be solved just by adjusting some limits in the source (indeed, you'd probably have to meddle with a significant portion of the pathfinding code). Also, I don't know if you've tried recently, but going back to TA after being able to zoom in and out at will in spring feels like trying to stand up and hitting your head on the ceiling.

[LordMatt]

Except that instead of just lagging down into unplayability with lots of units, pathfinding just got really, really stupid after a point. I don't think that particular issue would be solved just by adjusting some limits in the source (indeed, you'd probably have to meddle with a significant portion of the pathfinding code). Also, I don't know if you've tried recently, but going back to TA after being able to zoom in and out at will in spring feels like trying to stand up and hitting your head on the ceiling.

+1 ppl who think the OTA engine was better know not what they say.

[Crayfish]

The engine is hopelessly outdated, I'm sure.

Yet it runs with more units, on bigger maps, smoother than Spring.
Wish there was a simpler version of the Spring engine for older computers. Rotatable cameras and deformable terrain really has rarely made much of a major gameplay difference. OTA just needed area commands, more scripting support, and a bigger unit limit, which would be possible with the source.

I just wish people would buy new computers once in a while. It's not like spring is punishing. There are fun text based games if you still own a BBC basic, but modern games should cater to modern hardware.

Luckily, most people do keep a reasonably modern computer, especially if they have any slight interest in gaming. The price of a good computer keeps going down and down also.

[Acidd_UK]

I think that ppl that think OTA was better than Spring are welcome to go back to playing OTA and not insult the developers here further.