Feature: "It Would Be Really Cool To Do A Retrospective On Iwata" - Atari's CEO On Acquisitions & Dream Collaborations

For many younger gamers, the idea that Atari was once the undisputed king of console gaming might seem somewhat farfetched. Yet in the late '70s and early '80s, the gaming giant dominated the market with the Atari 2600, introducing audiences to the likes of Adventure, Yars' Revenge, and Haunted House. However, after a wave of shovelware and some poor management decisions, the video game market crashed in 1983 and was seemingly done for. Until a little company called Nintendo stepped in, that is.

Since then, the Atari brand has struggled to regain its footing in the industry, but with the appointment of Wade Rosen as its CEO in 2021, the company is heading in a decidedly focused direction, leveraging its broad history and expertise in retro gaming to tap into an increasingly growing interest in older games amongst the community.

After the success of Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, the company has gone on to acquire retro specialists Digital Eclipse and Nightdive Studios, both of which have consistently put out critically acclaimed retro-inspired games and remasters. With the release of the qomp2 on the Nintendo Switch, developed by Graphite Lab, we took the opportunity to sit down with Rosen to discuss his thoughts on the recent acquisitions, what he'd like to see Digital Eclipse tackle in the future, and how the Switch is such a great fit for Atari's games.

Nintendo Life: How are things going for Atari since the recent acquisitions of Nightdive Studios and Digital Eclipse?

Wade Rosen: The acquisitions have been great. I live in Minnesota, but I'm currently out in Emeryville in the Digital Eclipse basement, so I have all these arcade cabinets around me. I'm close with Mike [Mika, President of Digital Eclipse] and the whole team, they're just wonderful.

The acquisitions are interesting; I'm sure it seems like since coming on board, people are like "Oh he's just an acquisition guy", but I'm actually not a big believer in acquisitions, holistically. I think buying IP and things like that is different, but buying operating companies is challenging. If you don't do it right, it gets really ugly. This is testament to how much I believe in Nightdive and Digital Eclipse and how great those teams are. We're super happy with how the acquisitions have gone so far.

The industry got to a point where it was just growth for the sake of growth rather than thinking "How does this help us as an organisation and help us achieve the unique, special thing that we want to do"

We definitely have a "one brick at a time" kind of mentality these days. We're not looking for moonshots that might suddenly turn us into the next Epic [Games] or something - no. We just try to wake up and make good decisions, and the folks over at Nightdive and Digital Eclipse are the exact same; how many great games have they made? Similar to us, they just strive every day to put out cool and interesting work.

Sure, you see where things have perhaps gone wrong with a company like Embracer, but Atari's acquisitions certainly made sense on paper.

Yeah, we had already worked together, so both felt like very natural, symbiotic relationships. I will say that people also don't give Embracer enough credit. It was a small Swedish gaming company, just Nordic, for a long time. Embracer has done some of the best acquisitions in the industry and then probably took that and ran with it a little bit too much. They wouldn't have even been in the position they were in if they hadn't acquired the likes of THQ, PlayOn, or Saber. They don't look back on those with regret, but sometimes when you get really good at something, you become a hammer and everything's a nail, and that then becomes the only way to grow. (Note: Since this interview, reports have emerged that Embracer is selling Saber Interactive to a group of private investors.)

There's a time and a place for it. The industry got to a point where it was just growth for the sake of growth rather than thinking "How does this help us as an organisation and help us achieve the unique, special thing that we want to do". The only company that really resisted that and avoided it was Nintendo, and that's because it never loses sight of what makes it special and unique. We're certainly not Nintendo, but I do think we try to focus on what makes us unique. The goal isn't growth through acquisitions, but if there's a company that is a strong strategic fit and we all get along really well, then sure, it makes sense.

With Digital Eclipse specifically, it was mentioned that the team was still free to work on its own projects and collaborations. Are there any potential complications that could arise if it wanted to work with, say, Konami or Capcom?

Definitely not, and we actually welcome that. I can't share anything specific right now, but we'll hopefully have more great projects that we can share in the near future with partners of that caliber. So far we haven't run into conflicts with anything, and in fact it may even open up opportunities. So for example we, Digital Eclipse, and Nightdive might be working with the same partner, but we can now have discussions as a single group rather than three separate companies trying to do their own projects, and I think that's more exciting for the partner in question.

I think a lot of people weren't quite sure we'd allow Digital Eclipse to keep doing that, but that's absolutely the intent. Are we working together on Atari projects? Yeah, naturally, but that's only a fraction of the things that Digital Eclipse and Nightdive are working on. And they'll actually come to us with projects that they'd like to push forward on, and oftentimes it could be a surprising IP that we think is worth investigating. It'll simply be more of what people love from those teams, but unrestrained from some of the things that might hold back smaller companies.

Looking back on what Digital Eclipse achieved with Atari 50, do you have any dream collaborations that you'd like to see them tackle in the future?

I do, sure, some I can name and some I can't, but I'll name some of the ones that I can. I'm a big Sega fan - the Sega Saturn specifically - so I'd love to see a Panzer Dragoon Collection. Those games are so cool and beautiful so I'd would love to see those. I actually just bought a copy of Panzer Dragoon II Zwei this weekend. So I'm looking forward to digging back into that. Ogre Battle series would be another one, and possibly Final Fantasy.

I think it would be really cool to do a retrospective on Iwata, looking at his life and career.

Nintendo is the number one though, right? That would be incredible. It would be a tough one to crack, but if anything and everything was open, breaking down Mario or Zelda would be great. Satoru Iwata developed a bunch of games in his time, and with Digital Eclipse's Gold Master Series, we don't just look at game series and developers, but also sole creators like Jeff Minter. I think it would be really cool to do a retrospective on Iwata, looking at his life and career. Who knows, right?

Atari 50 did so well because I think at this point gaming history is not just about the games, it's about everything around it and the influence and effects that came as a result.

Congratulations on the launch of qomp2. Can you talk about how this project came about?

Thank you, yeah it's a great game. I loved the first qomp, so of course I was eager to bring it back and expose more people to it. The concept of a ball having a kind of existential crisis is kinda cool. It's funny, we thought a lot about what would be a fun kind of sequel to Pong; "should it be a buddy cop drama", things like that. But then I played qomp and I was like, wow, this isn't a sequel as such but it's an iteration of it and it's beautiful in its own right.

We got the full support of the original developer of qomp, who is no longer in the business of creating games, but he was really helpful in developing the sequel, so the folks over at Graphite Lab took on the project and have done a wonderful job with it.

Atari has partnered with Graphite Lab on Kombinera, Mr. Run and Jump, and now qomp2. What is it about this studio that makes it such a great fit for Atari?

First of all, how they operate is very similar to us, I think that's the main thing, we get along very well and we have shared values. The second thing is that a lot of their games are focused on core loops that are simple, but really tight and fun. You look at a game like Mr. Run and Jump, it's literally in the name. That one actually came to us as a 2600 game, they wrote it in classic 2600 fashion, and it's just a great run-and-jump game. So we started to talk about how cool it would be to have a simultaneous release on modern consoles; something like that had never been done before, right? So with that one, it was about taking that core loop, adding in beautiful aesthetics, and expanding on that.

All of their games have that solid core foundation; they're not heavily narrative-driven or anything, but they have a simple, fun core loop. Ultimately, that's an Atari game. You can pick it up and learn it in about five seconds; you don't know why you're shooting centipedes, but you're blasting them and it feels good. All of Graphite Lab's games feel good to play, and like classic Atari games, the only barrier to progress is your own skill level, and that's Graphite Lab down to a T.

Atari has put out a growing number of games in the 'Recharged' line. How do you decide which franchise gets the Recharged treatment and which should get its own, standalone game?

So the Recharged line is pure, co-op arcadey action - that's kind of what we're going for. So just because the game's in Recharged doesn't mean it won't get a larger release. You know, something like Centipede or Asteroids or Berserk probably deserve larger releases. In a way, it's less about the individual games and more so looking at it as a set, kind of like a catalogue. So that's how we look at that, and of course, we'll continue to build it out and add more games. It's sort of a way to play the originals, but the key thing that's missing is that co-op play. So when I play something like Centipede, I always feel like I want to play it with a friend.

I think the reason why, for example, Lunar Lander Beyond exists is just because we like Dreams Uncorporated [developer of Cris Tales] so much and they came and pitched us a great game. They've done really great work and they were really passionate about this. We always consider what the developer itself wants; if we went to a team and assigned them a specific project from our end, it would never work, it would be awful. So with that one and some of the other larger games we have coming out this year, they're oftentimes more narratively driven. It fleshes out the larger Atari universe, yet still retains the original classic gameplay.

One game that we've noticed hasn't really been touched yet is Adventure. Is there any desire at Atari to revisit that one?

Oh, absolutely yeah. Without going into too many details, I think Adventure is a good example of a game that could be examined by Digital Eclipse because there's a lot of historical precedent around that and a really interesting story. It's also just a great brand, and it's something that could well be brought back in a similar way to Lunar Lander. Maybe we could bring it out as a game that is much more contemporary but still taps into a lot of those classic roots. So we're looking at both paths with Adventure and hopefully, there'll be more to share on that front.

I think the reason there hasn't been another Adventure game so far is because it would have to be pretty unique. You know, something like a Gold Master Series entry could stand on its own, but as far as a modern Adventure game, how would it stand out from something like The Legend of Zelda or Dragon's Dogma? So there are a lot of questions around that, and we'll need to approach it in a way that is different and something that only we can do better than anyone else.

Speaking of Zelda, we're now in the seventh year of the Nintendo Switch's lifecycle. Can you give your thoughts on the system and how fundamental it's been to Atari over the years?

Yeah the Switch has been huge for us. You know, in terms of the importance of platforms, it's either the top or near the top. What's great about the Switch for us is that it lends itself really well to a game like qomp2, where you can pick it up, put it down, and pick it up again; it's perfect for those shorter play sessions and I know when I travel, my kids can play multiplayer on the Switch without having to dock it to a television. So I really cherish stuff like that.

I think Adventure is a good example of a game that could be examined by Digital Eclipse because there's a lot of historical precedent around that and a really interesting story.

It sounds funny, but when I picked it up for the first time, it reminded me of one of my favourite consoles of all time, the PSP. I was living in Europe at the time and I didn't have a television, so the PSP was my gaming outlet. It was such a huge generational leap over something like the Game Boy Advance and they made a tonne of great PS1 remasters. So I loved it and I'd never recaptured that feeling again until the Switch. It's like lightning in a bottle and Nintendo's got that niche carved up and they own it. I can't wait to see what they do next and, of course, we'll continue to support it wherever we can.

Atari itself is in the hardware space too with the Atari 2600+ and the upcoming Atari 400 Mini. Did you take any influence from Nintendo's NES or SNES Classic with those?

I'll touch on the 400 first because I think that one is the most similar. Our partner is Retro Games and they had done the C64 Mini. So that was more of a jumping-off point with the C64 being the natural competitor to the Atari 400. So we looked at that and said "What works? What doesn't? How do we expand on something like this and make it grow". So that was more of the genesis behind that, but the NES and SNES Classics were both amazing and the key takeaways there were from the UI, which was just really cool and intuitive.

With the 2600+, that one is quite different in the sense that you're playing old cartridges. The plug and plays existed, but there hadn't been a way to play old carts. When I came on board at Atari, the one question we asked was "What can we do better than anyone else?", and the answer was retro games. So as someone who loves classic games, it always bothered me that companies look upon older consoles as these kinds of dead ecosystems. But they're not; people continue to make games for them, and oftentimes, some of the best games ever made are done after the console's official lifetime.

You can of course find ways to play the older consoles, but it's often a pain. So the Atari 2600+ is for all the people who were approaching me and saying that they have a bunch of old Atari carts in the attic and they needed an easy way to play them. So that was the goal there, but it's also for people who may have played games when they were younger, but perhaps haven't touched them in a decade or two.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Huge thanks go to Wade Rosen and David Lowey at Atari for joining us, along with Brett Buren at ÜberStrategist for assisting in arranging the interview.