Atari is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French company Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California, USA in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System, it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man. Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari 2600 in November 1982 alongside the release of the Atari 5200.
Pong is a table tennis–themed twitch arcade sports video game, featuring simple two-dimensional graphics, manufactured by Atari and originally released on 29 November 1972. It was one of the earliest arcade video games; it was created by Allan Alcorn as a training exercise assigned to him by Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, but Bushnell and Atari co-founder Ted Dabney were surprised by the quality of Alcorn's work and decided to manufacture the game. Bushnell based the game's concept on an electronic ping-pong game included in the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game console. In response, Magnavox later sued Atari for patent infringement.
Mario Bros. is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo as an arcade video game in 1983. It was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi, Nintendo's chief engineer. Italian twin brother plumbers Mario and Luigi exterminate creatures, like turtles (Koopas) and crabs emerging from the sewers by knocking them upside-down and kicking them away. The Famicom/Nintendo Entertainment System version is the first game produced by Intelligent Systems. It is part of the Mario franchise, but originally began as a spin-off from the Donkey Kong series.
Efteling is a fantasy-themed amusement park in Kaatsheuvel, the Netherlands. The attractions reflect elements from ancient myths and legends, fairy tales, fables, and folklore.
MicroProse is an American video game publisher and developer founded by Bill Stealey, Sid Meier, and Andy Hollis in 1982. It developed and published numerous games, including starting the Civilization and X-COM series. Most of their internally developed titles were vehicle simulation and strategy games.
Christopher Sawyer is a Scottish video game designer and programmer. He is best known for creating Transport Tycoon, which has been considered "one of the most important simulation games ever made", and the bestseller RollerCoaster Tycoon series. He began his career in the early 1980s producing small games for Memotech, and developing DOS ports of many Amiga games. From 1994 to 2004 he produced a series of Tycoon games, which became hallmarks of the simulation genre. After a period away from the games industry in the late 2000s, Sawyer founded the mobile game studio 31X which has handled modern ports of his work. Wired has described Sawyer as "one of gaming's greatest enigmas" given his legendary contributions to the genre while maintaining little presence online, and rarely agreeing to give interviews.
RollerCoaster Tycoon is a series of construction and management simulation games about building and managing an amusement park. Each game in the series challenges players with open-ended amusement park management and development, and allowing players to construct and customize their own unique roller coasters and other thrill rides.
Chris Sawyer's Locomotion is a video game designed and programmed by independent game developer Chris Sawyer, and published by Atari Interactive in September 2004. The game is a simulation game in which the player takes on the role of a transportation company manager, building transportation networks and managing the flow of goods and passengers in order to compete against rival companies. Sawyer independently developed the game over nine years from the 1990s as a "spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon", with the game featuring "fundamentally the same" gameplay but with "differences in detail, scale and presentation" to update and refine the features that Sawyer "wanted to get right" in its predecessor.
RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 is a 2004 construction and management simulation video game. It is the third installment in the RollerCoaster Tycoon series, and was developed by Frontier Developments and published by Atari Interactive. RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 places players in charge of managing amusement parks; rides can be built or demolished, terrain and scenery can be adjusted, and prices can be controlled to keep visitors or "peeps" happy.
Bruno Bonnell is a French businessman and politician who represented the 6th constituency of Rhône in the National Assembly from 2017 to 2022. A member of La République En Marche! (LREM), he is a co-founder of Infogrames Entertainment SA.
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 is a 2002 construction and management simulation game developed by Chris Sawyer and published by Infogrames Interactive. Released for Windows as the sequel to RollerCoaster Tycoon, the game simulates the management of amusement parks.
Frontier Developments plc. is a British video game developer founded by David Braben in January 1994 and based at the Cambridge Science Park in Cambridge, England. Frontier develops management simulators Planet Coaster and Planet Zoo, and has produced several games in David Braben's Elite series, including Elite Dangerous. The company takes its name from the earliest titles in the Elite series with which it was involved, a port of Frontier: Elite II and development of Frontier: First Encounters. In 2013, the company was listed on the AIM segment of the London Stock Exchange. It published third-party games under the Frontier Foundry label between 2019 and 2022.
Atari, Inc. is an American subsidiary and publishing arm of Atari SA. Formed in 1993 as GT Interactive Software Corp., the video game publishing arm of GoodTimes Home Video, the company was subsequently majority acquired by Infogrames in 1999, and later renamed to Infogrames, Inc. As part of Infogrames's company-wide re-branding following its 2001 acquisition of Hasbro Interactive, which owned the rights to the Atari brand, Infogrames, Inc. became known as Atari, Inc. in May 2003. On October 11, 2008, Infogrames completed its acquisition of Atari, Inc., making it a wholly owned subsidiary.
The Netherlands' mainstream video games market, not taking into consideration the serious and casual games, is the sixth largest in Europe. In 2008, the Dutch market took up 3.95% of the entire European market in total sales and 4.19% in software sales.
Atari SA is a French video game holding company headquartered in Paris. Its subsidiaries include Atari Interactive and Atari, Inc. It is the current owner of the Atari brand through Atari Interactive. It also owns the Accolade, GT Interactive, Infogrames, and Intellivision brands.
RollerCoaster Tycoon World is a theme park construction and management simulation video game developed by Nvizzio Creations and published by Atari for Microsoft Windows. It is the fourth major installment in the RollerCoaster Tycoon series. The game was released on 16 November 2016 to largely negative reviews.
Kumbak is a Dutch amusement ride manufacturing company. In addition to manufacturing its own rides, the company primarily specialises in changing existing rides and attractions, originally made by other manufacturers.
Baron 1898 is a Dive Coaster produced by the Swiss manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard located in the Efteling in Kaatsheuvel, The Netherlands. It opened on July 1, 2015. The coaster's soundtrack was created by the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra.
