Atari CEO makes ‘pleasant provide’ to accumulate management of struggling video games writer
On: December 22, 2022
Wade Rosen, CEO of Atari, has made a bid to accumulate management of the corporate after it reported “a liquidity shortfall and extra financing necessities” in its current half-year monetary report.
In a press launch, Atari acknowledged {that a} “pleasant provide” had been “initiated to accumulate management and improve the managing shareholder’s capability to help the Firm’s growth ambitions”. As a part of this Atari’s CEO “intends to additional strengthen his curiosity in Atari’s capital so as to help the Firm with rolling out its transformation technique.”
Previous to this, the corporate has had a troublesome couple of years. Reporting its semi-annual monetary outcomes, the corporate acknowledged “consolidated internet earnings confirmed a lack of €5.4m for the interval in comparison with a lack of €3.5m in H1 21/22”.
In broad phrases, Atari places its woes right down to an “unsure macro-environment” for video video games and blockchain. Chief amongst its issues is the failure of its {hardware} enterprise within the type of a brand new VCS console, which Atari has ceased manufacturing of after a drastic discount in gross sales, with {hardware} revenues falling from €2.3m to €200,000, a drop of over 90%.
Video games income, nevertheless, noticed a slight improve of 10%, thanks primarily to RollerCoaster Tycoon, which Atari has agreed a 10-year license extension for with RCT’s creator Chris Sawyer, and the launch of Gravitar: Recharged.
Atari’s blockchain initiatives additionally fared higher on paper, with income growing from €400,000 to €700,000. Nonetheless, the corporate is sitting on a ton of digital belongings with extremely questionable worth. This contains 259 million ATRI Tokens, from a blockchain venture which Atari terminated in April this yr. Within the report’s digital asset holdings part, Atari states it “doesn’t anticipate any revenues that might be generated by these ATRI tokens and that might influence the consolidated monetary statements.” The report does clarify farther down that Atari is contemplating pursuing a brand new token, however first it “intends to completely take into account the varied structuring choices obtainable.”
On prime of this, the corporate additionally owns “972 parcels of land within the Sandbox metaverse”. Based on Atari, it’s “troublesome to assign an mixture worth to those belongings”. It would not take a genius to determine why it is perhaps troublesome to assign worth to land in a extremely nebulous digital setting with a tiny userbase.
Rosen, a profitable businessman who controls Irata LLC – the corporate main the Atari bid – joined Atari as CEO in April 2021, and at current has a 30% stake within the enterprise. Rosen appears to have a real appreciation of the corporate’s historic significance inside the video games trade, and it is probably that Atari’s ongoing issues characterize a chance to wrest management of the corporate’s future route.
