Life seems to be a bit rough at Atari lately.

Chris Sawyer, the wizard behing the curtain of the game Roller Coaster Tycoon, has already received 30 milllion in royalties from the estimated $180 million the game has made. Unfortunately a forensic audit of royalties uncovered that he was shorted by an alleged $4.8 million. Sawyer has filed a suit against Atari/Infogrames over the nearly five million missing bones.

Atari recently reported large second quarter losses:

Net revenue was $38.4 million, versus $68.0 million in the prior year’s comparable quarter, reflecting fewer titles released, and loss for the quarter was a significant $25.2 million, compared to a loss of $16.9 million in the year earlier period.

Disappointing for a company who once produced such immortal classics as Asteroids, Centipede, Tempest and Missile Command. One possible bright spot could be that they announced licensing the Unreal Engine 3. First Person Shooters (FPS) are a real mixed bag it seems. On one side you have games like Halo and the other clones and wannabe FPS titles. For Atari’s sake they should aspire to produce some killer titles like the former with this new license agreement.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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